Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Cup and Core Jacket Integrity/Separation

Jeffery, old school would be the 64 gr. winchester powerpoint....I've heard that works good for deer if you are looking for a C&C bullet...I've also heard the 64 gr. federal fusion has been knocking the heck out of them....However, If I were to use a 22 bullet on deer it would probably be Ingwe's favorite (the 53 gr. tsx).....Where is that guy anyway? Usually he's driving that bandwagon......some guys jump on and some don't...

Pretty well sums up my reasoning. One for play, one for whatever Murphy throws at me.

I use only monolithics anymore. I have seen enough bizarre bullet behavior with cup and core bullets that I know almost anything is possible. I have seen near broadside hits turn inside the chest and exit out the front and the bottom. I have seen modern cup and core bullets (LeverEvolution factory) ammo hit ribs and deflect without entering the chest. I have seen that happen a lot more with older cup and core bullets. I have never seen anything other than perfect performance out of any monolithic but that's only getting on sixty deer now. The worst I have seen was a caliber size hole in and a caliber size hole out of the hide, but the internal damage was massive with an extraordinary amount of bone take out.

I shoot light for caliber bullets, and I push them moderately fast to very fast. I have killed and seen killed with my loads quite a few inside a hundred feet with impacts over 3000 FPS. I have only seen evidence of a single lost petal. The longest run after being ht with a monolithic that I know of out of the almost sixty deer now is about fifty yards, and maybe three of them made it that far. Not five, so the run rate Is under 10%, and in each case the deer died completely bled out with the heart and lungs destroyed. The majority of the deer dropped in their tracks so the average distance travelled after the shot s very very short.

The above does not include one deer shot in the knee with a Barnes 130. The hunter who did that did it at little more than 25 feet. I do not know how, I do not know why. I killed the deer the next morning and was thankful for that.

I would guess that out of all the cup and core bullet killed deer I have seen and examined, that maybe there were as many core-lokt killed deer as monolithic killed deer. The vast majority of them were killed with .308 diameter bullets. Probably about as many were killed with everything else as core-lokts.

I have recovered a lot of cup and core bullet pieces from complete disintegraton to core separations to a few relatively perfect mushrooms, but the perfect mushroooms recovered were defnitely in the small minority. My guess there is that the perfect mushrooms tended more to pass through.

I am with Steelie. If you have a Barnes and you push it fast that's about as good as we can hope for.

Steelhead that's pretty good! I believe you managed to squeeze in at least 3 logical fallacy's into one short reply, from the appeal to authority to an ad hominem response. So back to the question I posed If we take Kilkitrik's pictures on page 2 which he was so kind to post if a mono bullet fails to expand is it considered a failure? I would consider those to depict 2 perfect results and 3 results that were at least as much of a failure as the OP's cup and core. The interesting thing is if all 5 bullets were recovered from game I suspect all resulted in dead animals just as the OP's slug did.

Miles, I have only killed three deer with mono's, so I must admit to much less experience. All were from a 338 Fed. All were lung shots. Two were DRT, but the first ran quite a ways. Maybe 200 yards or so. The blood trail was nonexistent for the first 20 yards or so, and from there I was on my hands and knees most of the time.

Now that I think about it, I have never had a deer run further than the one I hit with that 185 TSX. Go figure.

That bullet is the 85 grain, 6mm XBT. It was fired with a gill-stretching load of H4350 in a 6mm at 400-ish yards. (It was farther than I thought and the neck shot became a butt-cheek shot on the going-away caribou.) I retrieved the bullet from the stomach. Slicing the femoral artery with the less than pencil-sized hole was the only good thing about that shot. 1/4" of error would have likely been hunched up critter, and who knows about recovery.

(The text you quoted relates to the previous bullet pictured BTW.)




If a bullet is designed to expand and it doesn't, I either consider it a bullet failure, a too small/too soft placement failure, or a too slow placement. I'm not crazy about hunting with bullet handicaps. Every bullet has its places. Some just seem to be suitable for more situations.

Sure it's a failure, I just ain't never experienced it nor have any of my friends nor their friends.

Seems the OP's slug was recovered from a [bleep] water jug, but what does that matter.

I'll go throw a few in a can of beans tomorrow if that will tickle you.


If there was something better than a Barnes I would use it. I used Nosler Partitions for 20 years and whilst good, they aren't the best.


Of course all that is my opinion, which should appear to be fairly obvious since I'm the one typing, but I thought I would make the statement since a water jug and critter are apparently the same for you.

Again, none of this stuff is rocket science but folks sure love to make things tougher than they need be.

A cow elk I shot this year at 330 yards with a .308" 180gr TTSX took a few minutes to croak, but you wouldn't have heard me bitching about it. The damn thing hit the snow behind her still sizzling, and the poor wapooti's entire vitals looked like tomato soup. Tucked it a little tighter behind the shoulder than I would've liked, as I like to break shoulders, but whatever... it worked.

The buck my dad shot with the same load however, hit the deck like somebody dropped a piano on it. Pops didn't even have time to recover from the recoil before it was down; he'd thought he missed!

Side note, has anybody noticed that TTSX don't make quite the 'THWACK' that other bullets do?

As far as I'm concerned, "Yes". That's why I used up my XLCs on paper and steel and couldn't bring myself to use TSX bullets on game. (I've got a bunch of them I'm using for target loads now, too.)


The tipped versions (TTSX and MRX) have been very good so far.

I think the monos have really improved things in 2 areas:

1. They've made light caliber rifles that shoot little pills at Mach 2 much more reliable killers.

2. They offer excellent penetration which is a must on large, dangerous game.

Monos aren't the only bullets that do this, but they're an excellent choice for both applications.

When you look at rifles in .25 cal and above that are primarily used on deer sized game, the choices are many.

I primarily use 7MM and .25 caliber rifles. I only shoot deer & hogs, but I favor high shoulder shots. Neither animal is considered extremely tough, but if you like breaking bone and having exit holes, you could do worse than using a premium bullet like the TSX, Partition or Accubond.

Don't have much personal experience with the TSX, mainly use Partitions and AB's, but I would certainly choose them over any standard cup/core bullet for the shooting I do.

I gripe about the price of them, but it seems silly when you consider it's going to be about 70 whole dollars to get 100 of the things, and you'll only use hopefully a few per hunt. The more I think about it, I'd be silly to not walk around with the 375 H&H stoked with 235 TSX this season...

I'd probanly use lead cast pills if I hunted deer/elk/black bear with a .375 ...

Huh?

I think you missed it...

Majorly. Care to explain?

375 Win?

70 whole dollars will fill my truck for a week, or buy me 300 cup and cores. I like to shoot.

Sure, but when it gets to the nitty gritty, it ain't much money. I promise I shoot just as often as you. Currently, there isn't a monometal on my shelf, but come season time there sure will be.

I guess it all depends what you are trying to put holes in. I haven't shot at anything all that tough yet.