Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles 7mm Nosler 160 accubond....is it tough.?

Loaded this at 3030 speed for a buddies single shot 708. He reported a blow up on Entry with a rib bone on a deer on a close up shot. I wonder if he hit a twig on the way or something. I tried to gather internet stories and find some that seemed to make it sound a little fragile and some that seemed to make it sound tough....what's your experience?

This a real post,or are you just jerking people off?

First off 3030 fps from a 7/08 with a 160 AB is a pipe dream. Second....I think your buddy is FOS.

Accubonds work well at 3500-3600 from my experience.


Hot 7-08

Maybe 3030 speed means speed achieved by a typical 30-30 Win. load.

If that's true, English would be helpful.....cant be expected to interpret around here to get things straight. Leaving out the dash is not helpful. Besides what is "3030 speed"? 2200-2300 fps? 1900 fps? Who can tell?

Why not simply state "I loaded the 160 AB in the 7/08 to 2200 fps...."

Geezus.

If that is what it meant, then his friend is even more FOS.

Simmer down Bob. You sound like I used to when I graded freshman algebra papers.

What are the twists, any chance that it was so slow it tumbled?

kraky,

Your buddy's story reminds me of a conversation I had with a guy from Pennsylvania many years ago. He told me the .308 Winchester was a POS deer cartridge, because he'd shot two bucks, each in the heart, with a .308 and never found either deer.

Yep... started at 2330 FPS. This was a finishing shot on a wounded deer tracked for 2 hours. Sorry I tortured you guys with my description but I figured the first thing out of the box would be why you starting em so slow. I have to load this gun very mild or the case will come back at ignition and push on the frame and the gun does terrible vertical stringing. It's very accurate all the way to 200 yards so I don't think there's any tumbling going on. I know it's an example of one but I was told there was a 2 inch entry wound and no exit. I liked the idea of the accubond because of the High bc I figured it would actually be pretty good out to 300 yards. Now I am thinking any Hornady interlock would be a better choice.
Just curious what users or people with first-hand knowledge of this bullet are seeing. Many years ago I loaded the 160 ab for another buddy at 2750 mv and he reported a monstrous wound channel on the one deer that he shot... didn't really care for the bullet...so those are my 2 reports.

I'd load a softer bullet for that velocity, a Speer boat tail for example.

In the spirit of attempting to answer the original question...."are the 7mm 160 accubond's tough", they definitely are IMO. I've shot over 30 head of African plains game with them started 3050' at the muzzle with impacts out to 150 yards or so. Intentionally shot through shoulders in game up through zebra and blue wildebeest. Great bullet IMO.

I haven't a clue why your buddy wants a high BC bullet started out at 2300' though. The 140 AB/7-08 load is a fantastic combo at 2800'.

Hmmm...great info...has me wondering if possibly there are early and later (improved) versions of the bullet. The high bc was my idea hoping to keep the marginal start speed higher down range.
Again...this is a single shot break open rifle that needs to operate at 3030 pressure/speed to Be accurate.

tell him to use a partition

kraky,

There is one other, very remote possibility. At one point a year or so after the AccuBonds were introduced and immediately became VERY popular, one of the Nosler emloyees decided to speed up his place on the assembly line, to "help" fill the large number of orders. But that resulted in soft and unbonded bullets. Nosler, like all bullet companies, is constantly monitoring production, so the mistake was quickly caught and corrected. But some did make it out the door, and a few even made it into the hands of shooters. They often came apart as soon as they hit game. One of the symptoms of those bullets was some of the tips fell out, often several in a box. But that was around 10 years ago, and I haven't heard of any showing up for a long while.

Thanks to all.... I've never been a fan of plastic tip bullets Whenever there is a chance for twigs or even grass between a shooter and an animal..... and that is so typical of our Wisconsin deer hunting.... not sure what the culprit is here but I think I'm going to start doing some testing with 139 interlocks and some 154 Hornady round nose I still have a in a stash.....

You must have seen my post...

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbth...My_Daughter_the_Deer_Slayer#Post11623830

Now that's what I'm looking for...lol.
Great Post!
Here's a pic of our single shot fun gun...20" barrel...cost $275 brand new and our 160 load would put ten shots into a folded dollar bill at 200 yards but I think it's time to move back to lead tip bullets. This little bugger is like carrying a BB gun around.

My wife got her moose using 150gr ballistic tip no recovered bullet..

http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/11616013

I killed a 200 pound whitetail buck this year with a 180 AccuBond from a 300WSM at 40 Yards. Bullet hit the shoulder blew a section of three ribs away left a hole in the ribcage I could put most of a fist through and didn't exit.These were the bullets SPS had on sale earlier this year with the orange tips. Deer ran about 30 yards and died.While I was surprised it didn't exit it sure didn't fail IMO I dont remember what the velocity of the load was off hand but it is a max charge of IMR4831.

kraky,

I have seen "twigs and grass" deflect a number of soft-point bullets. Have also seen it happen to plastic-tips, but don't think there's any pattern there except for hitting stuff.

Mule deer.... I sure I understand the deflection thing.... but my "imagination" tells me a plastic tip sitting over a pretty massive fragile hollow point nicking almost anything could start expansion right then and there. Slow mo vids of Barnes Bullets sure make it look like it happens immediately on ballistic gel which is pretty soft.... and I envision Barnes tips as probably being tougher than it is on plastic tip jacketed bullets.
Of course this is all guessing on my part it would be interesting to see if there's any slow mo vids out there by the manufacturers testing this.... I'm going to add another guess that they very well might be and they wouldn't want us to see what happens...lol. for sure would be pretty easy to test.

I've put a few 160 AB's through elk shoulders out of a STW. So no, it's not soft by any means.

Can you believe it, this guy run almost 50 yards instead of DRT after being shot from about 40 yards out of 7mm RM. Must the factory load I was using last month. So no, 160gr AccuBond is definitelly not tough.

kraky,

Expansion starts with MOST expanding bullets the instant the bullet hits an animal's skin. It doesn't matter whether the bullet is plastic-tipped, softpoint or hollow-point--if the bullet's going to open up at all it starts on impact, and is usually fully expanded by the time it penetrates its own length.

The exception is a few "target" type bullets like the Berger VLD, with a long "hollow point" tip that's actually completely or nearly closed, with some air-space between the tip and the lead core. These normally puncture the skin without expanding, then as they penetrate a couple inches the thin, air-filled tip of the jacket collapses rather than "mushrooms," and the bullet expands.

Why would the plastic tips on Barnes bullets be "tougher" than on jacketed bullets?

I use a 160 accubond at 3000fps for everything from small TX deer-elk-Kudu etc. Never an issue.

I've never doubted expansion begins immediately upon hitting an animal with most bullets. what I do wonder about is the differences in reaction on a plastic tip thin jacketed bullet with a hollow point when it hit's a tiny twig or a few Blades of grass BEFORE hitting the animal.
Of course there wouldn't be any difference in the quality probably of a plastic tip between a ballistic tip an accubond or a TTSX.... but I do think there are huge differences in the depth and width and makeup of the hollow point itself. somehow I think a lead filled hollow point...ie cup n core ....could be much better than air filled hollow point under a plastic tip.
And quite possibly the good old round nose bullet of 25 years ago could be better than all of them...hitting tiny amounts of trash on its way to the animal.
I guess the easiest way to summarize what I'm trying to say is if a worker at the Nosler Factory was installing tips incorrectly on bullets and it turned them into fragile blow up on impact projectiles couldn't a piece of twig or grass do the same thing?

IMO you are overthinking the bullet capability. Hitting a twig, grass, or whatever would most likely deflect the bullet in some degree.

My suggestion is: make a clean shot without hitting anything. Placement is more important than comparing bullet to bullet. Just about any 160gr bullet will be a clean kill with a proper placement.

If you cant take a clean shot, DONT SHOOT!

SH.... of course I understand what you're saying. In our area of Northern Wisconsin there's kind of like two different kinds of hunting. There's the guys with private land who can cut out shooting lanes and spend time all fall baiting deer or setting up food plots. They basically pre-plan the shot.
then there's the rest of us like me who go hunt public land.
I should probably admit I'm getting too old to be stalking and driving through some of this stuff there are plenty of areas where you wont see a deer 25 yards away the crap is so thick.... and guess where you see all of last night's Deer beds.....lol!
That's a beautiful elk by the way!

Would think it plenty tough, have been considering it for an all game bullet for my Montana 280 AI, will be looking for accuracy at 3K.

kraky,

Yes, you are over-thinking the "deflectibility" of plastic-tipped bullets. I have seen a 250-grain Nosler Partition from a .338 Winchester Magnum (muzzle velocity 2650 fps) deflect so completely on a tiny twig, at most the diamater of a soda-straw, that it tipped completely sideways before hitting an eland. And not only was there a perfect silhouette of the bullet through the hide, but the twig had been so close to the eland at the shot that swirls were visible in the very short hair from the twig's branches being slapped against the eland by the bullet.

That was a soft-nosed spitzer, but Craig Boddington also had a big round-nosed solid (as I remember a 500-grain .470) deflected by a twig the size of his finger. He'd aimed at a Cape buffalo's shoulder at typical very close range while hunting in thick thornbush, and at the shot the bull collapsed, dead. But the bullet had not hit the shoulder. Instead it hit the neck, sideways, a matter of at least three feet of deflection across a few yards, and happened to break the spine.

If you want to run some tests, trying to prove your hypothesis that plastic-tipped bullets will deflect more when hitting something in front of an animal, I would suggest also shooting some heavy softpoints and even blunt-nosed solids. But based on far more examples than the two above, I suspect the results won't confirm your hypothesis.

I haven't made myself very clear I'm not talking about bullet deflection I'm talking about the bullet being damaged in a way that compromises its toughness when it does get to the animal.
Re deflection..... years ago two buddies of mine got in an argument about the best brush busting bullet one guy said his 243 would do everything the other guys Muzzleloader did.
They set up a large piece of cardboard with a big orange circle behind some brush and leta number of rounds go from each gun.... the bottom line from their hillbilly experiment was that the 243 made it to the cardboard just as well as the muzzleloader bullet... I never did ask them if there were sideways bullet holes or not but the actual experiment was to see if they would even make it there...

You're right, you didn't explain it very clearly. But why would being deflected change a bullet's "toughness"?

I ran basically the same test many years ago with a .243 Winchester with 105-grain Speer spitzers and a .358 Winchester with 250-grain Hornady roundnoses. The .243 actually did somewhat better, I would guess because the smaller diameter result in hitting fewer twigs.

Because I "imagine" the tip pushing down into the hollow point cavity and starting expansion....just from nipping a twig...or grass. AND I also imagine it wouldn't have to be a symmetrical expansion of the tip... I think crazy things can happen at high speed and I can even imagine one side of the hollow point cavity somewhat tearing away while the other side stays there...a total compromise from tip to near ogive.
Then when it hits the animal things really go bad.

Interesting result...120 bt slow speed water jug test....
and I'm guessing this didn't hit anything on its way...

https://forum.nosler.com/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=33882

Kracky,

You are over obsession over the plastic tip.

The whole point of the plastic tip was to create a bullet tip that deformed LESS in the magazine due to recoil.

The purpose of the exposed lead on a spiral tip bullet is to initiate expansion, same as the plastic tip, and even a "tough" spiral point can exhibit violent initial expansion. One of the worse messes I've even seen was from a 270 Win, factory loaded 130gr Nosler Partition. It was about a 40 shoulder shot, but the kid did get his first antelope with one DRT shot.

As for the 160gr NAB, in the 7 STW it's my go to bullet. I've killed critters with it from 25 to 1000 yards. At the long side of those ranges the game looks like it was hit with a 30-30.

On one very up close shot, about 50 yards raking shot just behind the shoulder, with the impact velocity over 3400, it left a hole I could drop a grape fruit in with out touching the side of the entrance hole.

I found it in just under the skin of the opposite quarter.

[img:center][/img]

My opinion I'm not sure anything the happy accubond users can say to make you comfortable with the accubond and it's plastic tip.

Too many other things to worry about that going into a hunt than worries about a bullet you are not 100% comfortable with.

There are simply to many quality bullets out there to lose sleep over one. Grab one you have comfort in and going hunting.

Have a good one.

KInd of old pics, but the old 30-30, firing 170 Core-lokts, planted the shots in the cardboard in various states of expansion and orientation. Twigs were struck around 6-8 feet in front of the target.

Excellent test Klik...

Thanks to all who responded.

I'm probably full of $#!t but I think the idea of a brush bullet is an urban myth. Don't see lead tip vs plastic making a difference.

Hello MD,

After reading this, I have a question: An Accubond not bonded is not a Ballistic Tip..? If it is, a 160 grs one at 2600/2700 fps muzzle velocity (7-08 and/or 7x57) should work very well!!!
Thank you!

PH

Ran some of this past one of the "local experts" at the gun shop. he said he had read some test results a while back that indicated the slower twist bullets like those out of a 45 70 are actually the worse. he indicated a faster twist bullet is more likely to stay on line better than the big slow bullets most people think would be better.....kinda makes sense.

Sometime ago, one of the gunrags published a test comparing the performance of various bullets when shooting through wooden dowels. In this test the best performing bullets where big, high velocity bullets such those fired from a .338 Win Mag.

It the dowel impact was more than 2 feet in front of the target, it didn't matter what you used, due to deflection, you missed.

An Accubond that fails to bond is actually worse then a Ballistic tip. Part of the bonding process included the application of a flux between the core and jacket. When the bonding fails the flux creates corrosion bubbles between the jacket and core. If the bullets are let set for awhile, you will actually be able to see it where the lead meets the plastic tip. In addition to rapid separation of the core and jacket, it also causes terrible accuracy producing 6 to 12 inch groups at 100 yards. Yes, once upon a time I had some of there, might still have a few in the reloading room, but I still use Accbonds because Nosler fixed the problem.

Another problem: Most bonded big game bullets are created by heating, to slightly melt the cores and solder them to the jackets. But the heat also anneals the copper-alloy jacket, making it softer. As a result the defective AccuBonds were essentially much softer Ballistic Tips.

The number of faulty bullets was incredibly tiny compared to the total number of bullets produced, and the percentage that actually made into shooters hands was smaller yet. In fact I've never even seen any, despite having been shooting AccuBonds both before and after the incident, and none of several dozen companions shooting Accubonds when we hunted together had any problems.

I`ve killed exactly two deer with the 7mm accubond, one a bit over 200 and the other at 375. Both bullets wrer unrecovered, but left nice entry and exit holes. IME neither showed signs of blow-up.
Also used .25,.30, and 8mm cals on deer and the 8, on African game, with very good results.

Thank you MD and Antelope Sniper!

I have some (around 20) Accubond .30 180 grs, a friend gave me. Half of the bullets came with the white tips loose around in the bullet box.
I will use all in the rifle range, just in case.

PH

From the Nosler forum Bullet tests:





https://forum.nosler.com/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=16492

The ugliest deer I ever shot was a 130 AB in 270 @ 100 yds. Quartering away and hit him behind the shoulder. Entrance hole I could put my fist in and exit in brisket I could put 2 fists in. More destructive than any ballistic tip I've ever used. Since this world is full of good bullets I put AB's on the back burner and still consider them on my schzit list. IME the Accubomb monacher is well deserved.

Mule Deer we are pretty dumb here in PA but some of us here know that is highly unlikely (unless of course the moron never followed up his shot??!)

PennDog

No, the moron never hit either deer in the heart--or possibly any place else.

Actually MD I have seen far too many deer unrecovered here in PA because the shooter felt the deer wasn't hit - because it ran off (out of sight - which happens quickly in wooded areas of PA) only to have someone else (I've found at least a dozen in my hunting career) find it mortally wounded with a heart/lung shot....it is a shame how uneducated some are.

Although the guy that actually thinks he hit the deer in the heart AND thinks the cartridge is to blame is of bird of a whole different color (neither one has anything to be proud of)!

PennDog

only bullet I use in my 7MM mag, Along with Retumbo,
or Norma powder. Accubond also works good in my 270 Winchester.