Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Accubond performance 270 Win 140gr

That's pretty much where I hit a whitetail two years ago with a 140AB/270WCF. Range was roughly 100 yards and he dropped at the shot, kicked the dirt for a few seconds and died. Pass through with 'normal' bloodshot meat.
Great deer bullet from my sample of one....grin


How did the BT work out at that impact velocity?

Sam,

Did you have that buck mounted? Sorry to get off topic but man that was a super buck in my book. Heck even your horse looked impressed.

Not a 270 but I have used the 150 grain Accubond in 308 at around 2700 fps to kill 5 big game animals (4 deer and 1 bear) at ranges of 15 yards to 275 yards and everything dropped dead within 25-35 yards when shot through the lungs. Bullets exited, lots of blood, and real short tracking jobs. I am really gaining a lot of confidence in these bullets.

Justa Hunter,



Along with Sam, I am also curious: Did these deer die?

The first deer got away so I don't know the whole story. He went down then got up and took off into the thick brush. I searched 'til dark then back the next day to look some more. No blood was ever found on the snow or anywhere for that matter. Made me rather sick.

The one this year went about 40 yards before trying to get through a fence, but died right there. No blood trail and very little on the ground where he died. He was laying on the side he was hit on. He had some blood in the hair around the whole, but nothing on his trail. The bullet did not exit expanding to .832 and losing the core. The course of the bullet was through the back of the on-side shoulder, the lower chest, through the heart, through the off-side shoulder coming to rest against the skin. The jacket weighted 50g. Maybe this is a case where if it had gone on through there would have been a blood trail. It didn't happen so we don't know.

I was just showing that sometimes deer don't bleed onto the ground right away. I think the hair can soak up enough to keep it from hitting the ground for awhile.

Thanks for your answer.

That's exactly what happens sometimes, and sometimes the hole can get plugged by fat, or even a piece of torn muscle. Which is why I made my previous post about magic bullets that are always supposed to leave a blood trail. In my experience there is no bullet that leaves a blood trail all the time, though some will do it most of the the time.

If I really truly think a blood trail is a necessity for deer hunting, I tend to use a rifle in a caliber much bigger than .30, say at least .35, and a bullet that will penetrate all the way through all the time. I have seen too many .30 caliber bullets not leave an immediate blood trail, even though they penetrated all the way through and killed the deer reasonably quickly.

If the terrain and vegetation are such that tracking or retrieving a deer might be a problem, then I also tend to shoot them 2/3 of the way up, through both shoulders and the spine. This will work even with some pretty small bullets; my wife killed a good-sized Montana whitetail with exactly that shot (he was on the edge of some thick woods) a few years ago with a .240 Weatherby and a 100-grain Nosler Partition. It broke both shoulders and the spine and exited, and the buck was down and out right there. But it might not have left a blood trail.

That high shoulder shot is a wicked sob for sure... and to a reasonable point, I think it works better with more frangible bullets.

I wouldn't disagree, especially a BIG semi-frangible bullet.

Ah, but a 6.5mm 140 grain Accubond from a 260 is quite a different thing than a 270 caliber 140 grain Accubond from a 270 in every respect. The bullet from the 260 has several advantages that tend to lead toward deeper penetration (expanded exit holes), better blood trails, and overall better terminal performance IMO. These are:

- Lower velocity. Bullets that impact at lower velocity tend to expand slower, if not less, and retain more weight, both of which lead to greater penetration;
- Higher SD. Bullets with higher SD (more weight per diameter) tend to penetrate deeper.
- Tougher construction. If the jacket of the smaller bullet is the same thickness as the larger bullet (or the jacket is thicker in relation to the bullets caliber), then there is a higher proportion of the stiffer jacket material to softer core material which results in a tougher bullet, and the tougher bullet tends to resist or slow deformation (expansion) to a greater degree, thus leading to greater penetration.

Any bowhunter will tell you that two holes bleed better than one. Likewise, any rifle hunter that has experience with exit holes will tell you that exit holes tend to be larger than entrance holes, and tend to bleed better too - sometimes MUCH larger and MUCH better. Entrance holes don't usually bleed out nearly as well as exit holes. I say bleed out because if the animal is vitally hit in the circulatory system it WILL bleed and die, it's just a matter of if the hole is large enough to not clog or clot and allow the blood to flow from the animal to the ground.

Maybe this sounds simplistic to the experianced hunters, but it bears repeating for the unknowing, and unwilling to know.

-

i used 180gr accubonds at 2900 from my 300 saum to shoot 11 does a couple weekends back on a herd management hunt.

1 head shot, 1 neck and 9 in the boiler room. none of the 11 took a single step. the head shot twitched like a decapitated chicken for a minute, one other one made one feeble attempt to get up, the other 9 were instantly dead.

bullet damage was substantial - if any of them had moved blood trail would have been enormous.

that was my first experience with the accubond and needless to say it was pretty satisfying.

Deer were 25-225 yards and weighted 60-140lbs on the hoof

The 2/3 up the shoulder is basically what I am doing now for the same reasons you mentioned. That is if the bullet can get through the shoulder. As I have mentioned before, last year a 130g SGK from a 270 Win. didn't make it through the shoulder of a mule deer buck I shot. It did break it, but I had to shoot it in the head while it was standing.

The 180g NPT was my main bullet for several years in my 30-06. Quit often it would give a 30 caliber entry and 30 or slightly larger exit, but it always destroyed the inside. I don't remember large blood trails with that.

I wonder sometimes what is going on inside the deer at the time of the bullet strike. Sometimes blood fountains out of the entry or exit whole or sprayes out the exit and sometimes with similar hits there is nothing. It doesn't seem to matter the caliber although I haven't personally seen it with less than a 270.

I carry my .358 Win in MN for the reasons you mentioned. Large blood trails. Two deer in two seasons resulted in the first deer shot at 10 yards then running 50 yards spraying blood with every jump. He piled up just inside the brush. The second with a high shoulder hit at 180 yards went straight down. Both with 225g NPT

My bowhunting experience says that if the deer is shot directly through the heart, there's usually some blood right where they stood at the impact but the blood trail is very sparse or even non-existant. My theory on this is that because the heart is perforated, it is no longer able to pump and the blood pressure goes to zero almost instantly, and there's no pressure to push the blood out the holes. I've seen this multiple times on my own bow kills.

However, if you hit the aorta or other large arteries and leave the heart intact, there is usually a good blood trail, and sometimes an outrageous one, particulatly if there is a large exit hole left by the arrow or bullet. It's amazing how much blood comes from a deer that's bleeding really hard.

-

Thanks for letting us know what happened on the deer.
I never got a chance to shoot a deer with my 257 Roberts/115BT so I was curious about your results. Of course the Robert's muzzle velocity is about 300fps slower than your rifle so the BT should hopefully hold up a little better.
For 'serious' hunting out in the hills I'll still take a 300 with a good 180 grain bullet. Better to have it and not need it rather than need it and not have it('horsepower').


High Brass, I just did a Euro mount on the whitetail. Turned out pretty nice!

There are lots of things that are conductive for good blood trails and a bullet is a very small part of that equation. As JB said there is no magic bullet. Sometimes the don't leave a blood trail and sometimes the do, but I don't think I can be convienced that all else being equall that a different bullet would do better at making an animal bleed.

We tend to overthink thing when it comes to bullet selection for big game animals and all we are really doing is fooling ourselves it is like searching for the fountain of youth. It just doesn't exist.

I generally use my 270, 30-06 or 300 H&H, but I had heard many mention on the Campfire how good the .284 120g BT was so I decided to try it in order to speak on its abilities personnally. I found it to be better than the 130g BST that I used in my 270 Win. and from what I have seen with other high speed calibers it penetrated better then those in 30 caliber too. That is speaking of the 150g BT.

The other reason I used it was the area I was hunting could mean a close shot in the timber or a long shot in the open. I shot the buck at 35 yards in the timber on a Wednesday and a doe at 281 yards in the open on the coming Friday. The Win M88 with a custom stock handled like a dream and handled both situations beautifully.

I just wack them through chest,shoulders,whatever with 130 Partitions from 270's...they just don't go anywhere very far.I don't understand all these problems.

Bob and I agree on this one!

The 130 Partition in the .270 isn't exactly over-matched on game bigger than deer, either....

Yes and yes. Jeez people, quit over-thinking this.

I'm down with that.

All this hoopla is starting to make me wonder how the .277 140 AB could have worked so darn well for me... There must be something wrong with those dead critters that I just didn't notice.

Was I just lucky all those times? Maybe I should change?