Only bullets I ever had bad experiences with was a first gen 165 gr ballistic tip from a 30-06. Splashed on a shoulder. Never seen the deer again. The other was a Sierra Game King from a 243. Hit a rib and did an odd deflection but I did find the deer after a good distance so not really a failure.
Good experiences? My absolute 2 favorites are the 120 gr BT from a 7-08 IF kept below 2900 or so. I usually use 44 gr of Varget for those. The other is whatever bullet Federal uses in the blue box 270. That was almost all I used before I started handloading. Triple digit kills with them and they never let me down. Ive bought a slew of them pulled and load my own with them now... still kill like lightning.
+1 on early NBT's. They were way too expansive, so bad that my deer hunting buds and I quit using them.
The newer ones are very good. I had also quit using SST's due to lack of terminal performance consistency although they, like the early NBT's, were very accurate. I understand the newer SST's are pretty good, just haven't gotten around to trying them again.
The SGK HPBT, as posted earlier, has been impressive at the range and on deer, 140's out of my 7-08 with all 5 star ratings at MidwayUSA
We have so many great bullets now than when I started reloading yrs ago. New and better powders, too.
DF
