Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game What compares to the Bitterroot Bonded bullets?

It seems that everyone who has ever used a Bitterroot Bonded bullet sings its high praise for all but the very largest game.

Since they are not available, what compares to them in current production?

Woodleighs

Woodleighs even look somewhat like them.
Hornady Interbonds and Swift Scirrocos perform similar too.

Jorge1 beat me to the post.
I think he's right, and woodleighs are known for accuracy where the old Bitterroot bullets could be hot or cold in their accuracy.

Swift Aframe and Northfork. But keep in mind neither are built exactly like a BBC. But...both bullets were developed to fill the market void created by the BBC/ Just different construction techniques.

The Swift SS II looks pretty good too based on what Ive seen friends do with them recently

BTW the BBC do work on Cape Buffalo and brown bear as well. Clients of Steigers used the 335 gr 416's from the 416 Rigby loaded to 2700 fps and knocked over buffalo like bowling pins.

Lots of Steigers clients have used the BBC on the heaviest stuff in NA and Africa.

One departed acquaintance from Boise used the 250 gr 375 BBC from the 375 AI to kill 6 buff in Africa. He said they knocked the snot out of them, loaded to over 3100 fps..


Here's a Swift SS II 150 7mm from a 6x6 bull elk at 460 yards this year. DRT as the saying goes.

I have to admit it looks as much like a BBC as I've seen.

Bob, I'm not sure about North Forks, but A-Frames don't expand as wide as a Bitterroot unless the impact is very high. When this happens the rear collapses and you end up with a ball shaped slug.

And they'll do that every time.

Ben that was Steigers opinion which I know is heresay but you'll have to trust me...

He told me that repeatedly before he passed away. I used to speak with Bill at least weekly for a decade or more.

Yes I know the Swift Aframe behaves a bit differently but then again, construction is different. The Aframe has a partition; the BBC does not.The AF has a bonded front core but the rear core slides forward and under heavy stress can bulge the jacket behind the partition.

The BBC is really a C&C with a pure lead core and a very thick heavy pure copper jacket, bonded to the core. It gets its performance as much from the materials as the construction .

I spoke with Mike Brady at Northfork and know he was a BBC/Steigers fan,and tried to emulate BBC performance in the NF. He even said as much in an article he did for safari Magazine IIRC.


Really the only bullet that was built precisely like the BBC was the Grizzly,as built by Joe Abrams. Short lived and scarce. Bill Steigers taught Joe to make bullets and they were just like BBC's. I have no idea what happened to Joe or the company.

Biggest accuracy issues i saw with the BBC was that people used loads that were too light. The heavy base needed a good kick in the butt to obturate into the lands,so loads close to max tended to shoot better it seemed. In any event I never had any accuracy issues with them.


Reloader good to know on the Swift SS. I have taken them on a few hunts but had bum luck finding anything I wanted to shoot....except coyotes.

In my small experience the Woodleighs seem to be about the closest I've seen in expansion but I haven't seen ANYTHING from tests nor animals that show that wide, flat expanded front end. Northforks expand pretty wide but in a more traditional mushroom.. The BBCs will look like a mushroom when they are driven really hard but it seems as speed drops off you get a bullet that resembles a propeller, but fittingly it looks like a propeller if you are lucky enough to dig through a few of its victims.

They are very good bullets. Not saying they are the best but I won't pass up a chance to buy them, ever.

Matter of fact I'm having a new 7mm built since I've got 200 of the 175's... that many bullets should keep my hunting for quite awhile as I only shoot 1-3 a year at best.

Here is a cow elk I took this year with the MSM and 175 BBC





It was under the far side skin beyond the hole pictured above.

Rough measurement in camp



It lost a little bit of weight....



Here is a 160 at 3200 into the water jugs.

Here is a 338 225 BBC at 2900 into the water jugs.








So, if anybody has any BBC's they want to get rid of, I'll take em!

I agree with Bob.... BBC worked on the biggest animals too. My father was a close friend and hunting buddy of Bitterroot Billy. He took this bear with a .338 Win. Mag. using 250 gr. BBC. The bullet pictured was one recovered from the bear and weighed over 247 gr. The expanded bullet will cover a quarter.

I enjoyed talking with Bill, and we talked for hours about bullets, fine rifles, and hunting trips that he and my father went on.







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DakotaDeer,

In my experience Woodleighs and Norma Oryxes work more like Bitterroots than do North Forks or A-Frames.

North Forks have a relatively long solid shank, and consequently most models don't expand as widely as Bitterroots--though that can vary depending on the length of the solid shank. Mike Brady told me that in his tests, bonding the little bit of lead in the front end didn't make any difference in penetration or expansion. But so many shooters believe in the magic of bonding that he decided to go ahead and make them happy.

A-Frames do expand widely but the unbonded rear end can expand quite a bit if they hit bone, or even don't hit bone if impact velocity is high enough.

I've gotten pretty good accuracy out of Oryxes, but they're made in relatively few diameters and weights compared to some other bullets.

We must gave spoken to Mike Brady on different days.

Im sure if Bill thought the Oryx or Woodleigh were close to a BBC he'd have said so. I doubt anyone knew Bitterroots as well as Bill did.


One thing that people miss and never mention when it comes to the Bitterroot spinoffs like the TBBC, the NF, and the Swift Aflame is that those bullets had to go to a solid shank or some other means of reinforcement to make them perform even close to the Bitterroot in terms of integrity.

When Jack Carter was unable to convince Bill to go full scale commercial production with the Bitterroot, he started making the TBBC on his own. But the first bullets he tried to make were a bonded C&C that pancaked and did not come close to BBC performance.(I had these in 7mm,30,and 375 caliber).

I'll edit and withdraw some of my previous post. After looking at the website, Woodleigh does not recommend impact velocities in excess of 3000 fps; far less than what a BBC can withstand with a very good chance of retaining in excess of 90% o its weight.


The Oryx seems to be similar in construction to a BBC but the jackets look thinner.

I say all this because the BBC forte was the ability to be driven at very high velocity and still give outstanding performance, weight retention, and penetration. I am talking 3400-3600 fps.

I kew one of Steigers clients who guided on the Peninsula for 25 years but lived on the Clearwater. he was the first Nightforce scope user I ever spoke with. He used to shoot elk cross the wide canyons of the Clearwater with a 30 inch barreled 300 RUM loaded with a 165 BBC. His longest kill was about 800 yards.

It was routine for tigers clients to drive 130 and 140 gr BBC's from 270 Weatherby's and various 7 mags at 330-3400 fps. Even on elk sized game,they would do their job and were vicious killers. I kill quite a few animals with 140 gr BBC's driven at 3250-3300 fps from the 7 Rem Mag,

My point is I don't know whether these current modern day BBC clones are capable of surviving close range impact at those velocities.

Apparently Woodleigh is not since they advise against impact velocities of over 3000 fps. They seem more like a bullet for standard cases and velocities whereas the BBC was designed for magnum velocities.





Cliff: Yes Steigers clients took the BBC all over the world and shot all kinds of heavy game with them from high velocity rifles. There were good reasons the things traded like opium among people who knew them and used them extensively.

250 BBC from Admiralty Island brown bear.Like Cliff's about 249 gr retained weight and IIRC expanded diameter of .70-,75".

Two others blew through and left large exits.

I wonder if the bitterroots jagged edges help it penetrate (cut deeper), versus the "ball" that you get out of the scirocco?

Every scirocco I ever recovered was picture perfect, but they didnt seem to penetrate all that well..I have 5 S2's from one moose..Wasnt real impressed.

I just put two and two together, not that it has anything to do with this thread..But it turns out I knew Bill as the bullet maker from Lewiston when I was younger. My grandpa is from Lewiston..Its a small town.

rosco you were closer to Steigers than you knew I guess....

SS II's are a new deal to me like some of these other bonded bullets so Im not sure I can answer. I have always had so many BBC's that I never had much need to try other stuff extensively.


The same friend who shot the bull at 460 also killed a cow at about 175 yards with another 150 SS II. I have the pics somewhere but it raked a long ways and exited(!)

Scotty Beretz was there to see the whole thing. As you know they had to toughen up the SS II because the first version would pancake at very high velocity.

I think maybe what happens is that under high impact stress, instead of shearing off, the petals fold back along the shank to create a smaller frontal area and deeper penetration. But I don't know...something to consider is that recovered 150 SS II was started at once 2970 fps. How it would have done at 3100-3200 fps I can't say.

I can say that you will recover more BBC's from a 7 mag with 140's than with 130's from a 270, especially as distance increases. The higher velocity and faster rotation of the 140 7mm causes it to make that big frontal area which catches on the off side hide.

One of my hunting buds still shoots the 150s in 7mm, and likes them. I've been on a few of his kills and they seem to perform pretty good,but he did recover 2 of them from his desert sheep, after a considerable rodeo..Shrug

There was the moose episode, but the final decision was when a broadside pronghorn stopped a 180gr out of a 300 RUM from around 100 yards. picture perfect mushroom, but..

I also could never push them as fast as other bullets of the same weight, tho not very scientific, i just called them "sticky" in the bore.

However, they were very accurate and easy to make shoot.

Cliff that is quite a stash of BBC's! But really no worse than the way we all lay in piles of other more common bullets I guess.

Any 338's in there? I used to have 35's and 338's myself but as I narrowed my medium bore activities I sold them off and just kept my 375 stash.

When I stopped using 300 magnums a few years ago I sold off the 180 gr 30's(about 500) as well. Really a 165 BBC from a 300 Winchester or H&H at 3100-3300 fps is a bomb and turns elk to rubber with chest hits, so the 180's were superfluous; and a 165 gr is a better choice than a 180 for a 30/06.

I have a few myself. You are the only other person I know with a collection like that.

Bob, Yes there are .338's and just about everything else that Bill churned out.

Should I trust these on "Big Game"? Some of these posts have me concerned that I might be under projectiled.

With those I wouldn't worry about anything....anywhere.


The reports I got from Bill and some Boise folks I know were that those things from a Rigby just crumpled Cape Buffalo.

Man, you two give me the vapors with all of those danged BBC's.

Someone might've mentioned how well they killed to me (ahem Bob) and I'll be danged if I didn't have my two quickest elk kills to date with them.

So again, I know you all are stocked up but if you ever hear of others for sale please PM me... they are worth the money.

Whitebird, those 335 grain .416's are wicked. They HAVE to cut a unreal channel!

Scotty I will keep you posted.

You have a bunch of 130 7mm's I think. Didn't some guy over on Nosler destroy his bullet recovery box with a 130 from a 7mm WSM ?


One thing that does not come through in these threads about Bitterroots is that they were, for the times, singular,and designed to withstand velocities much higher than the standard cases provide....and even the magnums in some instances.

Oh...they would "work" in standard case if you picked a 130- for the 270 or a 165 for the 30/06. But both those bullets would work even better at 3200-3400 fps from a magnum case.

Basically they were more like a Barnes in that they were unique;you could throw out all the rules you thought you knew about expansion and penetration from standard bullets not designed to withstand high velocity impact.They could withstand as much velocity and twist as you could give them.

It's good to keep this in mind when deciding what bullets will and won't work under those circumstances when evaluating what is their equivalent today.

The Kodiak from Alaska Bullet works is really close. It has an alloy jacket instead of pure copper but it is bonded and annealed to make it stay together like copper.

Some people claim they were really inaccurate but this hasn't been the case for me. Initially when they were having a hard time keeping up with demand they would mix different lots of bullets off different dies. Now they don't do this and it has improved uniformity and accuracy.

Next would be Woodleighs but they open up even more than the Bitter Root and Kodiak.

I wanted to buy the rights to Bitter Root but Bill Steigers talked me out of it. He said you would be paying a whole lot of money to be making minimum wage.

Tejano ,making BBC's was labor intensive. They were virtually handmade.

Lots of people wanted to buy Bitterroot from Bill, including a major bullet manufacturer.

He did not do it because most of these buyers wanted to move to mass manufacturing techniques and at the time this meant moving to gilding metal jackets and alloy cores to facilitate mass manufacture, both of which were inferior to materials Steigers used and would have compromised the bullets performance.

I know this because Bill told me all about it as his negotiations progressed.

Don't want to get into the details but this is precisely what happened to the TBBC when Carter sold to Federal...the quality of the bullet went downhill.

I have the Alaskan here and have shot some. Never killed anything with them. I would say that if a manufacturer recommend their bullets not be pushed over 3000 fps impact velocity, they are not in the same class as a BBC.



Tejano have you used them much?

Bob,

Yeah, I would guess we spoke to Mike Brady on different days, because I basically spent an entire day with him in the Glenrock shop and didn't meet you there! :-)

I was interviewing Mike for a magazine article, and he specifically mentioned not finding any difference in performance due to bonding while showing me his bullet-testing set-up. It didn't seem odd to me that he went ahead and bonded the cores anyway, partly because I've also talked to several custom rifle and barrel makers who provide a "break-in" procedure to their clients who firmly believe it's required, even though the gunsmiths and barrel makers don't.

But I also called Mike later, while starting the article, to reconfirm some of my notes, and he repeated his statement, so I mentioned it in the article. After article appeared he thanked me for it, and did not "correct" the statement. So that makes three confirmations. Don't know for sure why he told me and not customers, but he sold North Fork not long after my article appeared, as I recollect not more than a year. Maybe he just wanted to get it off his chest.

My opinion on Oryxes being similar to BBC's is based on several factors. Obviously all the bullets discussed here differ somewhat in construction, but I mostly based it on the results I've seen when testing Oryxes in three ways: in softer media, in harder media, and on animals. Those I've recovered from all three look more similar to BBC's than do A-Frames or North Forks (including the BBC's shown here), with a shorter shank than North Forks, and an unexpanded shank, unlike many A-Frames.

Yes, Oryxes have thinner jackets than BBC's, but Oryx jackets are gilding metal, which is stronger than pure copper, so doesn't need to be as thick to keep the shank intact. The disadvantage is it's more brittle, so sometimes Oryxes lose parts of the mushroom, but they still expand very widely and knock the snot out of animals. They also hold up very well to high velocity.

I have seen the Oryxs and Alaska Bullet Works in a couple of animals and some water jugs and both of them "wad" up pretty good when pushed hard but as a couple others mentioned the look pretty good. I don't think either are in the same league as the BBC for overall integrity though. Run either of those into dirt/shale and they'll get chewed up pretty good.

The BBC in dirt or shale didn't seem too much different than water jugs or animals.

The Northforks and A-Frame seem like kissing cousins in my book.

Both ran out of the gun within 50FPS of one another. Both retained about the same amount of weight and were just about the same expanded front end.

Northfork






Swift



Those are 140's out of my 7mm WSM.

I've been shooting the 140 BBCs out of my 7mm WSM as well at around 3250 and those little suckers penetrate a little less but expansion is usually about a .7

I've also got a pile of 132's. I plan on trying those out of my 280.

Whitebird, that pick of your Dad and his 338 is exactly why my 338 Alaskan with 225 BBCs will go to Alaska when the time is right. I dig that picture everytime I see it! Thank you

Has anyone used the Hornady Interbond? I know that JJHack was touting it awhile back.

I shot one deer with it (243 85grain), and it did a nice job straight through. It exited so no recovery.

The cutaways of the Interbond show a distinct shoulder in the jacket that should cause that wide/flat frontend mushroom to stay intact.

Yes all this came to light as I talked to Steigers. It was obvious that his attention to detail was why they were so good. Without the man behind the bullet it would be easy to try to take short cuts and then lose the quality. We talked for almost an hour but that minimum wage remark was the clincher. I was all set to work with him for a week before hand but decided not to as it would easily become something other than a labor of love like it was for Stiegers.

Kodiaks are velocity rated like the Woodlieghs. For the 375 some are for the Winchester and 38/55 and others for the H&H and Weatherby. You can even specify the jacket thickness you want if you by 500 or more. I have had no problem pushing them to right at 3000 fps before.

I have only used them on Deer and Hogs as I never had them on me when I successfully hunted Elk. Performance is impressive no mistake when a good hit is made. There is usually a distinct Whap sound and the animal goes down hard. When I have been close enough to watch the hit I can see what looks like shock waves radiating out from the point of impact. The animals look like the took one on the jaw from Mike Tyson when he was really PO'd.

I've seen some pictures of the Interbond from a few friends animals and they looked great. Very wide and flat. Might have to try them again in the future. I had great luck with some and others I couldn't do much with. The 130 Interbonds were wicked out of my 270 WSM. They stopped deer quick with rib shots but I never recovered a bullet.

The Interbonds have performed well for me on several deer. They usually retain more weight than an Accubond because they are fully bonded where the Accubond is only bonded for half or two thirds of the core.

What they look like afterwards I have no idea as both have always exited. They are not the super expanders these other bullets are but they expand plenty enough.

Tejano: That's interesting. You're the first person I have talked to who actually thought about taking a swing at Bitterroot as a business.

Bill was incredibly anal and what I found with him was you could tell him....but you couldn't tell him much.

When it came to those bullet he knew exactly what he was talking about . he would make you completely realign what you thought you knew about bullets and terminal performance. It was quite a sleigh ride.

But I will say this....if you did as he said....."A B C",you would get the results he promised. You saw VERY few runners with those bullets.

Amen to that!

He would tie you on the phone for hours but man, I never learned so much.

Oh he was encyclopedic. he knew an awful lot and if you just listened he taught a great deal about rifles, hand loading ,terminal ballistics etc.


Every package of Bitterroots came with instructions for loading to at least a specified level of velocity and a minimum twist rate. Of course you could load to greater velocity(no upper limit) and faster twist without concern.This would give desired results. I recall some folks tried to substitute their "judgement" for his and it did not work well.

Notice he recommends a lighter BBC if your rifle can't meet those thresholds. Bitterroot shooters were not too big on "efficient" cartridges....they wanted speed,which,along with fast twist is what made the bullets "work".

Then, as now but for different reason, many BBC shooters ordered special barrels with faster than normal twists and they were invariably cut rifle tubes. Steigers was not too much of a fan of button barrels.

Yes he was an icon. He developed much of the Speer reloading manual data in the by guess and by golly era and his loads were right on for the most part. He also advocated getting barrels a thousandth or two over size to maximize velocity with the BBC in addition to the faster twist. Both maximized terminal performance.

I just wonder if I had pursued it as a business if I could have made a go of it and kept to Stiegers high standards? A pretty tall order.

I remember talking with Jack Carter about the Trophy Bonded Bear Claw and he was of the same ilk. And the standards did drop once they were commercialized though still a good product.

Both of these gentlemen have brought about the plethora of good bullets we have available today thanks to their pioneering efforts. Thanks and amen to old curmudgeons that had a goal and impeccable standards and stuck to them.

Tejano you're spot on about the oversized barrels. I had several in calibers 270, 7mm,30,and 375; and all of them were faster than "normal" twists. i still have a 1/10 375 Krieger. friends had so many other oversized barrels I sort of lost count.

The first few were a revelation of sorts and you quickly learned that they took heavier charges than "normal" barrels but were also non temperamental and easy to work with.

Along the way we also discovered more or less by accident that a good many pre 64 M70 barrels were oversized. I had a 375 M70 I bought from Champlin Arms that Bill Rhiny (sp) measured at .378 through the grooves. Bill Steigers told me that was pretty normal to bump into this. I sometimes wonder if some of this was intentional on the part of Winc hester.

Bill's theory was that a bullet in an oversized barrel encountered less resistance to passage down the bore than in a tight barrel; and that faster twist helped facilitate expansion of his bullets which had very thick, tough jackets. He also felt the SS machined smoother than CM so tended to use that. But he also used CM as well. Most of what I saw him use were Krieger or rebored pre 64 barrels.


How the business would have gone is speculation but the Bitterroot name was certainly gold as the bullets were in very high demand,and had a great reputation as a vicious killer of BG animals. The followers were like a "cult", and in a day and age when there were no premium bullets other than the Partition (the Bitterroot is a solid notch up over the Partition) people fell all over themselves to get them.

So they would have sold....no question. But Bitterroot flushed out Jack Carter, Lee Reid at Swift, Mike Brady at Northfork,and maybe even Randy Brooks at Barnes, as they all clamored for bullet products that could with stand higher impact velocity without being blown to confetti in the process.

I think they were all catering not so much to your average deer and cow elk hunter, but guys who hunted larger animals here and abroad,and understood the advantages such bullets offered.

Bob:

I have some regrets that I didn't give it a go as the BBC would still be one of the top bullets around for larger game.

You asked what the Kodiak looked like as far as expansion. I have only recovered one and don't know where I put it but it looked just like the BBC fired into shale. This was on a Hill Country buck hit straight on in the Brisket, the bullet angled upwards and raked the length of the spine, smashed some pelvic bone and was sitting on top of the top round bulging the skin out. Brisket to Ham penetration with a good bit of bone thrown in is pretty good performance. The only other bullets I have seen penetrate as well were the TSX and the wound channel and devastation was much less for the TSX.

Could someone still "take over" the Bitteroot production? Is Steiger alive, or someone who knows his secrets?

DD: Bill died a year or two ago now.

Not sure if he shared his process with many people other than Joe Abrams of Grizzly Bullets. While his bonding and bullets were unique for the day, I'm pretty certain the technology has caught up to what Bill was doing,even if the newer bullets are not precisely the same the results are close enough that no one is deprived if they want Bitterroot performance. Like I said, Bill told me that the bullet closest to his BBC was the Aframe. This is what he told me a few years before he died and after he had stopped making bullets.

The only thing I am uncertain about is whether the newer ones can withstand the high velocity Bitterroots were known for. But you take something like the current TBBC with a solid shank and bonded front section, I see no reason why that bullet would not be as good as anything. Only problem is they aren't available for hand loaders.

So probably best to leave the BBC where it was as a step in bullet evolution, a unique high velocity bonded bullet that did things others didn't.,and set a standard followed by others. In that regard it belongs with the Partition.

If you have some, use them.

And if you do, you don't need anything else.

I can only comment on what I have shot into dry print at 100 yards the bullet I saw that most closely compares to the BB performance.

The Barnes LRX

Yes I hear they are good...comes from RinB using it in Africa. I think he has used the 129-270 and 145-7mm on a good number of animals.

He has also used the 130 270 and 140 7mm BBC's over here. Maybe he can chime in.

Anyone here have a recovered one to compare?

Here's a 160 BBC.

Comparing on the basis of recovery might tell the whole story.

So what did a bag of those things sell for?

Bellydeep:IIRC we were paying Bill about $300 bucks for 200 bullets way back when.That's for the standard stuff; the bigger calibers were a bit more expensive.

He limited buyers to 200 of any single bullet run. You could of course buy less than that ad many did.

So interesting for me to read all the people who spent hours on the phone with Bill. Here, I thought I was the only one:)

I can still remember where is was when Bill recommended another bullet for me to use on my Brown Bear hunt. He didn't have any bullets for my 330 Dakota at the time.

He recommended the 250 gr. Swift A Frame!! He told me at the time, that bullet was the closet to his bullet.

I called Steiger 5 or 6 years ago IIRC looking for some bullets. He had none, but proceeded to talk on the phone for nearly an hour about bullets. Great guy!

For all those that may be concerned about the rear bulge on AFs that tucks up behind the mushroom, don't be.
From my understanding of physics, it in effect, moves the bullets CoG forward thus contributing to increased
stability in target.

A sphere does not fly as well as centrefire hunting bullets, but a sphere also cannot yaw or tumble like a centrefire hunting bullet,
hence a soft point deforming AF style, to become more spherical with the associated shift in CoG, means less chance of tumbling
in target.
But of course we prefer not to have the detrimental nature of a spherical forms propensity for deflection. The AF below seems
to well address that issue, by delivering a healthy meplat area.

I spoke to him in 14-15 a few times. He would keep you entertained for as long as your cell would hold out. We have great Bullets these days but the BBCs are still darned wicked for bullet with just a jacket and lead.. no partition or any other locking deal. They just expand and penetrate.

Starman, I have had Aframes compress down into a pancake. Less than half the length of those pictured.

Same here. I like A-Frames a lot though. They are pretty danged good hunting bullets.

Did something poor happen to you with the Swift's? I haven't found their squishing down affect their killing ability, but I haven't taken a bunch of animals with them either.

If you could detail the circumstances in which that happened it would be helpful for discussion.
i.e.: impact velocity, cal., weight,target media, along with maybe a photo of the pancake...

BTW have you before seen this image of .416 bullets through water buckets?..



L > R: 400 Barnes X, 400 NF, 400 TBBC, 400 Woodleigh.

But more important than water buckets,the late George Hoffman had an extensive collection of .416 AFs recovered from cape buffalo.
His measurements typical indicated an average .80 - .85 in expanded dia. and 90% weight retention.

Great recovery pictures. Thank you for posting them up.

For comparison, here are three North Fork bullets recovered from elk, deer and dirt at various ranges.





Left to right:
30-06, 165 grain @ 2800fps, recovered from dirt
(500 yards, 145.0 grains retained weight)

.30-06, 165 grain @ 2800fps, recovered from cow elk
(~25 yards, 133.2 grains retained weight)
This was a quartering away shot with bones broken along the way, near and far sides.

7mm 140 grain @ 3200fps, recovered from buck mule deer
(~150 yards, 131.2 grains retained weight)
This bullet went the length of the buck.

Those NF's never fail to impress me. Great recoveries.

I have some 160 grain 7mm BBC bullets, that are from two different lots. And another package of 175's. One package of 160's has an obvious dimple or shallow hollow point in the tip, the other 160s and the 175s look like a FMJ with a slight flat point.
Did the design change during production? Is there any reason to prefer one over the other?

Nah, I've got the same ones you're describing. They have all shot the same for me. I think he probably did change his techniques over the years but it wasn't very dreastic.

"Healthy" seems a rather gentle term for the frontal area the A Frames deliver. Might as well be a locomotive impact.

If I may explain,
in the case of that xpanded AF, meplat does not include the whole frontal area, but just the generally flat area/zone before it radiuses back.
I would call the radius section of the mushroom the ogive.

In the case of an unfired Nosler Protected Point, the meplat is the small flat area on the nose.

Pointed Spitzers also have a meplat.