Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Recovered .35 cal 200 Accubond for your perusal

Since it’s a rare bullet/cartridge combo I thought some folks might find this interesting. Recovered this from a blacktail buck the other day… quartering away shot, two ribs going in, hit scapula/shoulder, found it under the hide in his neck. .358 Win, about 2650 fps MV, range was around 60 yards. Retained weight is 148 grains which is 74%. Looks like an easy 2x expansion, not counting that one big petal.

I’ve killed a bunch of deer with my .358 using several bullets; this is my favorite. This would be the 4th or 5th I’ve killed with the 200 NAB. If only they weren’t unobtanium….

Very cool! Thanks for sharing!

Such a great bullet. Not sure why Nosler decided to double their prices. All manufacturers went up a little. Wonder why Barnes, Sierra, Hornady, Speer and others didn’t need to double their product cost?

Todd

I shoot 180 Barnes in my 358 so I always make two holes. It just makes sense. Never more than one needed.

Looks like a great bullet. I've not had the pleasure of recovering a 35 Cal bullet after taking game. One of the pluses for using this caliber. Great shot.

I’ve now recovered two from my .358… the other was a 225 Partition @ 40 yards, 2500 fps MV, that was again a quartering shot except that one skidded along the buck’s spine for a ways… made a mess out of one of the backstraps. I posted a pic of that one in that year’s Dink-A-Thon… smallest horns ever, I actually thought it was a doe! Luckily my tag was for a spike or doe. I think that pic was from Ye Olde Dark Ages before my first iPhone, though. 😂 Maybe not. I’ll look.

I do have it! Man the camera was bad on those first iPhones, though. So that’s a .35 cal 225 Partition. Don’t recall the retained weight. It sure expanded!

Not dissing on the bullet. It did as designed, but I'd want less expansion and a more likely exit.
I used a 180 AB out of my .338-06 on a whitetail buck a few years back. Yes, it killed the deer, but it ran a long ways with zero blood and didn't exit. The wide mushroom acts like a parachute, IMO.
I'll take a Grandslam or Barnes.

Low sectional density in a bullet that is known to have a wider expanded front isn't helping the 180 grain .338 or 200 grain .358 bullets as far as penetration goes.

I’d be curious to try a Barnes for sure. My main beef with the 225 NP at .358 speeds is it doesn’t seem to expand much, or at least not quickly, on broadside lung shots. Saw that with two bucks. I have pics of the lungs… just didn’t do a ton of damage. Anyway I agree, an exit is always nice.

The plain old Hornady 200 SP is a great deer bullet from a .358. Wicked. Like shooting a potato, though. The 200 NAB flies more like a rifle bullet should.

The 200 NAB’s are also $94/box on the Noz website, and that’s IF they had them, which they don’t. Yowsa.

Here’s a pic of deer lungs broadside with a 225 NP. Range was under 50 yards.

Great recovery!

The .358 has always intrigued me, much like the .338 Federal and their ‘06 case cousins the .338-06 and .35 Whelen!

Thanks for sharing. Always neat to see what various bullets will do.

A 200 gr TTSX recovered after full diagonal penetration and caught under the hip. It was about a 200 yards shot from a pre-64 M70 358 Win with a 2650 fps MV.

EdM,
Pastor Rob out in Dillingham has used that 200 grain ttsx out to 400 yards on a nice bull moose. Then a finishing shot to the neck up close. Amazing bullet, allowing the 358 win to work its magic in gusty, treeless Alaska, where shots can be long.

Right now, they're available from multiple vendors @ $52 a box. Availability and affordable pricing:

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1010409957?pid=557229

Here's a 185TTSX that went diagonal through most of a smallish bull moose from my .338-06.



A few minutes before this shot, we shot a cow at a little over 200 yards. Pass through and she went about 20 yards and bit the dust. The bull went right down.

That’s really interesting, thanks!

My motivation to move away from the Hornady 200 SP wasn’t its terminal performance; it’s wicked. It was that as part of my ongoing quest to get the most out of all my rifles I shot them at long range (for a .358) and the wind especially just has its way with those little potatoes… lol. Then I switched to the 225 NP, which is a good .358 bullet and I’d use it on say elk with no hesitation, but two years in a row I shot 3x3 blacktail bucks broadside at the same range (same spot actually) and got what you see in the pics of the lungs above. Both bucks died coughing, which I’ve never heard from any other lung-shot deer. So then I figured the 200 NAB was worth a try, because it more or less duplicates the flight ballistics of the 225 NP but the thought was it’d have more smack on light game like deer with a double lung shot… and I’ve found that to be the case.

But whether I can ever get another box of them is the question. Good to know Barnes is actually MAKING their .35 cal projectiles.

Edit… COAL is a big consideration in Remington short-action based .358’s… I can barely fit the 200 NAB without the ogive being inside the case neck… I gotta think a 200 TTSX would be a longer bullet than a 200 NAB… hmmm.

Final edit, lol: just in case someone doesn’t know this, RL7 is the absolute bomb for 200’s and lighter in a .358. I bet I could get 2700 fps/200’s if I was willing to compress it; my ~ 2650 fps load is easy and mild.

Jeff, I've been there done that with the 358 winchester. I've been loading the 200 grain nab since they first came out. If you want to run them at standard COAL, what needs to happen is you need to trim the brass down a bit, to work with the stupidly long ogive.

Along with the piss poor nose profile, there's no shank on the fkn things. Which is why I've like the 200 grain ttsx.

Good intel… do you kill deer with them?

I just loaded my last 29 Nosler Partitions - 225’s. Shoots touching groups. No friggin way I’m paying $100 a box for 50 boolits!

Another hand in the air for the Barnes 180gr TTSX in the .358 Win. Mine are seated over 50.0 gr Win 748 in LC brass. Five will go into the same square inch at 100 yds. Looking forward to getting some blood on one before season ends.

I use it in my 350 Rem Mag.. Same sorta accuracy as well.

I like the 358s just do not care for the Barnes bullets, I shoot the RCBS FN plain base hard cast and powder coated. You do not find the bullet in the critters, just the critter DRT.Do not have moose or elk, but do have large hogs and smallish deer. I have five 358 guns, they fit the SE area just fine.

I think I’m more interested in trying the 180 than the 200. Midway has the 180’s, too.

If you decide to push them with W748, I recommend magnum primers.

I’ll use RL7. That stuff is amazing for 200’s on down.

Really wish Nosler would step up and make a 250 Accubond in .358 cal ? But I guess that too much to ask since even finding 225's is impossible

Maybe too long to stabilize ?

Why would someone go to a 35 al and use a 200 gr bullet?

Don, maybe it would help us all if you just go ahead and let us know what you'd like us to use.

It’s a deer rifle for me, primarily. I’ve carried it a few times elk hunting in the timber, but I’d rather carry my .338 for that, I was just trying to change my luck. Anyway, the 200’s work extremely well on deer from a .358- and if you scroll back in the thread you’ll see photographic evidence of 225’s working LESS well, at least on smallish deer (blacktail) broadside.

Lol. My thought too...

The 200 TTSX BT shoots great at 2700 FPS in my Savage 99 using a little under Mule Deer's max load of TAC. MOA accurate and the only three I have shot at elk have given total penetration and severe trauma. Really good BC too ("relatively", of course, in the .358) and easy to hit with out to 400 yards with speed to expand...20" drop with a 230 yard zero (275 yard 3" PBR), 2035 FPS terminal velocity. What's not to like?

Respectfully,
Rex

[EDIT: quoted numbers at 7,300' MSL - average where I hunt elk.]

My go to bullet in .35 Whelen for the last 30 years has been a Sierra Game King, started out with a 225gr. which performed well both accuracy wise and killing ability on whitetails. Never recovered a 225gr., since having shoulder surgery I've gone to a 200gr. recovered one of those from a 100 yd. raking shot. It was lodged just under the buck's skin on the far side, it was perfectly mushroomed and retained 66% of its original weight. The 225gr. was a spitzer and the 200gr. a RN, propellant for the 225gr. was IMR 4064 and for the 200gr. IMR 3031. The 200gr. load came from Ken Waters Pet Loads and Ken listed it as the most accurate load he'd tested, in my experience 3 shot groups @ 100yds. were often one ragged hole.

It's amazingly accurate in my Whelen with 8208 as well, right at 2900.

For you guys shooting .35 calibers @ deer in the woods. You should try working up a load with a .35 A-Frame pistol bullet going 2350-2400 fps. You may be very pleasantly surprised.

I have a 225 Accubond that recovered from a big hog I shot. The hog was 100 yards and quartering away when shot. The bullet entered the right shoulder and stopped against the hide in the left hind quarter. The hog was DRT. It mushroomed great but can’t remember the retention weight I was able to get two boxes of 200 grain last year but haven’t loaded any yet.

This was my first experience with 358 and Fury 220 bonded. It was startlingly destructive. A small whitetail was fairly mushed up on the exit. I killed another with Sierra 200 flat point. It was much less sloppy. Both went right down of course.

I'm a big fan of A-Frames This 300g A-Frame out of a 375 H&H impacted the brown bear at 13 yards, close enough that I could see blood spurt from the entrance would before the rifle recoil took it out of the scope sight picture (2-7x Leupold Firedot). Still weighs 299.5 grains

Man that’s to close for comfort. Glad you had the A Frames

Not a 358 Winchester (yet) but I’ve always had great luck with the Speer 250 Hot Cor in my Whelen. Do they not work well in the 358 Win? I’m also looking into the hammer bullets. I want to find a mono that I can count on for deer hunting and I hear they shed energy much better than traditional monos. I’ve had horrible luck with anything Barnes.

Can you push them fast enough to get good initial expansion on light game like deer will be the question. With a .358, in a M700 at least, case capacity as relates to COAL, and also sometimes bullet ogive receding into the case neck, are the bugaboos… so with a 250 at 2.82” COAL velocity is going to be capped at a max that may or may not be enough to give optimum results from a given bullet. I decided even a 225 NP @ 2500 fps was a bit “polite” for my tastes on deer, though it’d be good for elk, I would think.

…. however in reality I suspect ANY .35 cal rifle hunting bullet from a .358 is gonna be very effective.

The most devastating wound channel I’ve ever personally seen was from a factory 200-grain Silvertip on a doe at about 150 yards from a .358 BLR I had for a minute. WOW. Note to self: avoid getting shot by a 200-gn Silvertip.

You have to pull the trigger for a Barnes bullet to achieve nirvana.

Everything I ever shot with a Barnes mono ran like hell. Just my experience. Latest was a white tail doe that was hit with a 175LRX out of A 300 WM with a launch speed of 3200 fps. She was broadside at forty yards and did a death sprint for about 200 yards with a hole through the engine room the size of a tennis ball and lung blowing out the off side. That’s been the norm for me with several 30 cal magnums an 06,270 and 280. Not saying they don’t work for others just not for me. I’ve had the conversation many times before and I just don’t run them anymore. I’m looking at Hammers and e-tips next.

Maybe you need a bigger gun?

I have never used the Speer 250 on deer but, they work swell on elk from a .358.