Bullet failures

[xsn10s]

Yes 270 win. 130 gr. Nosler Balistic Tip. Shot wt doe standing broadside 50 yds. Bullet did not hit bone. Penciled through both lungs. The deer moved 10 yards and stood there. Thinking to myself what happened. I saw a red spot on the rib cage. Then a deer fell over Dead. When I Field dressed it Found a pencil hole straight through. I've killed 30 deer with that bullet and that's the only one that has done that.

I was curious to what the internal organs looked like, were they like FEENIX's observation? NBT have a solid base. If all the lead core and jacket material sluff off then the base can exit leaving a small hole. The doe moving 10 yards and then dropping dead suggests to me massive trauma to the lungs and most likely heart.

 

[Creedmoor shooter]

NBTs are excellent bullet-on deer size game and smaller. I remember my first antelope harvest when I moved to Montana. I shot a fawn (fawn/doe tag) at <100Y with 180 NBT out of my .300 WM, and the fawn just stood there. I chambered a round for a second shot when my son said, "that's OK, Dad, it is not necessary." The fawn's legs locked and slowly dropped. The entry and exit are pencil-sized, but the internal organs are souped-up.

I took my biggest deer to date with a 140 NBT out of my old 7mm rem mag. Shot was 80 yards. He went 30-40 yards and fell over. Dressed weight of 218 lbs. Bullet performed beautifully. 7mm entry, quarter-half dollar sized exit with destruction in its path

 

[xsn10s]

I took my biggest deer to date with a 140 NBT out of my old 7mm rem mag. Shot was 80 yards. He went 30-40 yards and fell over. Dressed weight of 218 lbs. Bullet performed beautifully. 7mm entry, quarter-half dollar sized exit with destruction in its pathView attachment 330077

Wow that's a brute! There was a great post by Steve Timms on his, Chub Eastman's, And Matt Smith's experience using NBT out of a 6.5-280 AI or 6.5-06 AI. They killed lots of game including big bulls and moose. It can be a controversial bullet, but it will keeeeeel.

 

[FEENIX]

I took my biggest deer to date with a 140 NBT out of my old 7mm rem mag. Shot was 80 yards. He went 30-40 yards and fell over. Dressed weight of 218 lbs. Bullet performed beautifully. 7mm entry, quarter-half dollar sized exit with destruction in its pathView attachment 330077

Very nice, congrats! Now that I have a 7MM SAUM, I'll add it back to my list of bullets. Cheers!

 

[Creedmoor shooter]

Very nice, congrats! Now that I have a 7MM SAUM, I'll add it back to my list of bullets. Cheers!

That was from 2016. Been a fee moons but still remember like it was yesterday

 

[Rack]

I was curious to what the internal organs looked like, were they like FEENIX's observation? NBT have a solid base. If all the lead core and jacket material sluff off then the base can exit leaving a small hole. The doe moving 10 yards and then dropping dead suggests to me massive trauma to the lungs and most likely heart.

No the bullet did not expand it was just a clean pencil hole through the lungs no damage done other than a pencil hole

 

[FEENIX]

No the bullet did not expand it was just a clean pencil hole through the lungs no damage done other than a pencil hole

I have a few harvests with NBTs (antelope and deer with .300 WM at <400Y) and all of them expanded. 1 out of 30 is still not a bad percentage (97%).

 

[xsn10s]

No the bullet did not expand it was just a clean pencil hole through the lungs no damage done other than a pencil hole

Hmm okay. I have a friend who's go to rifle is a 270 Win using that 130 BT also. Seems like you've had good success with that bullet. I just find it unusual that without a good deal of trauma that that doe would die like that. But anything is possible. Lucky that it fell over right there.
I shot a meat sow with 180 gr Speer Magtip once. The heart lungs were complete mush and mostly gone. That 125 lb pig took off running like nothing was wrong. We got it but it ran a long ways. Sometimes it's just hard to figure these animals out.

 

[hicountry1]

Sierra gamekings for me. Disintegrated, although not a failure per say as I got the deer.

I just didn't like what I recovered, which was pieces of the bullet. Luckily it was behind the shoulder.

It was at that point I switched to partitions, then accubonds, sciroccos and never looked back.

The only other bullet I use is the scenar.

 

[Rack]

Hmm okay. I have a friend who's go to rifle is a 270 Win using that 130 BT also. Seems like you've had good success with that bullet. I just find it unusual that without a good deal of trauma that that doe would die like that. But anything is possible. Lucky that it fell over right there.
I shot a meat sow with 180 gr Speer Magtip once. The heart lungs were complete mush and mostly gone. That 125 lb pig took off running like nothing was wrong. We got it but it ran a long ways. Sometimes it's just hard to figure these animals out.

Yep kinda weird but that's what happened. Chest cavity was full of blood.

 

[FEENIX]

Very nice, congrats! Now that I have a 7MM SAUM, I'll add it back to my list of bullets. Cheers!

I found 3+ boxes .25 Cal and box or so of .30 cal NBTs. Heck, I do not even know what I have.

 

[can1010]

A marginally stable bullet will still be accurate on paper. It's not unstable to the point it's yawing in flight, it's only degraded in BC.

It might be a terrible analogy, but the first thing that popped in my head: putting more spin on a football won't change how much or how little it's affected by someone tipping it in flight.

I just don't believe the physics support that how many RPMs the bullet is at necessarily influences it's path upon impact. The amount RPMs do, however, affect terminal performance to a dregree in the form of centrifugal forces and how much a bullet deforms and/or comes apart. Once petals start to open up or a jacket begins to peel back, more centrifugal force (from higher RPMs) will cause the petals or jacket/core material to reach out wider that at a lower RPM. Of course there are still so many other variables in play it's extremely hard to quantify just how much it makes a difference.

back when Berger first introduced the 300 gr .338 they had issues with what they called noes slump causing issues on impact, they changed the design and changed twist from 1-10 to 1- 9 to solve the problem. we also have learned more recently that monos need increased stability to perform properly when using same weight bullets and even more now that they are pushing the long range envelope.

my idea was that we have heard so many complaints about Barnes are junk because back in the day i tried them and they dont expand, back in the day people had their trusty 270 or 30-06 and were used to xxx gr of bullet and when they grabbed Barnes they grabbed the same xxx gr of bullet and then had poor performance

the idea of exploring bullet performance good and bad is interesting to me not this i killed with xxx bullet and their great or the opposite and their junk. i dont understand it all but it is interesting and maybe we can help understand the difference between bullet failures and not knowing what we dont know failures

 

[Petey308]

back when Berger first introduced the 300 gr .338 they had issues with what they called noes slump causing issues on impact, they changed the design and changed twist from 1-10 to 1- 9 to solve the problem. we also have learned more recently that monos need increased stability to perform properly when using same weight bullets and even more now that they are pushing the long range envelope.

my idea was that we have heard so many complaints about Barnes are junk because back in the day i tried them and they dont expand, back in the day people had their trusty 270 or 30-06 and were used to xxx gr of bullet and when they grabbed Barnes they grabbed the same xxx gr of bullet and then had poor performance

the idea of exploring bullet performance good and bad is interesting to me not this i killed with xxx bullet and their great or the opposite and their junk. i dont understand it all but it is interesting and maybe we can help understand the difference between bullet failures and not knowing what we dont know failures

I'm definitely not trying to hijack this thread, but I made a few posts a while back regarding bullet construction and considerations like you're talking about. Maybe you'd be interested in them. I'll post the links to three of them:

https://www.longrangehunting.com/threads/selecting-a-hunting-bullet.283902/

https://www.longrangehunting.com/threads/bullet-construction.283735/

https://www.longrangehunting.com/threads/berger-hybrid-vs-berger-vld.283905/

 

[Mike Matteson]

I have look at 100th of dead animals over the years. I look at the wound channel and the damage it does to the animal. I have seen animals that were so blood shot they were a mess. The worst I had was with a 100gr Nosler Partition from my 25-06 at close range. It blood shot entire one side of the animal. The animal did go down, but the lost of meat was great. Never used them again. I went to 120gr Nosler SPBT and they preformed very good. Over 50 animals during the time I was using that rifle. I look at what the bullet does to the animal, and the damage it does to the animal. The stories I hate to hear is: I hit the animal 5 times in the heart and it ran off. I have shot a lot of my deer in the heart. They can run a distance before going down, but they are down. I killed two elk on the same day. Both were hit dead center in the heart. There hearts split from the point enter to the bottom of the heart. They both dropped in there tracks. One was standing and the other was running. Both of them there legs flew out to their side and hit with there chest on the ground. I have said it before that the deer I have shot in the heart they kicked like a mule, a lot of the time, and didn't spring as they ran. There head were even with there back and not held up. Liver shots they will run some, and generally stop in a few yards. Put there nose to the ground and back up under pain. I did shoot a muley twice once. The first was in the heart and 2nd in the liver. I had lost my scope sight in the first shot. It ran about 50yds and stop. I felt I had maybe hit a branch on the first shot. The second was in the liver. It ran about 20' and stop and started it backing up with it's nose to the ground. I told my friend that was with me that day the second shot was in the liver. He said you can't tell that. He said the first shot he kicked like a mule. I said heart shot. So when I was gutting the deer out I showed him the two shot location. All the elk I shot did go down except for one that I got to far back on. These elk were taken by 165gr Nosler SPBT.
Now I haven't gotten to use Hammer hunter bullets yet. I do like the way they are built. I am going to use there 100gr Hunter in my 6mm-208AI when the rifle is done. It almost done, but I am having to return to Mex-ilfornia for awhile. So it will be this summer before I begin to work up loads for that rifle.
The bottom line is shot placement. I don't like the front shoulder because it tends to blood shot the animals.