Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Another Nosler Partition Failure!?

Nothing wrong with TSX performance; I use them & like them & when they perform as they should, are probably better than the Partition.

But,

The Partitions are, and, have been consistent, and I personally, have never seen one fail to perform as designed. I've seen a lot fewer animals shot with the TSX, but also have never seen one fail either.

A good friend of mine was a PH in Africa before his untimely death and a friend of Randy Brooks.

When the X came out, they had a lot of clients who brought them and over several years, had great success across the spectrum of African game including lion and buff.

The Barnes is a fine bullet, but that still does not make the Partition over-rated.......to be over-rated, it would have to have a much higher failure rate.

MM

Some lack of experience going on in this thread, there is nothing wrong with any of the NP bullets pictured, absolutly nothing..

You take the same number of bullets of any make and you won't get any better...Some folks live on a different planet and think all bullets look like pretty little mushrooms and if they do not it's called a failure...That is because they have not shot a lot of game nor recovered many bullets.

It is pretty common for the front lead to blow out of a Nosler and the end results is a perfectly expanded mushroom not much different than a monolithic..In fact if velocity is too high it could blow the front of the Nosler off completely but then the core would make and exit hole..Many time honored European bullets such as the Tig, or Tugs RWS did exactly that and they kill like the hammer of Thor..

If someone has a problem with that then they should go to the next heavier partition bullet...just common since should tell you that.

If you shoot an animal at 30 yards with any hi vel bullet it will stress that bullet to the ultimate and penetration will be slowed downed by the bullets own speed and expansion will be at its ultimate, thus no exit hole, extend that range to 100 yards and bingo you have an exit hole with that bullet..

The other thing is a bullet shot into the spine is going to really disturb any bullet, and make it look ragged and off set and in most cases totally destroy it, however I have never seen a Nosler 'totally" destroyed..

My favorite gunwritter, Ross Seyfried, once said in print that anyone that said he has a Nosler that failed is just spewing BS. I tend to agree with Ross on that one.

Ray,

I think maybe one person who has posted here is actually unhappy with Partition performance. The rest are being funny (or trying to be funny) about dead animals and the very fine bullet that made them dead.

Art,
You have to admit a 300 grain .375 NP works pretty good, at lest a couple of them. --- Mel

I posted this some time back. Would this be a failure? I shot a medium sized doe with a 165 grain partition. When I found the bullet (it didn't nearly exit), the lead core had come out of the jacket. There was not one shred of lead in either the front part or the core. I guess the bullet tumbled and the core slipped out.

Why don't they cover the base with copper like other jacketed bullets?

My problem with the 140 grain 7MM partition is that it may cause me to use my 7x57 in places I could use my 35 Whelen.

The rear core is crimped in......the mfg. process would have to be much different and more costly to have in incased.

If the animal died as expected, guess it's technically not a failure, but IMO, I think I'd call it a failure.

JMHO

MM

I've never recovered one from any elk or deer or mountain goat I shot with one. Didn't feel like digging around in the dirt looking for them. Animals all died with little muss or fuss and not moved over a few yards. No complaints here.

Oh, and I generally go heavier like 180s out of my .300 mag (3200 FPS) and 200s out of my 30-06 Ackley (2500 FPS). They're what flies the best and like I said, nothing wrong with the terminal peformance.

Party pooper.

I agree with your assessment. I disagree with the idea that finding a bullet makes it a failure - unless complete penetration is what was expected, but the user does bear some responsibility. I think many bullets might be termed "over-rated" depending on one's point of view. (Should bullet Y be three times better than bullet Z if bullet Y costs three times as much? Does that matter if you are hunting animal ____ which might grind your scrawny frame to pulp? Etc.)

I do think a bullet might be over-rated when it has such a cult following that denial is in order whenever a given specimen works differently than expected. I don't think the Partition is over-rated simply because it has proven what it can and will do over such a long period of time that there are few surprises. And as Ray pointed out, there are rules to follow (like choosing weights per application.) Some of the newer designs have broken some of the older rules. What they don't do is defy physics.

Certain folks might over-rate anything.

The Partition does not forgive sins. Neither does any other bullet. What the Partition did before most others was help to ensure that the bullet would do its job when the shooter did their's. That's really all one can expect. More recent variations in bullet technology seek to continue that theme. It really is no surprise that the Partition is still considered a benchmark by which to compare others.

Mel
I have to admit I was surprised to see the exit hole on that NP... Full length on a Kodiak bear and an exit without hide damage EXACTLY through an earhole is pretty fancy shooting!

... But a couple of them were a tad inaccurate!
art

Ray
The NP is a fine deer bullet where recovery (of the deer) is not an issue. But if you need an animal to die right now bone needs to be broken and the bullet must leave reliably. The NP cannot be relied upon to do that.

I was raised calling the NP a premium bullet and used it exactly like any other, nestling them into the shoulder crease. I have a big bunch of them I have recovered. I want that second hole. When shooting stuff to anchor it the second hole reduces blood pressure far faster than the entrance.

There is nothing wrong with an NP for shooting stuff that does not really count, but they are well behind any X for real work.
art

I find the X bullets poorly suited for just about any thing I might do with a hunting bullet. Not a fan of bullets that tend to either not expand or tumble. I too however use the heavier for caliber Partitions and have not recovered one yet on elk. I have also dropped deer on the spot with partitions which hit nothing but ribs.

If you say so...

You know what I like best about a recovered bullet most? The meat.
If your are recovering bullets that means you have a dead animal,and a dead animal is not a failure,failure to recover a shot animal is a failure.

I love Nosler Partitions.

BBJ

Gee, I've shot game with 22 different diameter/weights of Nosler Partitions, from the 60-grain .224 to the 400-grain .416, and have yet to not recover an animal. Most died pretty darn quickly, even if the bullet didn't exit.

This is only a guess, but probabaly 80% of the bullets exited--including, for instance, a 200-grain Partition from a .300 Winchester that blew apart the big joint on a 6-point elk's shoulder, then went on through the top of the heart and both lungs before exiting the middle of the ribs on the other side. I have seen Barnes X's that didn't exit on the same basic shot, whether on elk or other elk-size animals.

In general however I have found the argument that an exit hole is required for quick kills to be, well, not an argument, since I have seen so many animals die pronto with a bullet still inside them. The big factor is whether the bullet puts a hole in the vitals, not both sides of the animal.

Of course, we have also all heard about how a bullet that stays inside the animal "expends all it's energy inside the animal," and thus produced quicker kills. This can be true of the bullet uses all that energy to make a bigger hole, but is otherwise BS.

Holes in the vitals are what kill animals, not foot-pounds expended or holes in the far side.

If a guy wants his partitions to always exit on deer in his 270,use the 150 grainers. I have never seen one stay in a deer,I even know a guy,ahem,who killed two bull elk by accident with one 150 grain partition from a 270.

The key to getting exits 100% of the time with partions is to go with heavy for caliber bullets. There are reasons why a guy might want an exit,but they are for sure not needed to kill quickly. There may be times when they help you recover game,but even big exit holes do not mean there will always be trackable blood on the ground. Actually some of the heaviest blood trails that I have ever followed were from bullets that had small entrance holes and no exits at all. They were lung shots and the deer were bleeding heavily out of their nose.

These blood trails from the critter's nose are heaviest when a pretty frangible bullet does massive damage inside the chest walls.

Whenever possible,it is far,far better to place your bullet where following a blood trail is not a priority. If you do this,you don't have to worry about tough bullets that tend to exit or soft bullets that tend to stay in the critter.

Because when an animal travels more than a few steps,following a blood trail is never a sure thing in some types of country.

The corollary is that if you don't want to follow a blood trail, shoot them through the shoulders/spine. This works pretty well too--if you can pull it off!

Klik - good post.

Been using Partitions for around 30+ years, and nary a lost animal, or even a long follow due to a Partition(or any other bullet, for that matter) "failing". I can't say that I've ever lost an animal due to any bullet failing. I've failed to recover two animals in my life, and both were due to me failing. i.e. poor shot placement.

I'd say killing critters is 80% shot placement, and 20% bullet/caliber choice. Makes for a good excuse to argue about stuff!

Jeff