Bullet Success/Failures..

ACKLEY ABE said - - Premium bullets seem to be the rage now, but I'm not sure what, in fact determines a "Premium Bullet", except the price.

When I read this I had to read it three times to be certain it wasn't me that wrote it!
 
Well guys, your experience about confirms my feeling about it. I have a bunch of 180 gr 303 kksp, and 200 grain 308 kksp, both round nose. I am intending to hunt with those for a long time. in the 7 mag I use speer 175 gr mag tips. all of these are flat enough for my hunting.
Allen
 
You are lucky to have all those old KKSPs. You didn't say if they were just bullets, or loaded ammo. I am presuming loaded ammo and those old CIL were considered really good.
 
I have been using the Hornady's for a lot of years. They perform flawlessly in the 270 Weatherby. I have also loaded up the old 130 grain silvertip, and on elk, they are pure poison. I managed to recover one of them out of a bull, and it weighed 94 grains, was mushroomed perfectly, and the bull never moved. He just fell over. I have had a lot of blowups with the ballistic tips. Extremely accurate, but too fragile for my liking.The Nosler partitions have served me well too. I have not, to date recovered one of them yet. The Speer hotcores, and the grandslams also work exceptionally well for me. Tried the sierras, and they peeled like a banana. I have found that a 150 grain Hornady kills as well as a 150 grain partition, and doesn't have the high $$$ on the box. Dead is dead. The elk or moose doesn't know if it was a Hornady or a partition or a grandslam that placed it on the bbq. All said, use whatever you are comfortable with, that gives acceptable results and happy hunting.
 
The KKSP's are loose bullets, when Tom Higgenson had a bunch I was still single, and I bought enought to keep anybody but a target shooter in bullets for quite a while. I find the 200 gr KKSP RN's accurate in my '06. I do not use the 303 much, but the bullets are not going bad.
Allen
 
Gatehouse said:
Had 2 Nosler Ballistic Tips blow up on deer shoulders at closer ranges, fired from 7mm RM.

Saw a 165gr Ballistic tip from a 300WM end up in the skull of a moose, totally blobbed. Thanks god it hit the brain, and not the shoulder!:runaway:

Seen great sucess with Nosler Accubonds and Partitions, Barnes X and recently, the TSX.
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I find that the primary drivers for me at least in bullet choice is the velocity and the size of the game. I shoot TSX bullets out of my 300 winny and btips from my 308. The 308 only gtes used for deer and the 300 for anything bigger. At high velocities btips and any other relatively frangible bullet will do what it's supposed to do, blow up. At slower speeds it does it's thing inside the animal, at higher velocity it might happen on the shoulder.
 
martinbns said:
I find that the primary drivers for me at least in bullet choice is the velocity and the size of the game. I shoot TSX bullets out of my 300 winny and btips from my 308. The 308 only gtes used for deer and the 300 for anything bigger. At high velocities btips and any other relatively frangible bullet will do what it's supposed to do, blow up. At slower speeds it does it's thing inside the animal, at higher velocity it might happen on the shoulder.
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Which is why I gave up on using BT's many years ago, except in a coyote rifle. I like to be able to take any shot presented.
 
In all of my standard velocity rifle/cartridge combo's standard bullets are all I need but when I step up to my 300 Rem Ultra Mag and my 375 Rem Ultra Mag I want the best premium bullet available that will do everything from staying together at a few feet to expanding to max width at 300 plus yards.

I know that Barnes TSX are highly thought of here but my experience is that after 150 yards my groups start to open up and the box to box consistancy is not the greatest at least for me.

I am getting excellent performance from 200gr 30 cal Swift A-Frames @ 3200fps in the 300RUM and I am seriously thinking of switching to 300gr Swift A-Frames in my 375RUM.

After shooting that big grizzly I want the best performance that I can get especially if I have to stop a charge up close.

I also want to only load one bullet for each of the cartridges in the past I have found that I load up 2 or 3 different weights and performance levels for each cartridge don't want or need too do that anymore.
 
ACKLEY ABE said:
Premium bullets seem to be the rage now, but I'm not sure what, in fact determines a "Premium Bullet", except the price.
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It seems to me that a lot of guys today are obsessed with light rifles, high velocity, small calibers, 6mms, 7mms, range finders etc...

No doubt if that's your thing, then bullets such as Barnes TSX would probably be great, but conventional bullets and high velocity might not work so good at high impact velocities.

I learned that when I shot a pretty nice cinnamon bear a few years ago with hopped up 400gr Speers from my .45-70. Those bullets were avg 1900fps MV and I hit the bear at close range. Those Speers grenaded! But that was my fault for not realizing the type of velocity they are designed for.
I imagine if I had fired those same 400gr Speers at a muzzle velocity somewhere between 1400-1600fps they probably would have been okay.
I considered those bullets to have failed. Even though they killed the bear I could not retrieve anything from those bullets. They had turned inside out and there was nothing but fragments of jacket material and bits of lead left.

If on the other hand you shoot larger calibers and heavier bullets, which is what I tend to do, then you find that conventional cup and core bullets like Remington Cor-Lokts, Hornady Interlocks work just fine.

My idea of a perfect deer cartridge/bullet is a .30-06 loaded with 165gr Hornady BTSP IL. The last couple of bucks have been shot with a 200gr Nosler Accubond from my .300H&H, and let me tell ya' that bullet pancakes the bucks!

For moose and bear I like something bigger; .338WM with 225gr Nosler Partitions are great (so is the 250gr, but there's not much difference in terminal performance from my experience). I suppose I've shot a dozen bull moose with the 225gr Nosler-Part.

I'm thinking about taking the .300H&H bear hunting once I get a fiberglas stock put on it, so I can bounce it around a bit. I will probably load it with a 200gr Nosler Partition.

To me a huge consideration is the price. The best buy on the market today, IMHO is the Nosler Accubond. Great performance and pretty damn well priced and next would be the Hornady Interlock, and the Nosler Partition remains the standard of comparison for all hunting bullets IMHO.
By comparison, Barnes TSX is about twice as expensive as the Noslers and 4 times as expensive as the Hornadys.

Bottomline for me is I have no need for the so-called premiums, since I shoot heavy caliber and bullets, sorta Elmer Keith school of thought.
 
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i've had a 180gr Federal Powershok completely fail on a shoulder shot deer...it didn't penetrate to the lungs..however it did bowl him over and i was able to get another round in him before he ran away...those are the $16 for 20 walmart specials..but if i didn't hit him in the shoulder it would've worked fine...I have switched to premium however because i wasn't impressed with that performance and i don't want a bad outcome the next time..with a barnes or a nosler partition you can be assured that the bullet will not fail you on a shoulder shot or a frontal...it doesn't give you leeway to take poor shots it just gives you the added comfort in case everything is not perfect.
 
I have had great success with Hornady 165 gr BTSP's in my 30-06. One mulie was shot at an extreme quartering away angle. Holding for the offside shoulder the bullet nicked the hind leg, entered the abdomen, passed through paunch, diaphragm, lungs . Then it exited only to re enter the far side leg where it broke the large leg bone and ended up just inside the hide. It travelled through at 24 inches of deer internals, the thick winter hide and coat a total of five times. Nice classic mushroom shape expanded to twice the initial diameter.
 
Murf that is exactly my point standard velocity cartridges do not need premium bullets but once you start pumping up the velocity you need to go to a tougher design to get the bullets to do the job the way you want it to be done.

Your Hornady's are an excellent example of a bullet that will stay together and do the job right in your 30-06 and they should be doing 2800fps - 2850fps but pump it out at 3450fps - 3500fps like I could easily do with my 300 Rem Ultra Mag and that bullet will disintegrate when it hits its target.
 
Demonical said:
That sounds like a pretty marginal hit to me for any 180gr .308 caliber to fail on a deer of any size.

watsknew what caliber was that and what was the distance?
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it was a .303 british at about 20 yards...so to be totally fair it was very close..and yeah i was 15 at the time and nervous as hell so i don't think it was the best hit...right dead on the shoulder joint...however, my dad made the same shot with a .303 with a 180 remington corelock...blew the bone right through the deer..massive baseball size hole..and he shot it at a range of probably 15 yards..i am a huge fan of the corelock in the .303.
 
Never had a problem with the Hot Core they load in the Federal Powershok stuff, 3 deer on it's tab now.

Other than that I've used Remmy Core Lokt, Winchester Ballistic Silvertip, Winchester Partition Gold (45/70) Nosler Accubond and Norma Alaskan bullets and they all worked just fine.

I've only ever seen one bullet failure so far and it was not the bullet's fault. It was a small buck shot at very close range with a 300 WM, Nosler Accubond. .30 cal passthrough, but a bonded bullet going that fast on a small deer, I suppose thats to be expected. It bang-flopped the other 3 deer it's taken out so far and given very good results on moose.

The Partition Gold was a bang-flopper too on a young 4 point buck out of the 45/70 at about 60 yards or a little less.

Never had an instant stop with the 30-06, 308 or 8mm Mauser yet but the animals sure did die.

Here's an Accubond I recovered from a moose. It's the only round I ever did recover in anything yet.

Accubond.jpg
 
Camp Cook said:
Murf that is exactly my point standard velocity cartridges do not need premium bullets but once you start pumping up the velocity you need to go to a tougher design to get the bullets to do the job the way you want it to be done.

Your Hornady's are an excellent example of a bullet that will stay together and do the job right in your 30-06 and they should be doing 2800fps - 2850fps but pump it out at 3450fps - 3500fps like I could easily do with my 300 Rem Ultra Mag and that bullet will disintegrate when it hits its target.
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Yep. The reasons I posted the above are two fold. One poster said the Hornady spire points destroy too much meat . Never been a big issue with me as the few I have recovered have been just what is needed in bullet performance. Secondly there seems to be a large number of hunters who hear of the advantages of premiums in the mags and assume that they are what is needed to turn their regular, medium velocity rounds into a super gun. Often they will be disappointed.

Match the bullet to what one determines to be the most likely range and impact velocity. If it is above the standard calibres then think premium. If it falls into standard velocity then use cheaper bullets but shoot often and be able to place it where you want.
 
I agree with Demonical's assessment of the Partitions and Accubonds. They are hard to beat in the field, and I have taken game from 10 yards to 600 yards with one or the other, and have never been disappointed. For deer sized game, premiums are not required in standard chamberings, but, as has been stated, hop them up 4-500 fps and see what happens to those Speer Hot-Cors and Hornady Interlocks. Inside their design parameters, most bullet work well. Regards, Eagleye.
 
Eagleye said:
Inside their design parameters, most bullet work well. Regards, Eagleye.
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You bet!! They all work in their design parameters!



The .303 British with a 180gr regular bullet is no slouch, but the 215gr bullet in the .303's was even better, within it's range parameters. Big, slow and heavy would do what the premiums do these days with small, fast and light. Penetrate like hell, and kill like hell...

However, in these days, some of us want it all- We want to take any shot we are presented, we want a bullet to have a good trajectory, we want it to hold together at close shots and expand on long shots,and we want it to penetrate deeply (just like the old, slow bullets) at any range.

Add that to making "marginal" size calibers/cartridges into giant killers, and we have the reason for premium bullets.
 
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