What bullet have you had the most failure with?Manufacturers

What bullet has failed you the most times?

  • Total voters
    89
Kelly Timoffee said:
3)Bullet created excess damage.(bullet too fragile, created great amounts of shrapnel and meat loss)
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Our experiences last year using SSTs. I lost a buck. :mad: I know HTH loves them. :) Which started us thinking more like what Dogleg's posted below.

Dogleg said:
I've had more issues with not liking the result of bullets that gave every indication of working as designed.
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Prior to reloading we shot lots of white tail using Federal Fusion and in my opinion these worked better than our SST home rolled.

However...I am bonded bullet convert here for our needs. Show me the church lol! I was absolutely amazed at the pencil hole entries this year with what I will explain as "controlled damage" with minimal meat loss. Was very pleased to not finding what other bullets seemed to create which was never ending wound channels of bullet particulate.

I certainly don't have the big game experience like most others here but after hunting for a few decades on whitetail and mule deer I won't be changing unless it's another variety of this bullet species. I took very seriously what others suggested/had posted for our concerns and we are very pleased. Thank you.

Regards
Ronr
 
9.3mauser said:
This argument crops up every time there's a discussion about bullet performance, but I'm not buying it. Just because the animal is recovered doesn't mean the bullet isn't a complete failure. IMO a bullet should perform in a predictable fashion, depending on the intended target. If it doesn't perform as it's designed to, then it's performance on game becomes unpredictable and game recovery becomes a matter of luck. If a hunter uses a bullet for a purpose for which it wasn't designed ( varmint or match bullet on big game) then that's the hunter's fault.
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I agree with what you are saying but at what point does it become the hunters poor choice of a bullet compared to a perceived failure by the bullet.

For instance if the hunter buys a long range bullet that is marketed as such but shoots an animal at sub-50 yards and the bullet goes "grenade" on him/her, was that a bullet failure (even if the animal is killed/recovered) or was it a choice failure because the shot shouldn't have been taken?

Or you are hunting with a mono bullet in a non-magnum caliber but still take a 500 yard shot and the bullet fails to mushroom - the mfg advises that it will mushroom "a little" at an 1800 fps impact speed you should really have at least 2400 fps impact to get an "acceptable" mushroom.

So again, bullet failure or poor choice on the part of the hunter?

If you wanted a 50-250 yard bullet maybe a Partition would be a better choice than an ABLR but the "stats" on the ABLR are "so much better" so the guy drops it down the tube with total disregard to what the bullet was actually designed for - that uber-long shot that the average hunter doesn't take...
 
Not my animal personally, but a buddy of mine shot a mule deer with a 280AI. Handloads were pushing Hornady SST bullets. Not one of bullets actually punched the ribs at 315 yards, grenading upon impact. We were able to sink another 2 shots into it after the first, all grenading. Deer ran off but we caught up to it. Last two rounds were one in the neck to stop it, another to put the poor thing out of its misery. I didn't load them personally, nor do I know the details of the loading and what velocity it was travelling. All I can say is they will never, ever be used in the field by me...
 
chisholm said:
Not my animal personally, but a buddy of mine shot a mule deer with a 280AI. Handloads were pushing Hornady SST bullets. Not one of bullets actually punched the ribs at 315 yards, grenading upon impact. We were able to sink another 2 shots into it after the first, all grenading. Deer ran off but we caught up to it. Last two rounds were one in the neck to stop it, another to put the poor thing out of its misery. I didn't load them personally, nor do I know the details of the loading and what velocity it was travelling. All I can say is they will never, ever be used in the field by me...
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-------Also my experience !--A few years back I shot a mule doe at a lasered 308 yds--25-06 117 H. SST--took the front shoulder OFF---shot two other deer later both grenades--I will never shoot SST's at game again.---Bent Barrel
 
galamb said:
Should have described what a "failure" is.

If the animal ends up dead the bullet didn't fail if the purpose of it is to "kill" something.

Now, like others, I would never use a Fusion again because of all the damage caused, but it did put the deer down as well/quick as anything else that I have ever used.

So the bullet didn't "fail", I just didn't like the way it did it's job :)
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I guess I should define what a failure is in accordance to this thread...

1)Bullet doesn't perform as advertised(on appropriate game). Varmageddon on elk is not what this is about.
2)Bullets had mechanical failure.(Jacket/core separation , no expansion)
3)Bullet created excess damage.(bullet too fragile, created great amounts of shrapnel and meat loss)

Accuracy is NOT part of the poll as we are discussing on game performance.

Post #1 and #12
 
Bent Barrel said:
-------Also my experience !--A few years back I shot a mule doe at a lasered 308 yds--25-06 117 H. SST--took the front shoulder OFF---shot two other deer later both grenades--I will never shoot SST's at game again.---Bent Barrel
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X3...to add...almost a repeat of our situations.

FWIW

Ronr

:nest: thanks for this post Kelly. I wanted to post a similar last year
 
I've never shot an animal with SSTs but have shot a few or more with AMAXs and they worked great. In fact my go-to hunting bullets are Sierra MatchKings. I've used them in 308, 338 Lapua, 7 wsm, 300 win... NEVER an issue at any range from 25 to 800+ metres.
 
For failure worst I've seen were factory 140gr Rem Core-lokt in 7x57. 2 years ago my brother hit a WT 8 point buck 4 out of 5 shots at <50 yards....the missed shot went into a tree. It dressed 175lbs so not huge but not a dog.
All bullets blew up, no exit at all, 2 through ribs and lung, 1 blew the front shouler almost completely apart, leg was spinning like a pin wheel, then one to the heart finally stopped it. Not the way you want to take game down. Now, part of that is having been taught to ALWAYS tag them behind the front shoulder in the boiler room, which I don't think is wrong in most situations....bigger area to hit vitals, little more room for mistakes, it's a safer bet to place your shot on WT sized game.
My own preference is a little different, and tailored more to the bullet design. If it's an explody cup/core bullet at short range, I'll go neck shot. It's plenty of target to hit under 100m , and between the bears and deer I've hit there, I've never had one go anywhere. Never had to put a second shot into anything I hit in the neck with a cup/core, they don't move.
If it's a Barnes solid or partition, boiler room regardless of short range... they get the job done. I'm stll on the fence with bonded stuff...see alot of them act no better then cup/core.
For my brother, I scored 4 boxes of Federal Premium 140gr partitions in 7x57 for $20 a box from a good buddy who no longer had a rifle in that...80's vintage ammo but works just fine.
 
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I voted nosler as I've only ever physically seen one bullet that actually failed to perform and it was shot by my dad out of his 30-06 at about 250 yards.

He recovered a 150 gr ballistic tip from just under the skin on the opposite side of the vitals it passed through, it was intact minus the plastic tip but with zero expansion, the only mark on it was the rifling grooves.

It worked in that it killed the deer in 1 shot, but only because that one shot hit the heart or lungs, I can't remember for certain which.
 
Can't say I've ever had a bullet failure. If the animal died, the bullet worked. A different bullet might have killed faster or penetrated deeper but dead is dead. I think bullet failure only really becomes worth talking about in dangerous and/or very large animals.
 
Standard factory production generic Winchester, Federals, etc. I have had a rare failure. Reloading Berger, Barnes, Speer and so forth, being sure to use it for what it is capable of doing and not using them improperly, I have never had one failure.

Had a generic .308 Federal 150gr soft point one time not even expand at 125 yards on a deer... and when I changed to Winchester 150gr the next year it did a "grenade" and never exited at 75 yards. That was quite a few years ago.
 
I shot a black bear @ 15 meters with a 250 TSX with one 9.3x62 and the bullet acted as a solid, means it went through the beast like a drill bit.
As for ABs, I never experienced failures on both .358 NM and 9.3's.
 
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