Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Another Partition Failure

Yeah right . . .

Cutting up a couple of bucks this weekend and recovered this one. 308 Win, 150 Nosler Partition Gold Moly, 47.7 gr RL15, MV = 2,800-2,850ish. Buck was quartering towards me @ 75 yds, or so, and shot thru the leading shoulder. Bullet found in one of the hams.



Pics of the buck, which is good sized by our standards.



If anyone from Nosler is listenting, why the heck did you discontinue this bullet? Please bring it back as a reloading component. I only have ~75 of these left and they are as hard to find as hens teeth.

Nice lookin buck.Well your good for 75 more critters.I can't see the PT Gold coming back.

I feel your pain brother....

The PT Gold wasn't a huge seller around these parts.Nobody wanted a moly bullet.Next time at gun shop I 'll see what they have left.If they have the 150's you guys like I have no problem buying some and shipping them to you fellas.

But like I said not sure what cals are available.

Yep, definite failure. That buck ran all the way back to your stack of 6X6's(?)

MuskegMan,

Nice blacktail!

My bet is that if you'd shot him with the 150-grain "standard" Partition the results would have been very similar. This is based on shooting similar animals with similar Partitions (both Gold and standard) and finding quite a few a long way from the entrance hole.

Two standard Partitions that come to mind are a pronghorn I shot at 300 yards with a 100-grain .25 caliber started at 3200 fps or so. The buck whirled just as I shot, to challenge a buck coming up behind him, and the bullet hit the right hip joint. The buck dropped and died right there, due to the little Partition going all the way through him to the left shoulder, where I found it.

Another was a mule deer buck about the same size as your blacktail. Shot him at about 35 yards with a 140-grain Partition at 2900 fps from a 7x57, right at the base of the neck, hitting the bottom of the spine. He also dropped at the shot, and though I looked for the bullet while field-dressing couldn't find it, though did trace the path through the lungs and diaphragm. Assumed it ended up in the gut-pile, but somewhat later bit into a round steak and found the expanded bullet, which had obviously gone lengthwise through the buck into the ham.

As I posted on another thread, I never could tell any difference in penetration or anything else between the Partition Gold and the old standby, except a little more retained weight for the Gold on the rare occasions either was recovered.

I sectioned one of the partition golds and it struck me as being like a barnes x bullet with a lead filled hollow point. There really wasn't alot of lead but there was a lot of jacket.

Nice blacktail! Looks like the Partition did it's job well.

Nice deer!
I'm also a big fan of the Nosler Partition. When I was in High School I shot a big (300lbs+) feral hog with a .45-70 loaded with Nosler Partitions. Both shots penetrated over 30" while going through some serious bones. Needless to say, he didn't run very far. Both bullets looked almost exactly like the one you recovered when I dug them out.

Its a real shame Nosler discontinued the 300gr Partition. It was my favorite bullet out of a 45-70

I agree. I took a couple of deer, feral hogs, a Gemsbok, and a Red Hartebeest with 300 grain partitions. I guess the round wasn't "sexy" enough.

"Failed" or not, you won't win any dinkathons like that!

Great recovery, I have 200 of the 150 PT Gold's that aren't coated and man, they shoot really well out of my 270WSM at around 3130. Haven't sunk them into anything yet, but I think they would be excellent. Probably no better than a regular PT, but they are still pretty awesome.

quartering towards at 75 yards...
Any bullet placed in thesame spot would have worked. Hell, I have killed deer with 130 gr sierras and had them bang-flop.

Nice buck! How did you get out with all this wind. It's been blowing for weeks!!

Honest question of all the premium bullets, do partitions seem to kill the quickest? In my experience they do.

Nice buck, and great looking bullet. Always fun to recover one!

Nice buck but it is hard to figure what 150gr bullet out of a .308 would not have worked well with your great shot placement.

I realize you would like to keep everything the same but from where I sit the .308 is very flexible in regard to bullets and it seems hard to find a bad choice if the shooter does his part, ( as you did).

Take yes for an answer???

I hear you on partition performance, I recovered one from a buck I shot at 410 yds with a 280 I used to have. DRT, did not even get the chance to trail it.

Nice buck you got!

Bullet performance is generally measured in percentage of weight retention from new to recovered bullet. In this case, the Partition bullets lost the top half of their lead core....not what you want for optimal bullet performance.

Congratulations on the nice buck, but your Partition bullets underperformed for you at least in this instance.