Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Accubond performance question

So how many TSX/TTSX will consistently retain "only" 60-75% of their weight as the partition does? Seem that everyone at the 'fire who uses them sings their praises as retaining 90-95

Every bullet manufacturer, and the majority of hunters compare their bullet of choice to the grand old partition.

I guess my experience is the exception to your rule.

I shot this mule deer at 25 yards on a hard quartering away angle. Entry was on the rib cage and oblong shaped. There was no exit. Upon autopsy, the front of the chest under the neck on the inside looked like it was shot with a load of skeet choked #8's

Complete disintegration of a 180 grain Accubond at 3200 fps

Like most things regarding bullet performance, likely there are no absolutes.

I watched my pard Big Al jump this big muley buck and bust him at a whopping 30 yds with his 7STW/140AB. Guessing the impact velocity was 3250' at least. Bullet entered back hip and was found underneath hide in front of opposite shoulder. 60% weight retention.

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Buzz you're hung up on my use of the word " violent"...let me substitute by saying that expansion is more complete,more extensive, the jacket and core is more subject to the stresses of high velocity and high impact speed into something tough than if it were going slower.Bullets traveling fast also create more extensive wound channels than those that have slowed down at distance.

I tried to sum all that up by using the term "violent" expansion. In my language expansion means "expansion"...it does not mean "disintegration". Not if the bullet is designed to penetrate at close range. An AB has been built that way. But I think the 140's are a bit too light to withstand close range impact from a a 7 mag cartridge.

I think the 160 is a better choice in the magnum cases.

Your 160 from your 7 mag did what it was supposed to at close distances. I already said that in case you missed it.

You and i feel pretty much the same way about the Partition and AB. There isn't enough difference between them to persuade me to change. I have other bonded bullets I've been using for 30 years so have no need for the AB.

I've killed a handful of bull moose over the years with 180 gr and 200 gr Accubonds from a 300 RUM and 7.82 Warbird zipping along at 3300 and 3300 fps, not one bull needed a second shot and all were dumpded within feet of where they got plugged,

2012 I rebarreled the 300 RUM with an upgrade to the slam da hamma down 338 EDGE, could not get the Berger 300 gr OTM to shoot and tried the 300 gr Accubond got .625" 3 shot groups at 2900 + - fps and went with it, figuring a new barrel will season up after a hundred shots or so and yep, when I could do it, it was shooting 3/8" groups at 100 yards with two holes hugging hard and a third snuggled up close , passed up a number of good bulls lookin fer the "one", never found him and near the end of my hunt jumped a 53.5" raghorn bull on my atv trail and shot 'im at 35 yards, slammed him to the ground and no recovered bullet, not much meat damage just mush inside with some ribs wiped out on the offside,

next season 2013 blasted a couple black bears in the spring with the same load, one at 450 yards and again a pass through (see pics) bear ran maybe 50 yards and gave up the ghost, bullet holes in hide on entry and exit were nearly indistinguishable but again, mush innards and blasted ribs....... the other bear got whacked at 350 yards and no bullet recovered, he was up an avalanche slide and just tumbled all the way down, dead by the time he stopped, made for an easy recovery, no climbing ! same results as the other blackie...

that September I called a nice bull in to 100 yards and poked him in the ribs, same deal.... no recovered bullet but mushy lungs and missing a patch of ribs on the offside but exit hole through hide same size as entrance hole (see pics)

2014 and 2015 moose died from a reaction to lead and copper found in Berger's 300 gr Elite Hunter bullets, but that's another story.......

a few weeks ago I used up the remaining few rounds of that load I found in my truck and blasted some 1 us gallon water jugs at 50 yards... one round blew past 5 jugs and exited to the side and not recovered, the second slug blew through 5 jugs and was recovered in the 6th.... see pics for results, not too bad of a mouse trap and it don't need fixin' other than a long range version......

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Cool pictures Swamplord.

It's funny when folks say the ABs or even a Partition has disintegrated. I've "thought" I've seen it a few times until I really dug into guts or started butchering quarters. The bullets I thought disappeared were buried in a bone or muscle but since there was so little energy left, it's seems like they left very little trace of there path.

Not saying it doesn't happen, because they are man made things, but I've yet to see an AB explode or a Partition "blow to pieces". Both of them are very good BG bullets.

Rick,

Did you shoot any other animals with that batch of 180 AB's?

IME so far, at impact vel's that would shear the front end off of a PT, TTSX's usually lose one or more petals, leaving them with 75-95% weight retention.

The only difference I'm seeing is the difference in the capability of hunters to use a great bullet at a reasonable Velocity. All the information is out there. The Indian is by large the quickest way to f:ck it all up.


Shod

Sorry Jordan, but everyone knows a partition is designed to shed 35-40% of it's weight at a wide range of impact velocities, and as MD pointed out lately, the bigger .30's retain a bit more. Everyone also knows that a TSX and TTSX are neither one designed to shed that much weight, which was the intent of my original post.

I'm not sure where you're going with that first part of your statement. My point is that TTSX bullets act a lot like PT's- more-so than previous versions like the X and TSX. And that is a report of my experiences, not what the bullets are theoretically "designed" to do. What they actually do. The TSX would sometimes shed petals if it impacted at very high velocity, but the TTSX loses petals much more readily. I'm also curious where your intel came from regarding how much weight the TTSX is "designed" to shed? AFAIK, Barnes hasn't published anything differentiating the expected retained weight of the various versions of their bullets.

Jordan, a ttsx shedding petals isn't the same thing as a partition shedding lead. For starters the the frontal area of the resulting bullet is much smaller in the case of the ttsx.

For illustration-

These petals were recovered from 2 different shots, a bull moose at 170 yards, and a WT buck at about 130 yards. The bullets were both 140gr TTSX from a 7WSM started at 3312 fps. Both bullets exited, but I found these petals in the carcasses. The pair of petals on the right are attached, and weigh 23.3 grains. These came from the moose. The group of 3 petals on the left came from the WT buck, and weigh 24.2 grains. That means that the bullets retained at most, assuming there were no other fragments that went undetected, 82.7 and 83.3% of their weight, respectively. I've seen X/TSX/TTSX bullets lose all 4 petals and end up weighing right around 75% of original weight.

So the bullet hits at high IV, loses some of it's forward mass due to fragmentation, a solid wadcutter shank continues to penetrate and eventually exits the animal. That sounds a lot like PT performance to me. Except with no lead. That ain't a bad place to be.

You're right. I prefer the petals as larger secondary projectiles. Additionally, the lack of lead fragments in the meat may not be a big deal, but it doesn't hurt. I can't say that the frontal area of the TTSX wadcutter is always smaller than that of a PT, IME. It depends.

IMHO the 140 Accubond should work on 99.8% of the shots you might ever have to make on a deer.


Quartering away at half speed, 350 yards.

That's a heck of a spray, Sam!

Jordan, I saw the buck fall but did a little recon just to see what happened. Buck made it about 70 yards from the spray before going down.


Hit in rear ribcage, exited the brisket area.

So you're going to tell us the TSX/TTSX is designed to shed 35% of it's weight, at a wide range of impact velocities, like the partition does?

That bottom photo is very cool.

Nope. Maybe read my responses again. Never did I say that they are identical bullets, just that the TTSX acts more like a PT than previous generations of Barnes bullets.