Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting .284/120 grain ballistic tip

From what I have seen in our area these ballistic tips are priced at nearly the same level as premium bullets. Given the pricing my choice would always be in favour of partitions.

Admittedly I am prejudiced against ballistic tips from the one time I used one on a small antelope. Swore they would never go through any of my guns again unless it was for shooting paper. Have been given a few on occasion and paper is where they have gone. They kill paper just fine. YMMV.

Jim

Jimmy-you may wish to see if you can get some thoughts from Dogzapper on this. He's got as much or more experience with that bullet that probably anyone out there and his commments are more than a bit favorable!

Personally, I'd have no issues with using it out of a 7/08 or 284 for all that moved in my part of the world.

Good luck to ya!

Dober

I started a thread a few months ago on just this subject. I just tried to find it, but the forum software seems to be set to not go very far back anymore??

Anyway, there was a lot of BS from the usual half-dozen guys who have to try and screw everything up, but, if you were willing to wade through their crap the upshot was that it is a surprisingly tough little bullet.

I share your trepidation about running light-for-caliber Ballistic Tips, JimmyP, which was why I also asked...

I've been shooting boatloads of the lil bastards through my 7-08 this year. Great bullet, very accurate, holds up OK at longer ranges. I'm still deciding myself if I'll use it for hunting or not. I'm more inclined to run the 140 Accubond, personally, but we'll see....

I've gotten several PMs asking me for input on this thread, so I guess I will.

Several years ago, my friend Chub, who worked at Nosler, advised me to try the 7-120 Ballistic. He told me that they'd made the jacket quite heavy for Rifle Silhouette shooting (so it would tip over the 500 meter target) and the resulting bullet was fabulous. Chub tested in on a slew of Northern California wild boars and it punched through both shoulder gristle plates ... something that takes a lot from a bullet.

So, to make a long story mercifully short, I killed a bunch of Montana antelope with the bullet in my .280 Ackley (MV=3,370 fps @10'), experiencing flat trajectory, minimal wind drift, convincing one-shot kills and full penetration, regardless of the angle. As a note, antelope bone is hard stuff, way tougher and harder than deer or elk bone and any time you shoot a goat on a full frontal and punch through the pelvis going out, you've seen a good bullet do its job.

So, I rotated to killing mule deer and Alberta whitetail with the 120. Again, quick kills and full penetration. Frankly, I have never recovered a 120 from a deer or an antelope and I've killed a few pickup loads of those critters with it.

I got caught flatfooted in Alberta once, when I was hunting whitetail with 120s. I had a moose tag in my pocket and a bull ran out into the farm two-track and begged me to whack him. I obliged. He was 91 yards distant and I placed the 120 under his jaw. The shot was kinda angled, so I just did the best I could to drive the life out of the three-year old Bullwinkle.

At the shot, the moose stood there for about three seconds and then fell over like a perfectly balanced sheet of plywood that catches a slight breeze.

The 120 fully-penetrated the neck, taking an entire vertabrae out the back of the neck. Somehow, I clipped a carotic artery because the wound pumped copious quantities of Bullwinkle's lifeblood at each cardiac contraction.

Later, I got caught hunting big mule deer twice when I had an elk tag in my pocket. In each instance, I whacked a mature 6X6 bull elk with the bullet. I've recounted these kills several times on the Campfire, but I'll give a thumbnail sketch once again. Both bulls died most sincerely dead.

One was shot solidly though both shoulders, with the bull DOA and the bullet rested under the skin on the far shoulder. Range was +400 yards. Bullet expansion was .75" or so and the expanded bullet weighed slightly less than 100-grains

The second was about 375 yards, below me and looking away. I hald on the back of the head, wanting to hit between the shoulder blades, which I did. The bullet destroyed a vertabrae between the scapulas and penetrated to the chest, where it lodged under the chest hide. The bullet is a clone of the pervious one, expansion to 3/4" and losing perhaps 25% of its weight. The bull bent into an L and rolled down into the snowy canyon. Why the hell do they always roll down into fuggin' canyons?

As a note, the bulls were killed with my little blue 7SGLC that gets a MV of 3,255 fps out of the 120s.

I would not purposly carry 120s for elk or Bullwinkle mooses, but my experience has been that it does the job in a handy fashion. Sometimes I screw up and when I do, the bullet bails me out

One cool mule deer kill that comes to mind was on a convoluted hunt. It was a gumbo year, deep mud and frozen base and we were having troubles getting around. One morning, in the way dark, I found a hell of a mule staring at me through a tree at way close. All I could see was his face and way too good a set of horns to pass up. I placed the Heavy Duplex on his right eye and he went down in a heap.

Actually, I thought the buck was a 150 B&C and he was waaaaay better (sometimes you slip in the gumbo and come out smelling like roses). The bullet entered just below the eyeball, transversed the head and left without breaking the skill (yeaaaa), leaving a one-inch exit.

To those who have had trouble with this bullet, I would suggest that maybe you got really, really old stock. The 120 was originally marketed as a varmint bullet and it originally had a light jacket. Perhaps the rare failures were these original bullets, but those would have to be at least ten years old and in the old boxes.

I have had nothing but wonderful results with the modern version of the Nosler .284" 120-grain Ballistic Tip. Your mileage may vary, but I've killed enough with these bullets to at least have an opion that is based on forty or fifty kills ... I've never counted, but it is a decent sampling.

This is simply my way of trying to help. Hopefully, Campfire members will consider my experiences and make rational decision on bullet choice based on this and other member's experiences in the field. We are all here to help each other and expand our experience base.

In the end, I don't have any monetray investment or gain to be made here. BUT, I do have a moral investment and a great satisfaction when my brothers, other hunters, use a bullet that works. The Nosler 7-120 works!!!

Steve

Here are a few 120-grain victims.

Man, I know where theres a sweet 7Saum that I'd love to try some out in..

Shag-now that would be a rocket ride wouldn't it...

Dober

DZ,

Thank you for the chiming in, no real trouble with the 120grBT but I'll add some more thoughts.

I don't consider my one 120grBT a failure, the buck dropped instantly, I was just surprised the core disintegrated and all that was left was the jacket after breaking thru one scapula. The recovered 120grBT I used was from the same stock as the sectioned bullet pictured, purchased around 2002 IIRC. No old stock for sure (gold & green label). As a matter of fact, I purchased the 120grBTs after reading your article in VHA's magazine on the 7-08AI (SGLC).

I used to correspond with your old gunsmith Darrell Holland and he much preferred the 140grBT over the 120grBT for whacking big game. Another old hunter near here has quite a few B&C entries and exotics using the 7-08/140grBT to his credit including elk (see thread1 link below). When asked why the 140grBT, he stated it was a giant killer when launched from his 7-08s (he owned quite a few 7-08s too).

For those interested, here are some past threads:

Recent 120grBt Thread1

Older 120grBT Thread2

MtnHtr

MtnHtr,

No problem, my friend.

I once hunted with an Professional Hunter in what had newly become the People's Republic of Zimbabwe. He was the veteran of lots of elephant & cape buffalo culling. He'd done a lot of hunting and he also had seen the kills of his clients for many years.

Something Clive told me always stuck in my brain. "Steve, you can take the same cartridge, load and bullet. Shoot it at 100 of precisely the same species at precisely the same range at precisely the same point of bullet placements ...... and you will have 100 different animal reactions, 100 different bullet performances and 100 different trails to either follow or not follow."

He told me about wonderful bullets that for some reason failed and hits that should not have killed anytime soon that simply decked the critter.

This doesn't keep us from trying, though. We shoot to kill cleanly and we shoot the finest bullet we know that will get the job done. Still, sometimes we fail miserably and other times we succeed beyond our wildest dreams.

That recalled a mind picture. I once shot a heck of a nice red hartebeest in the Northern Transvaal. The critter was about 100 yards away and I never frickin' saw the small tree that was about 50 yards out

Hartebeest can be awfully tough and it's best to nail them most rickey-tick.

Anyway, I carefully aimed to bust both shoulders. At the shot, the bull simply rolled over deader than yesterday's newspaper.

We walked up and my PH gasped when he saw the newly shot-off one-inch thick tree.

We walked to my hartebeest and inspected the animal that was laying upside down with four legs pointing towards the sky. We rolled the bull over and inspected the bullet hole.

On the bull's side, way back of the ribcage, was a sideways bullet hole. I was shooting a .30-'06 with 180-grain Hornady BTSPs. The bullet entered exactly sideways and left the most perfect sideways silhouette of the Hornady bullet.

The PH said, "I'll be damned, the last gutshot hartebeest we got cost us a full day and eleven miles of tracking."

It was the hartebeest's day to die and it was my day to get lucky.

When we butchered the bull, it was obvious how lucky I was. The bullet entered the paunch way, way, way back and we recovered it in almost perfect condition with the lower guts. As far as we could tell, no arteries or major veins were severed, no vital organs were hit and not a guy was cut.

The bugger just simply died. And it will always be a mystery as to why.

Bullets are strange things and so is the death of an animal. Clive was right, you can shoot 100 of the same animal with the same hit with the same gear and you'll get 100 different results.

The best that we, as hunters, can do is to lessen the percentages of screw-ups as much as we can by taking that last extra little bit of care in setting up the shot, by insuring that we place the bullet as best we can and by using a bullet with which we have had excellent results.

The rest, my friend, is left up to the Killing Gods and their mercy.

Steve

Steve-thx for chiming in with your experiences.

The only thought I'd add on bullets and killing is that if you shoot enough animals and see enough taken. And darn few ever get to IMO, most people are seeing 2-3 critters a year taken is that sooner or later the bullet of your choice will do something that will make you go hmm...

Have a super day, and thx for your time

Dober

Great photos Mtn Hunter. Thank you very much.

Dogzapper-if you don't mind, what are your thoughts to the diffs between the 120 NBT and the 140 NBT?

And if you come thru Boze on the way east this fall let me know.

Many thx

Dober

Steve - I have a friend who killed either 2 or 3 moose with a .243 in the early days when he didn't have another centerfire caliber to use. In spite of them being clean kills neither he nor anyone else I know has ever advocated them as being the preferred caliber for moose.

In my comments I acknowledged my prejudice against Ballistic Tips generally. Since in my area they cost nearly as much as partitions my choice is the latter. I've used partitions for probably 40 years or more and since they have always done what I want done there has never been a reason to look for something different.

I realize there are many contributors here on the campfire who get to shoot multiples of animals every year so they have the opportunity to experiment if they wish to. My opportunities are much more limited so I stick to the tried and true (in my experience) and have continued to be happy with the results.

I have no problem with others using 120 gr. 7mm bullets or .223 with whatever if that is what turns their crank. I simply stated my opinion. Not trying to change anyone elses choices. It just seems some people have to preach for their personal choices as being the only logical pick instead of acknowledging that something else may work for others. I'll leave it at that.

Jim

Friend Dober,

I used the 140 Ballistic for many, many years and found it did everything I wanted. The bullets stayed in a lot of animals, but I am not one of those PC critters who sits in his armchair and demands that every bullet leaves two holes. Hey, dead is dead and that's good enough for me.

My impression of the 120 is that it penetrates deeper and bloodshoots less. It also shoots flatter at game ranges and the recoil is less. I'm a woos when it comes to recoil and I shoot the 120 really well.

As a side note, Bob Nosler personally shoots the 150 Ballistic in his Jarrett .280 Ackley. He likes lessened bloodshooting.

Hope this answers your question.

You bet, when we travel through Bozeman next, we'll look you up. We're not hunting this year because of two long, wonderful, expen$ive and fun pilgrimages (Holy Land and Rome), but we'll draw for Montana prairie goats again in 2010.

Steve

Mark,

I am one of those who see 2-3 deer taken a year and that is why this site is a big help for me in getting input from so many others who have experiences to share. My wife used a 120 BT this past fall in her 7-08 to take a decent Missouri 7 pointer - two holes, spectacular DRT drop according to her. I went to that bullet for her after reading threads like this one. It is nice to hear results from others and to see them born out personally. 'Course like you say doesn't mean it'll happen every time. Thx for your input and yours too zapper.

bludog

What a refreshing thread!

After wading thru pages of I'm-smarter-than-you-are-and-you're dumber-than-I-am threads, this thread is a reminder of why this site is here.

That's a big 10-4 southtexas!

My little 708 LOVES the 120 grain 2nds I've been feeding it. Can't wait till fall.

This has been a good and friendly thread. Kind of refreshin likes been mentioned.

Nice to come and share ideas and cuss and discuss things without someone getting the boxers in a bunch.

Amazing what checking the ego at the door will do is it not.

Plus it's so nice to have someone with the kind of time that DZ has in with the bullet come and talk about his experiences!

Life is good aint it guyz!

Shoot straight and shoot often.

Dober

Yes, wonderful thread, and thanks to DZ (as always) for sharing his, well, life.

Big +1!

one of the best posts i've ever read, once you've heard the truth everything else is cheap whiskey....