Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters AccuBonds vs. A-Frames in Africa............

Timely thread! I opened a box of 300 H&H ammo I loaded with 200 gr Accubonds about the time the thread was going. out of the 40 rounds in the box 3 were missing the plastic tips. Looks like a good reason to go shoot the 300 H&H and load up some new stuff.

I could have written that myself. I have other bullets in the cabinet and other bullets loaded, but when it comes time to pull the trigger on an animal, the Partition gives me confidence the others never will. It's never my most accurate bullet, but it's always accurate and tough enough to do the job. I have some Accubonds in 6.5 and am willing to try them on animals. They'd have to perform flawlessly over time for me to trust them like I do Partitions, and I am just not likely to turn to them often enough to build that relationship.

If the Accubond hopefully, usually, generally works as well as the Partition, why would one not be wiser to simply use the Partition in the first place???

I still remember my buddy opening the first box of Accubond factory ammo from Winchester also--nothing but loose tips came spilling out of the box. He turned to me (the supposed local "expert") and asked "Are they supposed to do that?"

Sometimes one will shoot better than the other... have to shoot them both to know. My first choice is always the Partition. But I never feel disappointed if the Accubond shoots better.

These are my thoughts as well.

I wonder if the Nosler employee that shortcut the bullet bonding process is still with Nosler???

I have been following this thread off and on since it was brought back up. All I can add is that I have shot just about everything I have taken for the last 11 or 12 years with AccuBonds. Without consulting my hunting notebooks, there were at least six bull elk, three pronghorns, three desert mule deer and a half-dozen or so Coues whitetails here in the states, and one impala, one oryx, two kudu, one waterbuck and one eland in Namibia. All were one-shot kills and I have recovered only three bullets.

Retained weights ranged from 63 percent with the .375 260-grain AB (shown here on the left) up to 69 percent in the .257 110- grain AB (right), with the 9.3 250-grain AB falling somewhere in between:


If I were going after dangerous game, I would probably choose Partitions or A-Frames, both of which have performed admirably for me in the past, but today it's mostly ABs for everything I hunt.

Manager Bob. ?

That is my experience too. I seem to recover them more often. But they'll break elk bones if need be. Even if pushed at high (7STW/300 WBY) velocity. No complaints.

Brad,

I test bullets in several ways, including a "soft" media, a "hard" media and animals. The hard media is stacks of dry newspaper, because after some experimentation I found it simulates hitting larger bones pretty well.

Can't remember when I tested some 200-grain .30 caliber AccuBonds against some 200 Partitions, but it was a while back, because newspapers were still large enough to shoot several bullets into the same stack, rather than 2-3. But I do remember using the the .300 Winchester Magnum as the cartridge.

Shot some of both bullets into the same stack of newspaper, and the AB's slightly outpenetrated the Partitions. That was just one of many instances that eliminated any concerns about the penetrating abilities of AccuBonds.

Interesting John.

I've never kept a 165 NAB in an elk from the lowly 308, but my friend has 3 180 NAB's caught in cow elk on broadside shots like those with my 308. I was there for two. I shot a cow with his of nearly identical size, and nearly identical shot placement, and my 150 Ballistic Tip from a 270 sailed on through. His 180 was under the offside hide. Purely anecdotal for sure, as I've never tested any of them in media. On that day I'd have said the 270 was the better elk rifle!

I always liked Aagaard's test, wet phone books with a piece of 1/2" plywood sandwiched below the top book. But phone books are going the way of the dodo.

But as you say, nothing really compares to shooting animals.

Damm glad I read this thread. Just worked up loads for my Remington 700 in 7-08 using 140 gr AccuBonds. Had Great results. Going to send Leupold my info for my VX-2 CDS calibrated dial, and read some less than stellar opinions of Nozler Accubonds. This puts my mind at ease. Not opinion, just facts.
John, appreciate your input. Thanks

All sorts of things can go into bullets getting caught under the hide on the far side, but don't have much bearing on the bullet's overall penetrating capability.

One example is .270 150 Partitions. Have seen a bunch of game killed with them over the years, and they only normally kill quickly but penetrate very well. We found one in the far shoulder of the Shiras bull moose my wife killed; it had stood quartering away and Eileen put the bullet in the rear of the ribs, aiming at the far shoulder. That sort of penetration would seem to guarantee broadside penetration on smaller animals, but Eileen used the same load to shoot a spike elk through the ribs behind the shoulders. Found the bullet under the hide on the far side. But she also put the same load through both shoulders and the spine of a big mule deer buck weighing almost 200 pounds field-dressed, standing broadside at only 100 yards--and that bullet exited.

Due to those and other experiences with various bullets, have come to the conclusion that whether a bullet exits or not depends more on the conformation of the mushroom rather than on how deeply it penetrates. Am pretty convinced the sharp petals of bullets like the Barnes X's, the old Fail Safes, Nosler E-Tips and Hornady GMX's actually cut the hide, rather than pushing it away like more rounded mushrooms, such as those from AccuBonds and A-Frames. Partly this comes from a fair numbers of the X's, Fail Safes, etc. that I've recovered having lost most or all of their petals, thus ending up with a more rounded front end.

But it also depends on the hide. Some animals have thicker, tougher hides than others, especially over the shoulders, which definitely has an effect.

But some of it also has to do with luck. In South Africa about 15 years ago I shot a big gemsbok, about the size of a 5-point bull elk but with even thicker hide, through the flesh of the shoulder just behind the big joint with a 260-grain .375 H&H bullet. The bullet was recovered from basically the same place on the opposite side, just under the hide. Less than an hour later my hunting partner used the same rifle and load to break both shoulders of a similar-sized gemsbok bull--and that bullet exited. The range was a little different but not enough to matter.

Oh, and the bullet used on the two gemsbok was the short-lived 260-grain Ballistic Tip, one of the heavy-jacketed models were the jacket itself is about 2/3 of the bullet's weight. It was only around for a year or two before Nosler turned it into an AccuBond, but it penetrated plenty. On that same safari I also put one lengthwise through a springbok. They're only about the size of a pronghorn, but that's still at least three feet of penetration, from one of those lousy Ballistic Tips. Have mentioned before doing the same thing with a 200 .338 BT on another gemsbok bull, though that one stopped under the hide of the rump.

John,

Thanks for adding the follow-up information concerning the original post.

The majority of my experience with AB's is with the 140 .277. Nothing but great performance so far.

That was after using 150 Partitions for many years which never caused me any problems.

I do agree with Brad, the AB's might not penetrate quite as deep as a Partition when comparing the 140 AB to the 150 PT. But it is darn close. From bullets I have recovered though, retained weight edge goes to the AB along with a wider frontal profile. Probably the reason they might penetrate just a tab less?

Part of my reason for trying the AB was cost. At the time, 10 plus years ago The AB's were cheaper for practicing with what you hunt with. Another benefit was 140 NBT's shot exactly like 140 AB's in my rifle. Practice with second grade NBT's, hunt with AB's

My dad's best bull so far.

A single 140 AccuBond, 7mm-08, my handloads, 2850 fps MV, tight behind the shoulder.





My dad shot him at 225 yards. He staggered about 90 feet and fell over. The bullet exited. Lungs were destroyed.





P

There's very good arguments for the accubonds. But what about the bullets with the tips falling out?
Have the failures posted over a decade ago been completely addressed?

Not being in the business of having to try new things makes one have a little different perspective I suppose.

Ad nauseam

You said it. A fox smells his own first.


So, why ignore the issues stated? Why not address the issues? I'm a big fan of MD's writing. These issues seem to be real.

They've been addressed many, many times.

There was an issue. It was isolated, brief, and corrected.

Now there is no issue.

Carry on.





P