Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Most interesting recovered bullets

i must be unluckiest guy ever. i do not have a game expanded bullet. i use jacketed and cast bullets. everyone of them goes thru the game animal. even the revolvers.

People care more about what a bullet looks like over how it performs. Pay more attention to the trauma caused, instead of pretty bullets.

If a bullet comes unglued on a easy broadside shot, it is unlikely to make it where it needs to on a tougher shot.

Amazing how many ABs were posted.


I've seen 2 too many inconsistencies with them.

One was a WT buck neck shot. Broadside shot. 165gr AB broadside from a 308win at 20 yards. What's that...6-8" of flesh and bone? Failed to exit. Huh. Weird.

Same gun...same load. Coyote quartering to me 30yds away. Put the cross hairs on his front left shoulder. Pow. Falls and rolls around. Quickly gains his feet. Can't get a follow up due to being sky lined. Surely he's going to fall over. I watched him run for 250-300 yards in disbelief. Saw where he entered the woods and there was a sparse trail that quickly dried up. Fast forward a week and a half later....I shot the buck from the first story so I didn't have a rifle. I was pushing for some buddies. A coyote is sneaking down a trail right to me. It's acting weird. It was limping like one of its front legs was stiff. It gets within 25yds of me and I see a baseball sized hole on the front left shoulder. 99% sure it was the coyote I shot. Only possible explanation is the bullet exploded or failed to penetrate. Several inches in all directions put the bullet in the body cavity and would have been fatal. Makes absolutely no sense.

Shot another buck with that load and it did great.


I've pretty much wrote them off now. Actually trending towards all coppers. Really like what I'm seeing from TTSX and have some Hammers to test.

Not from an animal, but from the roof of the house I grew up in. My mother complained about a leak in the ceiling in her living room, right at the corner where the wall met it. I climbed up and found a hole with the base of a bullet showing. It had come in at a high angle, went through two layers of shingles, and cracked the old-style board sheathing underneath. Appeared to be a round-nosed .30 cal. I still have it here someplace. She still had some shingles left from the roofing job a few years before, so I was able to fix it quickly.

That bullet came from the direction of Washington D.C., which could be seen if you climbed up to the top before the trees grew up and blocked the view. Gotta be a story there….



Never weighed it, but the location of the cannelure and the scalloped jacket at the nose say 170gr Core-Lokt to me.

I shoot those, blems from SPS, interchangeably with BTs of the same weight. Same load, same POI. If I load 50, 10 or 20 are the ABs. Only one deer killed with one so far, a head-on shot at 50 yards. He went down about as fast as any deer I’ve shot. That AB ended up in the nasty bag, only poking a small hole I found by the small leak. Was very thankful for the lack of further penetration in that case. The chest goodies were mush.

I have some 129gr 6.5 ABLRs for my Grendel, but haven’t loaded any for either of my Howas, just the CZ that preceded them. Looking at monos now for the future so they may end up in a berm…..

A buddy shot a big buck in the neck with a 140 grain X bullet in the late 90s, 7mm STW. The bullet was laying in amongst a broken vertebrae. They do weird things at times.

I think there are also some reports of early Accubonds on the assembly line being short cutted by a Nosler employee trying to save time.

Those particular lots had quite the failure rate, but I do not recall the specifics.

Noslers of any ilk have never been very accurate for me, but they have killed very well.

I think I might have gotten some of those early Accubonds that performed differently. These were 110gr .257 bullets that hung together well enough, but really opened up rather widely and did not penetrate quite like I expected, I caught several in a row (in dead deer), but couldn't manage to catch .257 or 6mm Partitions, even though the Partition sample size was larger.

Only found 1. Barnes T-EZ 250 gr. Those edges are sharp.

.35 Remington 200gn. Both shoulders of deer into ground

.357 Magnum 180gn hard cast HP from neck of deer

.44 Magnum 240gn JHC broke shoulder & lodged under hide near rear quarter of deer

.45 auto, hit screw head in rubber backstop cover

300gn 45-70 through neck of coyote, hit bottom edge of tree branch, deflected off trunk into the ground, lost the jacket somewhere in there


.58 cal round ball, through deer scapula, bottom edge of spine & lodged under hide behind far shoulder

I once took a shot at a WV scrag buck running away from me downhill and below. Must’ve hit just as his hindquarters were at their peak because the entrance wound was just behind the brisket. I found a collar button-size lead disk just under the hide behind his right ear when I scalped him; quite a trip for that Sierra Something-or-Other 150gr .308, fired from a Kimber Longmaster.

I recovered part of a 12 ga Fiocchi slug from a deer back in 1995 or 96. The slug was similar to a Brenneke with the lead projectile and attached plastic wad column. I hit the shoulder and the slug sheared in two. I didn't find the one half but the other was found in the chest cavity stretched in a banana shape the length of a my little finger. The plastic part was gone, the hunk of lead was smooth with no "rifling" vanes visible, and it weighed noticeably less than the starting ounce. I still have the lead hidden in 54 caliber round balls.

Never knew that. Makes sense. I reallllllllly liked what I saw....sometimes. I captured a 358 225gr from a whelen...maybe 2...and was surprised. The 280 I shot them in I bought later and the bullets were much newer and it was fantastic. Maybe that's the issue...I had early bullets. Grenading on a coyote shoulder was unbelievable. I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it with my own eyes. Almost complete certainty that I saw the same coyote.

Mauzer, I can understand that. I’d have a bad taste as well if it happened to me.

I will say all that I’ve used and others, have worked like PTs just with a touch more accuracy.

I watched a friend hit an elk in the vitals with a 180 accubong from a 300 wsm. The ciw dropped and rolled down hill about 59 feet then got up and headed up hill away from us. I kept telling him to shoot it again but he didn't like the angle so he didn't shoot. He tracked it for a few miles and lost the tracks.

The night before I dropped a huge cow elk with my 30-06 and 180 accubonds at about 430 yards. I put three rounds in her before she dropped
Same friend gave me a hard time fir shooting my elk full of holes. After loosing his the next day he said know I know why you always keep shooting until they are down. You never know what a bullet has really done.

Bb

Currently I only have three recovered bullets. They are left to right:

Hornady 100gr. SP from a .243. Doe at approx. 30 yards. Impact left flank and recovered behind right shoulder.

Sierra 150gr. FN Pro Hunter from a .30-30. Doe at approx. 60 yards. This one also from left flank to right shoulder

Barnes 225gr. TSX from 35 Whelen. Newfie black bear. Approx. 40 yards. Straight on throat to left ham. Found under the hide.

Great thread!
Here is 180 gr sierra game king. Hand load out of 06. 2800+ fps ..Shot a cow on a run under 50 yards. High shot in the upper back, Broke her spine. Normally I hunt with ttsx and never recovered one. But I Recovered this one.

These two .308 150-grain Fusions were recovered from hogs.

That is the shiniest used bullet I have ever seen.