The Most DISSAPOINTING Bullet there ever was...

[cabelasken]

I shot a large whitetail at 30 yards, about an inch behind the shoulder in the crease breaking the off side shoulder. He ran 400 yards and disappeared behind three large cottonwood trees.
Knowing he was dead I took my gear/stand up the steep hillside to the truck and took my necessary gear to dress the animal and my rifle and hiked down to where he disappeared.

Forty-five minutes after the shot, upon reaching the buck, I leaned my rifle against the tree and grabbed his rack to pull him to a more suitable spot to work him up.

The buck exploded into action, knocking my kill kit out of my hand and knocking me over and ran about thirty yards, getting entangled in wild grape vine.

I grabbed my rifle and shot him again about an inch from the previous shot. He dropped dead.

He had small pencil holes through the heart.

That was the last time I used a TTSX (handloads). I had killed about 6-10 animals with that load prior to the incident, including a huge whitetail buck at 520 yards... but that occasion was enough to make me switch.

I have been happy with Accubonds, LR Accubonds and VLDs since.

Once I had a 168 TTSX from a 300 WSM glance off the spine and then travel the length of a bull backwards before it lodged in the opposite side shoulder. There was absolutely no expansion and was one of the few TTSX bullets I ever recovered. But, I cannot call this a bullet failure.

 

[Teri Anne]

I don't blame a particular bullet most of the time when they don't shoot well in a particular rifle. Sometimes a barrel just doesn't get along with a bullet. I will say that I've never had a rifle that liked Nosler Partitions for some reason. Same rifles would shoot AB's very well.

Interesting, I have not found a rifle that would not shoot Nosler Partitions well with the proper handload. We are not talking out of the box factory stuff, some rifles may like it, others don't. The one's that don't like factory will shoot sub moa out of the same rifle with handloads tuned to the barrel. Nosler partitions are my go to hunting bullet in 223, 243, 270, 308, 30-06, 300WM and 338WM. Of these the 300 WM was a challenge to get down to 1 moa and more of a challenge to get sub moa. I had 4 of them by different manufacturers and none of them would shoot factory well and handloads were a challenge.

 

[Dooner]

after reading this thread, I am going to buy a bow and arrow

Then you will trade this thread for a Broadhead Thread on the Bowsite

 

[MagnumManiac]

I consider the Speer pills about the same as the Hornady. I'd use either on deer sized game but might re-think what I'm doing on bigger stuff

One of the best ever deer bullets I have ever used were the original Speer HotCor 30cal 180g & 200g out of either my 300WM or 300 Weatherby, never did recover one for inspection, they exited no matter what you hit on the way through. The other was the Grand Slam in either weight out of the same 2 rifles. We used the 150's on hogs with great success.

Cheers.

 

[JiggyIi]

Any Bullet Out of a 6.5 Needmore ️

 

[cajun]

The only 2 deer I ever lost out of hundreds shot with a rifle were 35 caliber Sierra game kings.

 

[dgr416]

Power point winchester 180 gr in 300 win mag .These zipped through deer no expansion .I shot a nice 180 pound buck at 100 yarfs through both shoulders .I had to kill the buck after dark with a log in his horms to break his neck .The win pp 200 gr works awesome on deer in my 338 wim mag never a problem .I have not had any 338 accurate loads with nosler accubonds in 338 win mag also hornady in it totally sucked patterns at best .They shoot 1/2 inch with good bullets .

 

[Turpentine21]

Hornady eldx. I've recovered too many that acted more like a fmj.

From personal experience, the eldm is much better on game. I particularly like them in 6.5 Grendel and 6.5-06

 

[Turpentine21]

Sierra Match Kings. They shoot great but don't shoot an animal with them… save them for paper and steel..

I'll second this one. They do shoot accurately but the tips get beat up and I'm not crazy about the on game performance. Oops. Meant to say Game Kings. I have never shot a Sierra Match King Bullet.

 

[DDB TX]

They are realistically a 1.5 MOA bullet for most part, not really a LR bullet but in 300 and in I found a Partition to be darn good. YMMV with them in accuracy.

180 grain Partition Protected Point (PP), 300 WSM Tikka t-3 lite, totally factory gun. Best group, with RL 17, 100 meters. Second photo is same bullet with IMR 4350. Not good for longer ranges but will group. Analyzing the 2 photos I would say I might have a breathing problem as both strings are vertical, not side to side. I did take my time between shots.

 

[Ken61]

Sierra Match Kings. They shoot great but don't shoot an animal with them… save them for paper and steel..

I thought they recommended against using them for hunting bullets. I found them very good for accuracy.

 

[VinceMule]

Back when I did not know any better, I had a bullet failure on a large buck around 300 yards. 150g Match king out of a 7 Rem mag at 3150 fps, bullet splashed on the shoulder, but knocked him down. He got up and was never found till the next year.

 

[DDB TX]

View attachment 439898
This is the offside view of a big bodied Kansas buck I shot at a few steps past 500 yards about 17 years ago. Back then I was running Hornady Heavy Mag 139 SST factory ammo thru an accurized Remington model 700 SPS in 7mm Rem Mag. With a LR Leupold 4.5-14x40 scope & the Varmint Hunter reticle my 200 yard zero allowed for quick and exact 100 yard increment holdovers to 500 yards and beyond. I still have that black rifle tucked away, unchanged except for a rattle can camo paint job. Anyway, when I finally got the rutting buck to stop by hollering at him across the canyon, I touched the shot off and he crumbled in his tracks. After making a few similar one shot kills from 375 to 580 yards with this setup, I began to compare the ballistics of the 7.08 Rem vs the 7 RemMag, utilizing the same 7 mm SST bullet in Hornadys faster loadings and discovered why the 7.08 may have become so popular, especially among western big game hunters. According to Hornady's charts the cute little 7.08 Superformance load delivers the same terminal performance at 350 yards as it's big brother does at 500, for example. The critter don't know if it got shot by a mild short action rifle cartridge or a hard hitting magnum, because the bullet acts the same way at the same speed. Now, in addition to a variety of other 7mm offerings, I also own and use several rifles chambered in the sweet little 7.08 Remington.

I do love the result of Hydrostatic Shock!

Funny, a couple of years ago I produced a chart that showed what the Army called "offset". In other words, given a particular bullet (not cartridge), say, a .308 165 grain Ballistic tip,, for example, where you would have to stand shooting a Hornady factory load of same with all .308 caliber rifles.
You infantry (army or marine) types will recall the lectures on "offset", how the .308 NATO belt feds could be up to hundreds of yards back from the ambush line, while the 5.56 belt feds should be "up close, as with the 5.56 M4s or M16s.
So what is the "offset" between a .308 and a .300 Savage, both shooting a 150 grain factory Hornady SST?
Savage: MV 2740
308: MV 3000fps.

At 100 yards the 308 has dropped to 2772 fps.

So basically the Hornady Superformance 308 gives you 100 yards of offset over the same factory's Superformance 300 Savage load.
But let's bang it up to the vaunted 300 Win Mag. Same 150 grain SST, same factory. Its performance gives you under 200 yards more setback than the 300 Savage.
Meaning that if you are shooting an animal at 800 yards with the WM 150 grain SST, yu would get the same result as shooting the 300 Savage at 600 yards.
The Magnum gives 200 yards setback over the 300 Savage.
In other words, how much closer to the target do you have to be to get the same terminal velocity?
And said yet another way, how much less stalking do you need with the 300 RM?

 

[Mike Matteson]

I have several, from different manufacturers that i don't use.
From either my shooting, or observed shooting.

The regular Nosler Accubond.
Tried these in several rifles of different calibers & weights.
Have always heard "either your rifle REALLY likes them, or it REALLY doesn't".
I really wanted to like them!
But no matter what i tried, my rifles didn't.
Smallest group i managed with them was 2".

Remington Corelokt.
Watched 2 different friends, on 2 different occasions put 5 rounds in the chest and deer didn't go down. Well, 1 fell down, but kept getting back up.
1 was using 300 Savage, the other 30-06.
Both times took me shooting the deer in the head to finally put them down.

Barnes .
Have witnessed on 3 different occasions where friends had good shot placement, with either extremely long tracking, or no recovery. We only recovered 1 of the 3.

I'm starting to lean away from the ABLR. Easy to get to shoot wonderfully accurate, especially at distance.
But......
My buck this year taken with my 7mm Rem Mag & 150gr ABLR.
Distance was about 50 yards.
While it did kill quite quickly, i was really expecting more damage than it did.
More experimentation is required.

Interestng in what have said here. I do increase the velocity of the Nosler bullets. Not the partitions, There velocity use to be held down or shoot slower velocity under 3000fps. With that Nosler B.T or AB they open up, but don't bloodshot the animal. I have seen several others that bloodshot the animal from on end to the other and several times on both sides for the animal.