Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles 7mm 120gr BT

I got a notification where they were back in stock at SPS. Yesterday or the day before can't remember.

Don't mean to hijack the thread, but thought I might add that I got my first 250 "Blue Meanies" in the other day. RevMike is right: no blemishes at all other than their color being wrong. I loaded some up in the 7mm-08 and they just can't handle the speed like I thought they would despite their jacket thickness. Most of them splattered against all medium (water, wetpack, newspaper slurry) until I brought them down below 2600 FPS, which is still within 7mm-08 hunting velocities. Usually the only thing left was the copper base and some jacket fragments. I bought these with the intention of loading them in 7-08 for East Texas white tails and feral hogs because both of my shoulders are wrecked, but now I'm concerned that they will not hold together and penetrate adequately. My new 7-08 is a cheap WIP gun because of my shoulders. I've backed them down to 35.0 grains of Benchmark for a MV of 2710 out of a 20" 7-08 tube hoping they won't self-destruct. I couldn't pass up the $9.95/50 price on the 120's, even if they're just a paper puncher. Any thoughts or personal experience on this?

I've been running the red tipped ones at 2900-3000 for years and have killed bunches of deer with them…..no issues. Kill something with them and then decide if they work.

I get 3115 fps MV from the red ones so I bought a bunch of blue ones.



There's a dead deer walking somewhere in Oregon.




P

Well..... we're all going to feel like idiots if somebody sections one of these fancy limited edition (er ah someone put the 25 caliber tips on the 7 M M's by mistake) bullets and find they went back to a thinner jacket...lol....me included.

Get busy and let us know kraky!

+1... "Kill something with them and then decide if they work."

I'm hampered by ethics, I guess. I don't want to shoot something and find out it wasn't a clean kill. That's the exact reason I got away from using a .243 Winnie. Two years ago I shot two bucks with the .243 using 100 grain Hornady BTSP Interlocks. One was a perfect lung shot and the other broke both front axles. The lunger ran off never to be found. It was close to dusk and a two hour track revealed nothing but bright lung blood. The other made a death kick, lunged forward and crumpled, then plowed the ground with his antlers until he made a furrow under a barbed wire fence and continued on. He was over 100 yards from the property line when shot, and the dense growth made a follow up shot impossible with his bucking and lunging. I didn't have permission to track the deer on commercial (oil field) property. That's what fueled my decision to move to the 7mm-08 and use 120 grainers. But now I'm looking at this bullet with skepticism

Doesn't take much of a search to find how well the 7mm 120BT works on game…. So, what will it take for you to be "ethically" confident enough to kill something with the bullet??

Honestly, if you have problems recovering a deer shot "perfectly" with a 100 Hornady out of a 243, you probably won't be impressed with the 7-08 either.

Lol.... I'm not sure how some of the guys here to do it but they get beautiful job. The last couple times I tried to get a nice looking sectioned bullet I was too embarrassed to post a picture!

Haha, me too. That's why I pawned it off on you!

Anyway I know you were just kidding about nosler changing the jackets. Common sense would tell us that would be a pretty ridiculous move on their part IMO.

Those 120's do a great job on big feral hogs too.

Actually...I wasn't totally kidding. In this day and age you never know when somebody's going to change things up. And it's Murphy's Law that it always happens right when the best reputation has been gained. So if it was ever going to happen now would be the time...lol!
Let's just say I think we're safe by the odds of 95 percent but I always wind up in the 5%?

I guess I'm the only one that has a different experience with them. A ribcage shot at a close range whitetail gave me a few small exit holes and a measly blood trail. This was from a 7-08 with a max charge of Varget. Unlucky?

Did you recover the deer? If so, how far did it go??

I have had lung shot deer run 50-75 yards without leaving much blood trail, especially if shot high on the side. Thing is, they died before they started blowing blood out the nose and mouth.

Nothing against you, but I've heard enough about "perfectly hit" deer that weren't recovered……more than likely they were poorly hit but nobody wants to admit that they screwed up.

I did, indeed, about 100 yards away -- no big deal. I never expected a bang-flop. I just expected the bullet to hold together better, and maybe give a larger exit, similar to what the kind folks on this thread have reported.

I'm not sure I've ever recovered one…….but I've never shot a deer over 200lbs live weight with one.

I've run the red tips at 3500 from my 7RM. 1 hole in 1 hole ou just a bit smaller than a golf ball. 700 of these blue ones showed up Wednesday.

Well, providence smiled on me tonight, if you could call it that. The wife hit a deer and the TPW let us keep it. Before I salvaged what meat I could, I shot it through the lungs with a NBT 120. There wasn't much left of the bullet but it did, in fact, do it's job well. It exited the other side and made a golf ball sized exit hole. The lungs were adequately pureed. Good enough for rough science.

On a different note, "Nothing against you, but I've heard enough about "perfectly hit" deer that weren't recovered……more than likely they were poorly hit but nobody wants to admit that they screwed up." This really chaps my hinderparts. Yes, I can see where this is a common scenario, but why not just come out and call me a liar? It would have been simpler, more straight forward and saved you the wordsmithing. Those two deer I lost to the .243 aren't the only deer I've lost to that round, but that's not to say it isn't capable of killing a deer. That round has blown both front shoulders off of deer before, broken the upper legs and made mincemeat out of the boiler room. I've just lost my patience with it since it has proven less than ideal even under ideal circumstances. I'm positive I'm not the first, nor will I be the last to encounter such results. I was hesitant to join this forum because personal experience has showed me that some expert is always quick to point out how impossible or improbable someone's account is based on their extensive "I read I somewhere on the internet" personal expertise. Please, have a blessed day, and have no fear of me blackening your doorsteps with my presence, nor will I waste anymore "professional's" time by asking questions.

Some guys have all the luck. And bye, liar.

My order was delivered on Friday. Deer are color blind. They will not notice the blue tip. My go to bullet has always been the Horn 139 sp. From all the reports over the years, I doubt I will be disappointed.

Simple question here……..how do you know they were hit "perfectly" if you didn't recover them??

Simple answer, you can't and don't!

Don't want to "blow both shoulders off of a deer??? Don't shoot them through the shoulders! Can't retrieve one that gets across the property line? Don't shoot one 100 yards from the property line!

It's not the 243 or "ethics" that are "hampering" you……...