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Trade the 7mm RM? That is heresy talk...

Anyone can post a picture of a bullet they shot into a dirt bank. Killing a critter is another matter entirely. I'll open the betting low...lets start with a cow and see if you can keep up.

Boy that's a new one.

I took a bull a week ago with a nosler 150 NBT at 80 yards. I was using a 280AI and pushing it at 3050 fps. had perfect performance, second shot went through off side shoulder leaving a 1" hole. it wasn't needed but he was still on his feet after walking 4 steps after the first shot, so I put another into him for good measure.

just goes to show that different things can happen with essentially the same load, regardless of the bullet make. I'm glad my experience was different from yours.

Well Trevor,I do not own a computer anymore,just android devices and they will not take me very far into my photobucket and my Toshiba chromebook will not copy links ..Infact,google chromebook issues on photobucket and you will get the drift.

Find me an imaginary fix to get me into photobucket(farther than a couple pages where it stops) and able to copy links with my chromebook.

That looks like a big, mature cow.

I slayed a 6x6 bull last Friday with a dreaded [gasp] AMAX out of my 6.5x284. DESTROYED the heart.

Damn target bullets.

Stunt shooter.

I know. I'm moving up to a ma deuce next year. The 3-4 steps that bull took was unacceptable.

Sub .30, target bullet, 4 steps?

Not possible.

Hell, it may have been 2 steps. I didn't bother to count. Heard the "thwak!" and the next thing I knew he stumbled and was on the ground.

Well I have to side with you colorado on the B-tips....

I have been a devout partition shooter for elk until the many credited accounts of how the B-tips really behave in game bigger than deer, so I decided to give'em a go on elk.... I am impressed to say the least.

Last night in the fleeting light of the evening a small bull exploded from a hedge of brush about 80 yards along a STEEP draw to join the small batch of cows I was watching in an opening with hopes a bull would do just what he did.

First bullet hit mid chest and sent steam an chunks of elk out the opposite side of the chest with an 1-1/2" exit hole and made him wobbly but still mobile. As he headed back toward the steep draw, a second B-tip BROKE his off side shoulder with a HARD angled last rib to shoulder shot that toppled him right at the crest of the draw, very dead. The load, 58.5 grains of H4831 with a m.v of 2850-ish from my 22 inch Ruger barrel... Thank you mule deer

I recovered the second bullet under the hide and the core fell out of the jacket as I did. Bullet failure, I think not

So,during what part of the dirt's death did the Nosler Accubond fail?

What it shows is that different things can happen with the same cup-and-core bullet under similar circumstances, not bullets of different make or construction. To me the difference in demonstrated performance suggests the bullet is bumping up against or exceeding the limits of its performance envelope, which is determined by its construction.

In 20+ years of my using 160g Speer Grand Slam bullets in my 7mm RM, none were recovered and none fragmented inside an animal. When I finally did recover one it had destroyed both shoulder joints of a 5x5 bull elk and stopped under the off-side hide, still in the bone but exposed with over 70% weight retention. In the 10 years or so I’ve been using Barnes MRX and TTXS bullets from .257”/100g to .308”/180g the story is the pretty much the same – no signs of fragmentation and none recovered, exits even when shooting lengthwise through mule deer, signs of good expansion every time and as many DRT as there were that took short walks with no long runs, at ranges from 20 yards to 400. (My antelope this year went maybe 35 yards, the longest any animal we’ve shot with the MRX or TTSX has gone. 140g TTTSX, 7mm RM, 373 yards.) North Fork bullets recovered from game, water and dirt have been remarkably consistent in appearance with excellent weight retention and good expansion even below 1800fps impact velocity in animals and about 1200fps in dirt.

If you go back to my post showing pictures of recovered bullets (https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/10556410/Re:_Bullet_selection#Post10556410), the second to last photo shows a pair of 225g Hornady SST bullets fired from my .338WM into water. One fragmented, the other did not but did lose its jacket. Penetration was 3 and 4 water jugs respectively. Like your example, this shows the same bullet can perform differently under nearly identical circumstances. Compare the SST bullets with the 225g AccuBond, which held together better and penetrated 6 jugs. Based on this evidence, I reserve the SST’s for practice and the AccuBond for hunting. Neither elk I’ve shot with my .338WM/225g AccuBond survived the experience and the wound tracks showed good expansion at ranges of 262 and 487 yards (calculated at about 2424fps and 2165 fps respectively).

Considering the choices offered by the OP (150g Nosler Partition or 140g Hornady BTSP) and my experience with a 7mm 162g Hornady BTSP (less than 48% weight retention at ~110 yards, see picture in post referenced above), I would strongly recommend the Partition. Elk aren’t that easy to come by and the consistent performance (good expansion and penetration) offered by Partitions would be cheap insurance.

Congrats on your bull. I was planning on using my virgin .280 Rem for my elk hunt this year but after taking an antelope with it a couple of weekends ago (140g TTSX) am going with a .30-06/150g Accubond with the no-longer-a-virgin .280 Rem/140g AccuBond as backup.

those berms can be hard to kill...

Never said the Accubond failed and I have never said anything negative about Nosler bullets ever!I was replying in jest to smokepoles post:
"Which gets to the question, what is the bullet designed to do? Kill the animal, or look pretty?"

I thought the Core-Lokt looked prettier than the Accubond.You won't find a bigger Nosler fan anywhere than right here,just saying the Core-Lokt works very good also at a lower price in loaded ammo if that's your gig.Last time I looked it up more hunters hunted with factory ammunition than reloads by a good margin but who cares what the other guy does as were all set in our own ways.

Since when does "look pretty" a criteria for hunting bullets?

I've got some 105's waiting to be loaded for my .243 RAR Predator w/ 12x Super Chicken.

Not sure I'll launch one at an elk, but deer and antelope are going to be in trouble next fall!

He's sniffed too much reloading powder I guess.....

Yup,it's a powder he sniffed and it has nothing to do with reloading.