Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 7x57 and BTips

The old 140 gr. TBs in my 7x57 accounted for a dozen of so WI whitetails very effectively.

Have you used the older Ballistic Tips at moderate velocity as mentioned in the OP?

No, that would be the 154-gr InterLock SP at about 2600 fps. I don't think ol' Finn Aagaard was wrong about that.

Pop and I ran them a bit faster out of 7mm Weatherbys. They worked great.

"Have you used the older Ballistic Tips at moderate velocity as mentioned in the OP?"

Yes, I have used the BTs in a couple calibers, but I have never pushed them that slow.
After all the negative reports here and elsewhere on the performance of the first BTs, I began hoarding all the
old Solid Base bullets I could and still have a good supply.
The 120 gr BT I shot a mulie with out of my 284 is still flying around somewhere. Small holes and drt.
The 150 gr BT out of my 300wsm went thru the bottom of a mulie heart and is still going. Did big damage inside and
huge hole outside and the deer was drt.

There were sooo many reports of violent blow ups with the older BTs that I personally see no good reason to push
MY luck. They are certainly adequate to kill paper so that is all I used them for ----until I found the 120 gr 6.5 mm and 7mm BT
bullets to be much sturdier built. So I use them currently and have had no bad hunting experiences with those two.

I guess my whole point is ---What is the point in chancing it with the BTs made prior to the black and silver box production?
Safer at slower speeds, I guess that could be workable, but I don't remember the higher velocity being blamed for failure or lower
velocity being touted as the saving grace back when this issue started.
I personally have not gotten the itch to slow things down hoping that will make bullet performance improve.

I would like to know what box the OPs bullets are in, and it sounds like he has 50 or less on hand to use up.
He is gonna need some resupply shortly any how.

Not interested in a pissing match here. Just thought I was on the right track.
I may have missed it above, but did not see a lot of reports actually noting what box they were using from.
I have other things to work on so take my comments with a grain of salt and move on the your beat of the drum.
Been interesting.
Tim

No pissing match, just a few facts:

The OP stated about 2650 fps.

My father and I used older 100 count box "soft" BT's at moderate velocity with fine results.

The OP said 50 count box, which are later production and certainly no softer even if not the latest stiffened version.

Conclusion: The OP hasn't got much to worry about, never mind which box they came out of.

I was "burned" by the early BT's, too. In my case it was the 120gr BTips in a 264. They made an awful mess, as opposed to the 120gr Solid Bases, which performed to perfection.

That's a pretty far piece from a 150 at 2650.

No doubt!

I have used the 150gn. BT that came in the black box with the red and green label in my 7mm Rem Mag at 3150 fps for 25 years. I have killed many white tails and have never had a problem that I could attribute to the bullett.

IIRC he used them to slay a few arks full with his 7 Mashburn.....

Ignorance is bliss. In 2013 I was tuning my Ruger 77 7x57 for a Mountain Goat hunt and thought I had a supply of 154 gr Hornady Interlock but miscalculated, Switched to 150 gr BTs loaded to 2750 fps just days before the hunt. Killed a nice Billy.

After reading some of the posts herein I lucked out.