Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting 165 grain Nosler Partition, .30 cal., on Elk, Your thoughts?

The Barnes seems to set up a smaller frontal area,so may be inclined to exit more easily and penetrate the rubbery hide better,so that may be why they exit.Also, they tend to blow the petals under high velocity,which sets the stage for the smaller frontal area.

But I have seen recovered 375 Barnes TSX recovered from eland at 300+ yards that broke the shoulder, yet retained all the petals.Clearly at that distance the velocity had fallen off and the tough bullet retained that wide frontal area that caught the offside hide and didn't penetrate through.Another shot into a kudu at 80 yads blew the petals;yet remained in the animal.

I have found that a 180 Partition from a 300 Win Mag or Weatherby, will sometimes exit,an elk on broadside shots, and sometimes will not...depends on what exactly you hit and the impact velocity.I know I have one or two here that I have dug from elk.Others have blasted on through.

Another factor is the higher rotational velocity of a bullet fired from a 30 cal magnum will cause more dramatic bullet upset than the same bullet fired from ( say) a 30/06.The added velocity and added rpm's all place additional stresses on the bullet and may cause contribute to pedals shearing off,and more dramatic and rapid expansion.

No doubt a Barnesis a"tougher" bullet....it has to be because it has no jacket and lead core that will fragment and disintigrate under high stress(but it seems it will blow the petals).none of this means that a Partition is in any way inadequate....just that you may not be able to drop as far down the weight spectrum to get pretty much the same results.

JMHO but no seem to always exit an animal, and personally I haven't seen any differences in how they kill whether they exit or not...it never seemed terribly important to me because the damage is done beofre the bullet reaches the off side.

To me, the good thing about a bullet being able to penetrate well is its' ability to break heavy bone eiither at the begininng of the wound channel, or at the end;even after traveling through a lot of elk.If it does that, I'm happy....cause you are standing over a very dead animal.