Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game What compares to the Bitterroot Bonded bullets?

It seems that everyone who has ever used a Bitterroot Bonded bullet sings its high praise for all but the very largest game.

Since they are not available, what compares to them in current production?

Woodleighs

Woodleighs even look somewhat like them.
Hornady Interbonds and Swift Scirrocos perform similar too.

Jorge1 beat me to the post.
I think he's right, and woodleighs are known for accuracy where the old Bitterroot bullets could be hot or cold in their accuracy.

Swift Aframe and Northfork. But keep in mind neither are built exactly like a BBC. But...both bullets were developed to fill the market void created by the BBC/ Just different construction techniques.

The Swift SS II looks pretty good too based on what Ive seen friends do with them recently

BTW the BBC do work on Cape Buffalo and brown bear as well. Clients of Steigers used the 335 gr 416's from the 416 Rigby loaded to 2700 fps and knocked over buffalo like bowling pins.

Lots of Steigers clients have used the BBC on the heaviest stuff in NA and Africa.

One departed acquaintance from Boise used the 250 gr 375 BBC from the 375 AI to kill 6 buff in Africa. He said they knocked the snot out of them, loaded to over 3100 fps..


Here's a Swift SS II 150 7mm from a 6x6 bull elk at 460 yards this year. DRT as the saying goes.

I have to admit it looks as much like a BBC as I've seen.

Bob, I'm not sure about North Forks, but A-Frames don't expand as wide as a Bitterroot unless the impact is very high. When this happens the rear collapses and you end up with a ball shaped slug.

And they'll do that every time.

Ben that was Steigers opinion which I know is heresay but you'll have to trust me...

He told me that repeatedly before he passed away. I used to speak with Bill at least weekly for a decade or more.

Yes I know the Swift Aframe behaves a bit differently but then again, construction is different. The Aframe has a partition; the BBC does not.The AF has a bonded front core but the rear core slides forward and under heavy stress can bulge the jacket behind the partition.

The BBC is really a C&C with a pure lead core and a very thick heavy pure copper jacket, bonded to the core. It gets its performance as much from the materials as the construction .

I spoke with Mike Brady at Northfork and know he was a BBC/Steigers fan,and tried to emulate BBC performance in the NF. He even said as much in an article he did for safari Magazine IIRC.


Really the only bullet that was built precisely like the BBC was the Grizzly,as built by Joe Abrams. Short lived and scarce. Bill Steigers taught Joe to make bullets and they were just like BBC's. I have no idea what happened to Joe or the company.

Biggest accuracy issues i saw with the BBC was that people used loads that were too light. The heavy base needed a good kick in the butt to obturate into the lands,so loads close to max tended to shoot better it seemed. In any event I never had any accuracy issues with them.


Reloader good to know on the Swift SS. I have taken them on a few hunts but had bum luck finding anything I wanted to shoot....except coyotes.

In my small experience the Woodleighs seem to be about the closest I've seen in expansion but I haven't seen ANYTHING from tests nor animals that show that wide, flat expanded front end. Northforks expand pretty wide but in a more traditional mushroom.. The BBCs will look like a mushroom when they are driven really hard but it seems as speed drops off you get a bullet that resembles a propeller, but fittingly it looks like a propeller if you are lucky enough to dig through a few of its victims.

They are very good bullets. Not saying they are the best but I won't pass up a chance to buy them, ever.

Matter of fact I'm having a new 7mm built since I've got 200 of the 175's... that many bullets should keep my hunting for quite awhile as I only shoot 1-3 a year at best.

Here is a cow elk I took this year with the MSM and 175 BBC





It was under the far side skin beyond the hole pictured above.

Rough measurement in camp



It lost a little bit of weight....



Here is a 160 at 3200 into the water jugs.

Here is a 338 225 BBC at 2900 into the water jugs.








So, if anybody has any BBC's they want to get rid of, I'll take em!

I agree with Bob.... BBC worked on the biggest animals too. My father was a close friend and hunting buddy of Bitterroot Billy. He took this bear with a .338 Win. Mag. using 250 gr. BBC. The bullet pictured was one recovered from the bear and weighed over 247 gr. The expanded bullet will cover a quarter.

I enjoyed talking with Bill, and we talked for hours about bullets, fine rifles, and hunting trips that he and my father went on.







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DakotaDeer,

In my experience Woodleighs and Norma Oryxes work more like Bitterroots than do North Forks or A-Frames.

North Forks have a relatively long solid shank, and consequently most models don't expand as widely as Bitterroots--though that can vary depending on the length of the solid shank. Mike Brady told me that in his tests, bonding the little bit of lead in the front end didn't make any difference in penetration or expansion. But so many shooters believe in the magic of bonding that he decided to go ahead and make them happy.

A-Frames do expand widely but the unbonded rear end can expand quite a bit if they hit bone, or even don't hit bone if impact velocity is high enough.

I've gotten pretty good accuracy out of Oryxes, but they're made in relatively few diameters and weights compared to some other bullets.

We must gave spoken to Mike Brady on different days.

Im sure if Bill thought the Oryx or Woodleigh were close to a BBC he'd have said so. I doubt anyone knew Bitterroots as well as Bill did.


One thing that people miss and never mention when it comes to the Bitterroot spinoffs like the TBBC, the NF, and the Swift Aflame is that those bullets had to go to a solid shank or some other means of reinforcement to make them perform even close to the Bitterroot in terms of integrity.

When Jack Carter was unable to convince Bill to go full scale commercial production with the Bitterroot, he started making the TBBC on his own. But the first bullets he tried to make were a bonded C&C that pancaked and did not come close to BBC performance.(I had these in 7mm,30,and 375 caliber).

I'll edit and withdraw some of my previous post. After looking at the website, Woodleigh does not recommend impact velocities in excess of 3000 fps; far less than what a BBC can withstand with a very good chance of retaining in excess of 90% o its weight.


The Oryx seems to be similar in construction to a BBC but the jackets look thinner.

I say all this because the BBC forte was the ability to be driven at very high velocity and still give outstanding performance, weight retention, and penetration. I am talking 3400-3600 fps.

I kew one of Steigers clients who guided on the Peninsula for 25 years but lived on the Clearwater. he was the first Nightforce scope user I ever spoke with. He used to shoot elk cross the wide canyons of the Clearwater with a 30 inch barreled 300 RUM loaded with a 165 BBC. His longest kill was about 800 yards.

It was routine for tigers clients to drive 130 and 140 gr BBC's from 270 Weatherby's and various 7 mags at 330-3400 fps. Even on elk sized game,they would do their job and were vicious killers. I kill quite a few animals with 140 gr BBC's driven at 3250-3300 fps from the 7 Rem Mag,

My point is I don't know whether these current modern day BBC clones are capable of surviving close range impact at those velocities.

Apparently Woodleigh is not since they advise against impact velocities of over 3000 fps. They seem more like a bullet for standard cases and velocities whereas the BBC was designed for magnum velocities.





Cliff: Yes Steigers clients took the BBC all over the world and shot all kinds of heavy game with them from high velocity rifles. There were good reasons the things traded like opium among people who knew them and used them extensively.

250 BBC from Admiralty Island brown bear.Like Cliff's about 249 gr retained weight and IIRC expanded diameter of .70-,75".

Two others blew through and left large exits.

I wonder if the bitterroots jagged edges help it penetrate (cut deeper), versus the "ball" that you get out of the scirocco?

Every scirocco I ever recovered was picture perfect, but they didnt seem to penetrate all that well..I have 5 S2's from one moose..Wasnt real impressed.

I just put two and two together, not that it has anything to do with this thread..But it turns out I knew Bill as the bullet maker from Lewiston when I was younger. My grandpa is from Lewiston..Its a small town.

rosco you were closer to Steigers than you knew I guess....

SS II's are a new deal to me like some of these other bonded bullets so Im not sure I can answer. I have always had so many BBC's that I never had much need to try other stuff extensively.


The same friend who shot the bull at 460 also killed a cow at about 175 yards with another 150 SS II. I have the pics somewhere but it raked a long ways and exited(!)

Scotty Beretz was there to see the whole thing. As you know they had to toughen up the SS II because the first version would pancake at very high velocity.

I think maybe what happens is that under high impact stress, instead of shearing off, the petals fold back along the shank to create a smaller frontal area and deeper penetration. But I don't know...something to consider is that recovered 150 SS II was started at once 2970 fps. How it would have done at 3100-3200 fps I can't say.

I can say that you will recover more BBC's from a 7 mag with 140's than with 130's from a 270, especially as distance increases. The higher velocity and faster rotation of the 140 7mm causes it to make that big frontal area which catches on the off side hide.

One of my hunting buds still shoots the 150s in 7mm, and likes them. I've been on a few of his kills and they seem to perform pretty good,but he did recover 2 of them from his desert sheep, after a considerable rodeo..Shrug

There was the moose episode, but the final decision was when a broadside pronghorn stopped a 180gr out of a 300 RUM from around 100 yards. picture perfect mushroom, but..

I also could never push them as fast as other bullets of the same weight, tho not very scientific, i just called them "sticky" in the bore.

However, they were very accurate and easy to make shoot.

Cliff that is quite a stash of BBC's! But really no worse than the way we all lay in piles of other more common bullets I guess.

Any 338's in there? I used to have 35's and 338's myself but as I narrowed my medium bore activities I sold them off and just kept my 375 stash.

When I stopped using 300 magnums a few years ago I sold off the 180 gr 30's(about 500) as well. Really a 165 BBC from a 300 Winchester or H&H at 3100-3300 fps is a bomb and turns elk to rubber with chest hits, so the 180's were superfluous; and a 165 gr is a better choice than a 180 for a 30/06.

I have a few myself. You are the only other person I know with a collection like that.

Bob, Yes there are .338's and just about everything else that Bill churned out.

Should I trust these on "Big Game"? Some of these posts have me concerned that I might be under projectiled.