Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game when is a Nosler Partition not adequate?

Nosler's Partition has 70 years of killing to recommend it. In my experience, mainly with deer and elk, Partitions lose most of their nose (to 40 percent of their weight) after mid- to high-velocity impact, even with rib shots into game of modest size. If lethality were measured only by retained weight, the Partition would rank well below the newer and similar but bonded A-Frame, the Trophy Bonded and the lead-free game bullets (GMX, TSX). But having examined many animals killed with Partitions, I've found substantial damage caused by that ruptured nose. Given proper shot placement, it's in the vitals. The heel carries on, to exit or, if bone or thick, elastic hide interferes, to lodge just under the off-side skin. The heel doesn't create much of a wound channel. But it can deliver the exit wound some hunters like, and in many cases splinters bone beyond the vitals. My best groups seldom come from the Partition -- or the A-Frame or Trophy Bonded -- but I'm confident with all of them in game that shreds standard softpoints before they drive deep enough to kill. Current Partitions, by the way, are more accurate than the originals with a "frosted" look to the jackets. Early manufacturing on screw machines, I'm told by Nosler people, couldn't ensure the concentricity of later jackets..... WvZ

And I've had just the opposite results. As I write this, I'm looking at the only Partition I've ever recovered out of a couple dozen. It was a 35 caliber 250 grain and it went lengthwise of a caribou, front to back, stopping under the hide in the right hip. Similarly the only X or TSX bullet I ever recovered was from an elk shot lengthwise. However the X and TSX bullets have all produced way more meat damage and bloodshot than the Partitions. I haven't used as many, eight to be exact, in a 7x57, 308, 300 H&H, and 400 Whelen but everyone has produced substantial bloodshot and meat damage. I've never tried the TTSX but would expect similar results.

With the exception of the one noted, the Partitions have left good exit wounds, just like the X and TSX but with far less meat damage, in my experience.

I read the first half page of this thread when it started. read a couple of the latest pages today.

Come on October...

I started handloading and hunting with the sierras back in the 1970s. They just flat work, if you can shoot. Like all the other bullets I've used since...

Even Sept will do.

Several of us, talking outside here, wonder how it is so many have such decidedly different results and I think it might be interesting to look at the variables that make it happen.

I have shot boxes of Barnes in the various iterations at critters and have never personally recovered one. I use them in .22 to .375 and run them light for caliber...

I have over 50 recovered Partitions from animals I have shot with mostly the same cartridges as monos. I see a huge difference. Because I see a big difference in how soon big animals die when shot with something that leaves two vents I want both.

As to meat damage differences I am lost on that... Ray Charles would see the difference!

If ones rifle is used for a variety of game, a premium may well be more bullet than required for the smaller species,
but good sense for the larger species and/or potential difficult shot angles.

50 some elk I've killed with Partitions and never caught a Partition except for once.
A double kill at 600 yards from a 300/200 gr. One bullet passed through two elk and ended up on the opposite hide of the second killed. Both elk dropped at the same time.

allenday knew his stuff more than most

Ok, we know that AD was extremely obsessive about his rifles but not about his choice of premium hunting bullet.
and by the same token, had Echols Legends not come into existence, he wouldn't have missed them either.


AD seems to appreciate the under 1/2" accuracy others say is not much worth anything

Just wondering why he went 'all the way' with his rifles but not his bullets; surely if no ripples in the barrel cosmetics
mean something, why would a bullet that penetrates more and shoots more accurate than NP not mean something to him?

Baloney.

More AD


Phil Shoemaker thinks highly of them as well.

I don't read that AD is being obsessive about the 180NP....hes simply saying they got the job done for him.
An obsessive person to me would opt for the additional penetration 200NP would offer needed or not, and he'd
probably send it from .300-wby not 300win.

in reverse, AD certainly didn't need an under 1/2" Legend rifle to kill game, but such rifles were an obsession
of his, that seem to offer him great personal pleasure.

Now, if some people get obsessive pleasure for bullets that penetrate or fly better than NP, they could go through
a lifetime of hunting and not come close to the cost of the $15,500 Legend obsession.

Why do people laud and justify one persons form of obsession in rifles but not another persons in projectiles?

"Sure! go ahead buy an under 1/2" $15,500 rifle to shoot deer , just don't use bullets that cost more or penetrate more
than NPs bcause the people that really like your rifle choice will say those other bullets really aint necessary"....LOL...




Yep, but I don't know, Does Mr Shoemaker ultimately prefer NP in his .458 big bear stopper?

Some of Allen's last word's doesn't sound like he's obsessed with rifles.

I always thought AD was mostly obsessed with perfect function.

Pretty soon the PD's will being sticking their heads out regular and we will have discussions on the best "PD" bullet!!!!!!

Well I don't just go on a mans last words, I took everything in the man said about his Legends over more than a decade.
His interest was in the absolute pinnacle of practical use hunting rifles; highest quality, attention to detail, reliability and perfomance,
hence why he contracted Echols to build them for him.



AD went through a wide spectrum of details about his Echols builds, and he praised & valued much more than just the tools function.



03/09/07 [quote=allenday]
Brad, first of all, I'd like to thank you very much for posting these photos, especially here on the 'Hunting Rifles' forum, as this gun was built to hunt with and not sit in the safe.

This rifle is an Echols 'Legend' in 270 Win., and it's built on a pre-64 Model 70 action in the 200,000 serial number range. A pre-64 action is optimal in this case as it has the very best magazine system
Winchester ever built for the 30-06 family of cartridges, and the receiver's just a trifle shorter than the Model 70 'Classic' action. So it's a very efficient action for a 270 Win., plus, you don't have to
replace the magazine box, follower, follower spring, or extractor. All of those parts are as good as they get already, and cannot really be improved upon.

The receiver was fully blueprinted, inside and out, top and bottom, to absolute concentricity, including the receiver face and bolt face, plus the lug-seats were remachined and then hand-lapped to full contact.
The tang was reshaped to more of a streamlined pre-war Model 70 configuration, improving appearance as well as getting rid of unnecessary metal, thus weight. The original scopemount screw holes were
redrilled and opened up to 8X40, which allows the holes to be drilled in a dead-line with the center of the receiver, and thus the rifle bore. Everything was then stoned and polished to absolute smoothness.
The round sections contain no flat spots, and the flat sections are dead-flat, with no ripples or dishes. One of the main reasons that D'Arcy remachines the bottom of the receiver is to create an absolutely flat,
concentric, and stress-free bedding platform, which contributes significantly to top accuracy and stability.

The bolt and trigger have had many of the parts upgraded, including a new firing pin, since the original was found to be undersized, plus new pins and springs, etc. The trigger and safety were perfectly timed
to work together as a true unit, and cocking-piece protrustion (runout) is perfectly consistent as the safety is engaged and disengaged. In other words, the cocking-piece meets the sear in exactly the same
place every time, resulting in an absolutely consistent and crisp trigger-pull everytime of 3.25 pounds. No creep, no safety jar-offs, and no slam-fires.

The bolt has been given a new, more modern, streamlined bolt handle by Tom Burgess that is compact, lighter, and set lower, so it better clears a modern low-mounted scope, and the bolt knob
was hand-checkered in two panels.

Triggerguard/floorplate assembly is built from scratch, of milled-steel construction, by Tom Burgess, and by the way, as I understand it D'Arcy has completed making the necessary jigs and is now making
his own milled-steel unit of a similar pattern in-house, at his own shop in Utah.

The bolt-release was also built-up and hand-checkered by Tom Burgess.

Scopemounts were totally designed from the ground up and built from scratch to exactly fit the receiver without a hairline gap showing (looks like one unit with the receiver, as if the two were grafted together),
of milled-steel construction, by D'Arcy Echols, in-house. The lower ring halves and bases are a single unit, and there are four 8x40 torx screws securing the top ring halves to the bases. The scope rings are
perfectly sized inside to exactly match the diameter of the scope tube. There is no flexing whatsoever when the rings are tightened up, and you can remove the scope and not detect that the scope was ever
mounted into a set of rings. With the scopes windage adjustment field counted back to the very middle of the adjustment range, the scope is only a couple of clicks off from perfect zero for windage, which
goes a long way to ensure against bullet-placement problems downrange due to parallax issues.

Original factory action screws were replaced with custom heat-treated hex-head action screws that were fabricated by Montana's Half-Moon Rifle shop. These are the toughest, most precise, best-built,
best-looking, and best-finished aftermarket Model 70 actions screws ever made, and D'Arcy doesn't use anything else. They don't bugger up, they don't slip, and they stay tight.

The barrel is a 22" cryogenically-treated Kreiger of Kreiger's 'Featherweight' contour, 1-10" twist; with all chambering (middle of SAAMI specs), crowning, finish, and installation by Echols. D'Arcy pays particular
attention to throat and lead dimensions, finding that these play a very big role in accuracy. There isn't a ripple to be found in this barrel anywhere, from shank to crown, and fortunately, this barrel just doesn't
foul up much, either.

The stock is D'Arcy's own McMillan that's been bedded in Devcon (I think!) and machined aluminum pillars in a stress-free manner, along with a medium-size red Pachmayr 'Decelerator' pad.

He originally crafted a pattern stock by hand, of his own unique trademark design, then hand-checkered it. It was then sent to McMillan for duplication into fiberglass. Echols uses these on every 'Legend' rifle
he builds, and he will sell these as blanks directly to the customer in either standard-pour, magnum-pour, or McMillan's 'Edge'. You can only buy these stocks directly from D'Arcy, when he has them and can ge
t them, and only for pre and post-64 Model 70s, although from what I understand they'll also work with a Montana Rifle Company action.

The one on this rifle a standard-pour, and brings total rifle weight to 8 lbs. complete.

Accuracy with my own 130 gr. Nosler Partition handloads is under 1/2" at 100 yards, and D'Arcy tells me it's an absolute drill with 130 gr. Barnes TSXs as well.

With all of these rifles, D'Arcy breaks the barrel in according to what is generally considered standard benchrest proceedure, then tests for accuracy with different loads. Feeding and function is thoroughly tested
as well. He won't send out an untested, unproven rifle ever -- it's not his way of doing things.

The red pad/brown stock idea was my own concept. A number of years ago, D'Arcy built for me a 338 Win. Mag. that I've used for a goodly amount of hunting. I didn't want another all-black rifle, so one night
I decided that a brown stock with a red pad would breath some visual life into a glass-stocked gun and harken back to an earlier era of custom riflemaking, plus it would contrast well with the blued metalwork,
and D'Arcy had that rifle on display at SCI one year. To my surprise, Echols tells me that this brown stock/red pad combo has become very popular with his clients.

Anyhow, that's the story of this 270, and now I'm going to take my wife out for the evening!

AD
[end/quote]

I asked AD a question in that same thread, if he would in hindsight change any of the details off that .270win Legend build:

Now keep in mind, most people would be satisfied if not elated with Tom Burgess metal work, but not Allen Day.



03/09/07 [Re: Starman]
[quote=allenday]No, I wouldn't change anything on that rifle, other than to have D'Arcy build all of it from the ground up.

It's a long story, but originally this project started as a complete custom Model 70 barreled-action that Tom Burgess had completed many years earlier. It was carefully stored away,
in the white, and had never been in a stock. Eventually, I came to own it, and I didn't do anything with it for quite a while, either. I didn't want to sell it, and I didn't want to stock it in wood.
Finally, I asked D'Arcy to put it in a 'Legend' stock so that I could shoot it and hunt with it.

He was gracious enough to do so, and the finished rifle was really nice looking, but I felt as though the chamber was too tight, and the barrel Tom had installed on it wasn't giving me the
accuracy I was looking for. So in time I sent it back to D'Arcy to completely rebuild according to his standards, salvaging only the best of what was previously done.

As he dug into it, he found the receiver specs were off, the firing-pin was undersized, the chamber was off, etc, etc. So with my blessing, he pulled and replaced the barrel and rebuilt most
of the rest of it his way, to full 'Legend' standards.

This is no knock on anyone's work, but the truth is, much has changed in terms of what top gunsmiths know about accuracy, refinement, etc., compared to 35 years ago, when this project,
in effect, really sprang to life. Barrels are better, chambering and bedding techinques are better, tooling is better, etc.

When it comes to custom rifles, the "good old days" are RIGHT NOW -- not back in the mists of the 1950s........

AD [end/quote]

When you are out of them.

When the weather looks like this....

I like the way you think!

Started using the Partitions in the early 60's and am still using them. My little hunting group favors Partitions, and many elk and deer have been taken with them. I use them for one reason only, "they work".