It's interesting to read of folks having good performance in the early days of BTs with the 140 7mm. I loaded those for an antlerless mule deer tag in 1992 in my 7RM. I shot a doe through the lungs broadside at under 100 yards and the bullet really blew up. I found the leadless shredded jacket under the offside hide and a few little bits of lead. It was a dramatic bang-flop but didn't even hit a rib on the way in. I still have all those parts in my collection. I swore off BTs after that, as did many of the respondents here.
But after reading of their greatly improved performance these days, I used the 140 BT in the .270 WSM to take an antelope and mule deer in MT in 2019, and the 200 CTBS (Just the 200 BT with a black coating) to take a MT whitetail buck and doe in 2020 with the .338-06. All these worked fine.
I only have some early, fragile, SSTs - 150 gr .308s, and while I have loaded some in the .308 Win, I've not hunted them and probably won't based on reports of the early bullets' fragility. But I hear the same about the current version as the BT - much stronger now. Do they put the little Interlock ring in the SSTs now?
Thanks,
Rex
I don’t know if a new 140 BT will do any better than what you described. If that bullet made it all the way through and rebounded off the hide from a 7 Mag that’s about I’d hope for with any cup and core.
I’ve seen BTs do the same thing a number of times from the 95 to the 180 BT.
And I’m not saying you’re wrong or anything I just mean I doubt a newer BT probably wouldn’t act much different.
