But I note in passing my buddy is building a small collection of 200 gr AB's from a 300 Weatherby at 3050 fps or so,recovered from dead elk. I have assured him from experience that if they were 200 gr Nosler Partitions he would never have recovered them with those same shots.
This is kind of like the 270/280 topics. Both bullet choices would have still created the same amount of expired Elk, right?
No doubt they did.....
Just pointing out what i see as the differences between the bullets. That would be a slightly smaller expanded frontal area for the Partition and weight for weight slightly more penetration.
You gotta work hard to keep a 200 gr 30 caliber Partition in an elk in any but the very longest angles. Since penetration with an expanding bullet is the first reason I reach for a 200 gr 30 caliber bullet, I'd use the Partition and have.
The 140 AB pictured above was sort of banged up from that shot and looks nothing like Butch's recovered 140's because his were started some 400 fps slower from a 7/08 and had much less rotational velocity too. Likely impact velocity was a lot less too....which goes to show what we all should know about impact velocity. The higher the velocity the more violent the expansion. You can't expect a bullet to behave exactly the same way given those differences in velocity. Anyway that 140 AB has 59 gr of bullet left.It still killed good because it chewed up plenty of vital tissue on the way.
I'd use the 140 AB again in a 7mm that liked it. I have a bunch.
The other two are Bitterroots, one from a 280 at 3080, the other a 7 RM at 3200+. Both shots at less than 100 yards, a lung hit on a 300# bear and DRT first shot, the other on a big muley, similar to the 140 AB,and DRT as rifle recoiled. Both weigh about 138-139 gr, expanded to over .65 caliber.
No blood trails. Lots of use of BBC's over the years have shown similar results. Which is why I say for me they have generally been the fastest killers; Partitions a close second. ...on anything. Maybe not the best choice for 1000 yard shots but I don't do that . Outside my skill sets
