After a bad experience hunting with Ballistic Tips I was unsure about Accu-Bonds when they first came out, bonded construction or not (hey, I'm a skeptic by nature?). They looked similar enough that they seemed to have potential for similar accuracy to the Ballistic Tips, but with hopes of performance somewhere closer to the Partitions that I've favoured most of my adult life.
I reluctantly gave them a try one day when working up a 286gr Partition hunting load for my then-new Tikka T3 Hunter in 9.3x62mm. Since I was planning a long day with the chronograph anyway, I loaded some 9.3mm 250gr Accu-Bonds with a couple of powders to try them out.
The Partitions gave pretty good results with RL-15, but the Accu-Bonds were absolutely amazing with IMR-4320. (Turns out that after a lot of shooting I'd 'discovered' what I later learned was Nosler's recommended load when their latest edition reloading manual came out.)
Anyway, after seeing the accuracy of that Accu-Bond, & running the longer-range ballistics, I decided to take the plunge & try hunting with them instead of the Partitions.
If retained weight is your only measure of success then they are terrible hunting bullets. I never recovered a single Accu-bond....from the elk, any of the several deer, or the coyote, most of which dropped in their tracks as if hammered by Thor. They hit where I aimed and did what they were supposed to, each & every time, at distances from 40m-270m. The 'worst' hit resulted in a deer continuing to run (he was going pretty fast when I hit) about 30-40m, & was dead by the time I closed the distance. None required a follow-up.
I still like & load Partitions in other calibres, but for my 9.3mm the Accu-Bonds are cheaper & more accurate, & kill just as dead. The combo of that load in that rifle is the most accurate I've ever carried while hunting.
