What Goes into Picking the Right Bullet, Part 1

[Petey308]

@Petey308 thank you for the time and sharing. Very well put together and a great read. Appreciate the openness of it not being a one track bias.

Thank you. It's not the best it could be, but it's not intended to be either lol. If I truly am going to publish a book someday, things like this serve as a bit of a tester and rough draft that I can also get feedback on and hopefully make the book better when it's finally ready lol

 

[Lou270]

I have used and will continue to use Bergers a good amount. I like them better than other "match" type like eldm because the hard nose will ensure punch through bone before come apart. That said, I have not seen "fragile" bullets make it easier to recover game with slow kills than bullets that exit. I have also not seen much difference in how fast say a Berger kills than something like an accubond or corelokt, interlock etc that generally exit either. Whether a good shot that runs farther than expected or a bad shot that runs less. The total lack of blood trail is the issue with Bergers. For ex, If a pig or deer runs 200 yards in brush but leaves a blood trail it is easier to find than one that runs 50 or 100 and leaves none. In open country where can watch the game run does not matter as much so use Bergers there and take advantage of the higher BC

Lou

 

[Treeslug]

Thanks guys. I'm still working on the book and in many ways I'm glad it's not published yet. There's more I want to add all the time lol.

I'll be going on a deployment soon and hopefully I'll have some free time then to work on it some more.

Publish the book and then write book two and three and maybe more. You might as well make some money for all your effort!

 

[Petey308]

Publish the book and then write book two and three and maybe more. You might as well make some money for all your effort!

That will be the plan already, but I want the 1st edition to at least be more complete than it currently is.

I will be adding a database at the end of all the bullets I've sectioned with pictures and measurements. I have a ton to still do that were graciously sent to me, and there's still more I want to acquire and add after that. I know that section alone will have new bullets to add all the time in subsequent editions. It'll be kinda like Bryan Litz's books with the bullet database he has, but regarding construction.

 

[Treeslug]

That will be the plan already, but I want the 1st edition to at least be more complete than it currently is.

I will be adding a database at the end of all the bullets I've sectioned with pictures and measurements. I have a ton to still do that were graciously sent to me, and there's still more I want to acquire and add after that. I know that section alone will have new bullets to add all the time in subsequent editions. It'll be kinda like Bryan Litz's books with the bullet database he has, but regarding construction.

Like you say; there will always be more to write about. Stick with your plan, but don't wait too long. A little success will open up worlds of new ideas. Live your dream faster than you live your life!

 

[Petey308]

Like you say; there will always be more to write about. Stick with your plan, but don't wait too long. A little success will open up worlds of new ideas. Live your dream faster than you live your life!

The only real thing holding me back is time lol

 

[LVJ76]

Thanks for taking the time to share all that information, and look forward to seeing more of it

Stay safe on your deployment, and God bless

 

[bigngreen]

With an average Montana deer a shoulder shot costs about 9.5% of your yeild and an elk cost just under 5%, an elk you can quickly double, which basically cost you the weight of an entire shoulder. Thats based on and extremely efficient breaking crew cutting for yeild. Head shot or very high neck setting the high mark.
The worst meat loss comes from not recovering an animal though.
Tipped bullets increase meat loss, to the point you can tell if you should be looking for a little tip, I had a bag of tips in my bullet jars.

 

[Petey308]

Tipped bullets increase meat loss

In my experience, it's only certain tipped bullets, not all. Really depends on when the greatest amount of expansion occurs. There's more involved in that than a tip alone too.

 

[bigngreen]

In my experience, it's only certain tipped bullets, not all. Really depends on when the greatest amount of expansion occurs. There's more involved in that than a tip alone too.

I haven't tracked any in 6-8 years maybe but that's over 10,000 animals in a data base with rail weights, yeild weights and shot placement documented. Timing and blood pressure after wounding, the worst blood shot is shot that dumps them but does not lower the blood pressure fast. Example would be a high cns, the heart pumps for quite some time, you'll see it push farther, I've seen elk blood shot from front of shoulder to hips whole upper half from high shoulder requiring dispatch.
If your quick you can high shoulder them, cut their throat for good bleeding out just like beef.
The tip seems to be a strong indicator, I have yet to see a bullet where they go from open tip to tipped and not see an increase in meat loss on average,.

After cutting that many I pushed Barnes so hard I should have hit Randy up for a sponsorship, great from a meat cutters perspective horrible for lethality so it turns out.
This was before I was interested in anything more in bullet performance than just shaving a few minutes off cutting time and higher yeilds. I had almost two full gallon jars of recovered bullets, I wish I would have tracked more information.