Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Not Sold on the 120 NBT

I've seen the massive bloodshot from a high speed TTSX. Here is a deer carcass, doe shot a less than a hundred yards with an 80 gr. TTSX at 3,600 fps. Not enough damage inside the chest and she ran over 100 yds, had to be found at night in the woods. Not my idea of fun. I've shown this photo before. Hope you don't get tired of looking at it. It does illustrate your statement.

DF

I just don't get this "light for round" hscit when "normal for round" is well proven near and far? My 7x57's generally see 140's (though we used the 160 gr AB in Africa) as would my 7-08 if I were ever to own one, which will never happen. Enlighten this apparent dumazz please.

That beats any we have seen by more than a little.

If you shoot them in the shoulder, you shouldn't complain about "wasting meat"

Shoot them BEHIND the shoulder

Oftentimes when I see pics on here of animals with "bloodshot meat", what I'm seeing is not necessarily wasted meat, but blood that has filled that outer membrane, which gets cut off during processing anyway. The meat itself is often still fine.

Even if some meat is bloodshot, make it into sausage and give it to the pain in the ass in-laws. If it's gross then just maybe they'll quit bothering you.

You probably weren't pushing them at 3,600 fps. That does make a difference.

Ed,

Good point. I just love to mess with different loads and see how they perform. Sometimes it just doesn't work out, so we move on. It's 100 gr. NPT's in the .240 from now on and at 3,250 fps. Great performance on Pronghorns and WT's. Everything so far, DRT and without a lot of carnage.

And, I have a 7x57, too...

DF

Some inconsistent results with the 100 grain .257 BT-

40 yard black bear .257 Weatherby velocities, perfect mushroom. 2 deer three shots, both looked like a hand grenade went off. All old ones.

Old hand grenades or old deer?

I tried them because I wanted to use the same bullet for everything. Including gophers.

They worked well. But I don't plan on using them for deer any more.



Travis

The 7-08 will shine brightest with the 150BTip. The 120 is erratic at high speeds.

I shoulder shot a dink on purpose with a 150 BT, about 25 yards at the most, 2935 fps, just to see what would happen.

No drama, no blow up. Surprised the hell outta me.

Good bullet.

Sounds kind of like the 168gr .30cal BT.

DId Barnes shut the shop down? If not the answer is there.

And if you must use BT, slow is the key at least for the results I want.

125 BT .308 out of X 39 AR... that one works good. Its slow enough that it acts "normal"

But I find myself at the altar of Barnes almost exclusively if shooting game to eat....

I always get a kick out of these meat-damage threads, especially when they begin with a photo of a carcass that�s been shot right in the shoulder.

While monolithic bullets (which aren�t limited to Barnes) do tend to damage less meat, I�ve seen a bunch of animals with shredded shoulders after being shot with Barnes, E-Tips, GMX�s and the old Fail Safe, which wasn�t a mono but acted like one. In fact, the cow elk my wife shot a month ago with a 100-grain Tipped TSX from a .257 Roberts suffered considerable �meat loss� around the entrance hole, but since Eileen put the bullet in the ribs nobody was crying about it.

In fact I don�t worry much about meat loss on elk (or moose, for that matter) because there�s so much meat there to begin with. Losing 5 pounds of meat from a carcass that yields maybe 200 isn�t nearly as big a dead as it is on a pronghorn or doe whitetail.

But the least amount of meat loss I�ve seen from a shoulder shot with any expanding rifle bullet was with a 286-grain Nosler Partition from a 9.3x62. I put it through the meat of both shoulders on a British Columbia bull moose, and basically lost the meat from the hole. Saw almost the same thing on a cow nilgai in April, killed with a 286 Hornady Interlock from the 9.3x62, and have also seen it with the .358 Winchester, .35 Remington, and 180�s from the .300 Savage. Velocity has far more to do with meat loss than bullet construction.

Jorge suggested Hornady Interlocks ruin less meat than Ballistic Tips, but these days both bullets are very similar in their action on game. The front end loses considerable weight, often in the 50% range, while the rear end continues onward. Of course, it depends on the specific bullet, velocity, etc., just as it does with monolithics, but some of the tougher Ballistic Tips are around 2/3 jacket, such as the 168 and 180 .30�s, and 200-grain .338. On average, these don�t damage as much meat as an Interlock, especially when shot at 3000 fps into a shoulder. One of the first animals taken with the 200-grain .338 was the biggest-bodied caribou I�ve ever killed, as big as a typical raghorn elk. Muzzle velocity was right around 3000 fps, and I put the bullet in the meat of the shoulder at around 200 yards. Lost a little more meat than with a 286 from a 9.3x62, but not much.

Actually, some of the least amount of damage from shoulder shots I�ve seen is with Berger VLD�s on deer-sized game. The bullets usually punch right through, not expanding until they�re already through the shoulder, unlike standard expanding bullets which begin opening as soon as they hit hide. (Yes, that�s true of monolithics too.) With VLD�s you�ve got to watch the exit hole more than the entrance hole, but even then damage around the exit is usually minor, because the bullet has slowed down considerably by the time it hits the opposite side. (The bullet also may not exit at all. The least amount of meat damage I�ve seen on larger animals was with VLD�s and broadside rib shots, since they just punched right through the ribs on the near side and came apart inside, not damaging the far ribs at all. The animals died right there.)

But if you�re really serious about minimizing shoulder damage with ANY expanding big game bullet, limiting muzzle velocity to a maximum of 2500 fps results in consistently less damage than bullet choice at higher velocities.

Have you used the Berger Classic Hunter bullets on game?

Reading what works in someone else's gun doesn't tell you what will work in YOURS.

Just look at all the different results on this one thread
The 120 BT works exactly as it should most of the time.

I've never tried a Barnes bullet that would match the accuracy in MY guns, and it costs twice as much to find out they aren't as good

mathman,

Not yet. Have a bunch of tags here in Montana this fall and may try one, but from what I've heard they act just like VLD's on game. The major difference is the ogive on the Hunters makes them easier to get to shoot well--though I haven't had much problem with the accuracy of VLD's in most rifles.

I'm a tinkerer, so I stuck some 95 grain Classic Hunters on top of a 243 load that shoots very well with the same weight Ballistic Tip. The Bergers shot 1.4" and 1" groups at 200 yards steered by a 6x scope, so I called it good.

I'll try my best to collect some data if a deer or hog wants to commit suicide while it's the 243's turn on stand.

Once again you can't have it all.

Info from others doesn't give the final result for my gun, it sure gives me direction as to where I may or may not need to be spending my time (and barrel).

DF