Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Accubond performance question

Thanks, John.

Good stuff.

DF

Not an Accubond but a plain 130 Nos ballistic tip out of a plain .270 Win at 335 yards. Exit side shown here. Buck made 2 hops and went tits up.

.30-06, 150g AB, exit side, 2010. Nephew's antelope, ~200 yards


.30-06, 150g AB, my 2010 cow, ~282 yards. No exit on a neck shot, suspect the bullet stayed in the vertebra.


.338WM, 225g AB, exit side. 2011. ~262 yards


.338WM, 225g AB, exit side, 2013, 487 yards


.280 Rem, 140g AB, entrance side, 2011, ~200 yards


.30-06, 150g AB, exit side, 2014, ~50 yards

I've shot probably 10 critters with accubonds...mainly .257" 110s and .338" 225s. Critters include elk, mule deer and antelope, plus some random coyotes and such.
My experience with accubonds is that they work great when put behind the shoulder...at any normal velocity. My one constant with these bullets is that if you put one through the shoulder, a mess is created.


These lung shots had great results...little damaged meat and a very dead animal.





Here is a very dead animal with a very messy set of shoulders


Can't totally blame this mess on the bullet...bone shards and that nasty, gritty bone marrow being blown into the shoulder meat is NASTY.


Good bullet overall, but I have moved on to other things.

Bone fragments can definitely wreak some havoc. I wonder if that same shot had been made with a Barnes bullet or a hard cast bullet if the damage from the bone would have been as great though? I.E., if a hard monolithic bullet would be less explosive on impact and pierce the bone more directly.

Maybe. My one monolithic kill was a whitetail buck out of the relatively slow 6.5x55. Not a fair comparison as I spined him and put another through his shoulder (accidentally...I was aiming for his neck) as he was thrashing around. There was quite a bit of bloodshotness on the finisher....but not as much as the above elk.

I shot 10 plains game with 180 gr. Accubonds in my .300 Win Mag this year. I'll be switching back to the TTSX because too many stopped in the animal for my taste.

There is no "explosive" effect in a bullet, but I understand the point being made...

Mono bullets do not make nearly the mess of a lead-core bullet and can be intentionally driven through a shoulder without making the mess a lead-core bullet can just passing near a shoulder.

Massive meat damage is the primary reason I left lead-core bullets for monos, almost exclusively.

Posted a link to the wrong picture. Here is the correct one.

.30-06, 150g AB, exit side, 2014, ~50 yards

The Accubonds I have tried are 160 gr. 7MM bullets and then only on deer at short ranges under 150 yards. Three I think and in comparison to the number of deer an hogs I have taken with the 150 gr. Ballistic Tips a small number. I recovered none of the three Accubonds, exit holes were within reason but I can say the same of the 150 gr. Ballistic Tips. Both bullets are very accurate, I would use either for any deer hunting I might do but for all else I am going to use a Partition generally the 160. Until I ran out of them I used the 140 gr. Partition on feral hogs almost exclusively shot from my 7x57 then started using the 150 gr. BT's. I never actually stopped one of the 140's but I did capture a few of the Ballistic Tips in larger feral hogs. I guess I should limber up the 280 AI and test the 160 gr. Accubonds on some hogs alternating with the same weight Partitions and see if any real differences show up.

Sitka deer



You may be correct about "in the bullet" but definitely wrong if you meant in the animal. I shot a smallish doe with a .300 Win pushing a 162 or 168, I don't remember. The near side scapula went about forty feet high and the whole chest cavity was the exit wound. At the place where the exit side skin used to be was a hole about 5-6" across.

Palidun,



Please do it.

I have seen lots of cases of extreme destruction caused by bullets... still does not mean there is any such thing as "Explosive Effect" in bullets.

I always shoot them dead square in the shoulders. I have never had to look for one. I know I'm going to catch flak for saying that, but wading around in cactus and rattlesnakes aint fun. When you go with a guide, that is the first thing he will tell you. There's not much meat on a deer shoulder. They bone it out to make hamburger anyway. They are dead before they hit the ground.

Not from me....


Bullets that handle those shot s are a good idea.

As someone who hunts the brush country, you'll never hear flak from me for shoulder shooting. All it takes is to see a 6' rattler to make one see the light.

Amen

I never saw the sense in looking for something if you don't have to....rattlers or not.

Cripes doesn't everyone see the value in killing something fast?

The only Accubond load I have in the house is 338 cal and 300 grains, it leaves at 3000 fps, I've never found a fired bullet either, but have always found the game, admittedly, I haven't used it on elk, moose, big bear or any other heavy game, but would have absolutely no concern in doing so.

From zero to 1000, that sombitch hits HARD!

I, also, am a firm believer in drt. There is not much meat on the front shoulders of a deer/antelope anyway and it is well worth not having to trail them.

I killed a deer just yesterday doing some depredation work. I shot her on the point of the shoulder and angled back through the lungs, exiting behind the shoulder on the other side. I only lost one shoulder in the end and it was well worth it to not have to track her into the swamp.