Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Of these three bullets...

After personally using a 160AB on nearly 30 head of African plains game, this bullet gets my vote. It is an outstanding performer. My 160's were 3050fps @ the muzzle FWIW, and game was taken from 70-200 yards.

Flip a coin.

Anecdotal only since i don't use Barnes bullets but a friend who posts here does (maybe he will chime in).

He's killed a few hundred head of African game and one time over he shot the 145 LRX against a 300 Win Mag loaded with 200 gr Partitions. Says the 145 LRX from a 7RM penetrated just as far,did as much damage and killed about as well as the 200 gr Partition.

Kind of surprised me too but that was the report.....


Point being that construction trumps weight, and that tired old bromide called "SD", which means essentially "nothing".

I think I know who you mean, Bob

An expanded bullet has a sectional density too.

That's really what it comes down to. That, and knowing the conditions you're most likely going to encounter. There isn't one of these bullets that may not leave you feeling that you might have chosen better once in awhile. (IOW, there isn't a bullet that is 100% one-hundred percent of the time.) But any of them will put the onus squarely on it's user. And if you end up with a big green, gooey stinking mess on your hands, or a protracted follow-up of some sort, more than likely you'll either be kicking yourself for taking a shot when you shouldn't have, or you will be wishing you placed the previous shot better to start with.

Yeah.....but it might be in a constant state of disrepair.

160 Accubond

Load data from Barnes says 55.0 is max, I'm at 55.5 with great accuracy. At 56.0 accuracy dropped off. Barrel just doesn't shoot Barnes bullets fast I guess...

Harmonics. If you feel like fooling with it add a pressure point in the forearm. Gradually increase pressure and watch the results. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it hurts. I think it's one of the easiest ways to fool with harmonics without hanging a weight on the muzzle.

At 600 yards (600 even according to the RX1200 TBR) into a dirt/gravel hillside average diameter doubled to about .57" (all between .54 and .61) and retained weight was between 125-130 for 3 of the bullets and 143.7 for one. Bit of a windy afternoon at 84xx feet but was good practice. Did see a deer at 615 I took a look at, far enough to know I don't want to shoot at one that far with a 6x scope.

Smart man. That wouldn't be my scope of choice for that distance either..

Taco280AI: Use the wonderful Nosler 140 grain Partitions, and don't look back!
I have killed all manner of game with this bullet out of my 25" barreled custom 280 Remington - VERY accurate, VERY lethal and VERY reliable - end of conversation.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Hi Taco,

I'm assuming that you're talking .284 caliber.

I'd go with AccuBond.

I used 160 grain Partitions in my 7MM Rem Mag for elk. Partitions used to be the gold standard elk bullet. In my opinion, they still are. They will kill the largest elk that has ever lived as long as it destroys oxygenating blood pumping equipment.

I did a lot of listening on my last elk trip. They guides in camp weren't fond of all-copper bullets. They called 'em pencil hole makers. I have no idea how accurate their assessments were.

I'm a lead dude.

Since you've mentioned deer and elk, I'm assuming you want one bullet for both, which is a wise idea. However, if you're not killing elk, I'd go with Sierra GameKings for mule deer. They work as advertised at a lot less $$$.

Best of luck to you, Taco.

I could easily go along with VarmintGuy's recommendation. A well constructed bullet that won't fall to pieces (Patsy Cline) were it to hit bone on its way to decommissioning the right parts for sustaining life oughta cause you to reconsider elk hunting. They are HUGE animals to move. Once a herd bull is dead, there's some (a whole lot) serious work to be done.

That's some nice shooting.

Elk don't have targets stapled to their sides and don't care what you hit them with. They're not bullet proof, but if the first one does not anchor them, they can sure act like it. Practical shooting skill is more important than all the measurements we do. ( But it sure is fun to do them.) I've made one shot kills on elk with "cheap" bullets and I've had them take every round my rifle had using "premium" bullets. My closest kill was 12 yards, my farthest 250.

According to Idaho F&G, game meat can sour if the animal is not gutted within 30 minutes of the kill. I interpret this to mean I am not going to shoot beyond what I can quickly anchor and retrieve. That bull in our spotting scope looks close, but there are usually an awful lot of tangles in between you and where you last saw the animal.

There is no info about the freebore of the loads in the pictures,so it's hard to judge much. My rifles will shoot cloverleafs at 100 all day from the bench if I jam the bullet in the lands, but it's no fun sticking a bullet in the throat and dumping powder all in your action while standing at the corner of No and Where. Where there are elk there are bears and cats. I load .010" off the lands and every round gets cycled through the action before it goes in my hunting gear.

As to which of those loads is best? The one you can consistently put in a paper plate at 200 yards from every shooting position.

And shows that a lot of the minutia differentiating bullet weights and caliber "differences" over which we all often argue is often quite meaningless. Fun though.

Spoilsport! You post like you know what you are talking about and you make so much sense it risks deflating the sci fi speculation.