The heavy-jacket Ballistic Tips (which as mentioned earlier started with the 200-grain .338 in the early 1990s) were indeed much tougher, and the jacket was a LOT heavier.
John,
When did Nosler stop offering the BT’s in .338? (other than the current Silver Ballistic Tip) Is my memory fuzzy or did they also offer a 35 cal Ballistic Tip at one time?
I don't remember the exact year the 200s became totally Ballistic Silvertips, but guess it was around a decade ago. That said, I have never been able to find any difference in performance between them.
Yes, Nosler offered .35 Ballistic Tips, if I recall correctly a 225 and maybe a 200. Could look in my older to manuals to make sure.
They also offered a 260-grain .375 Ballistic Tip very briefly. I know this because of taking some to South Africa to field-test in 2002, using my Ruger No. 1 .375 H&H (which is now owned by Campfire member Cascade). Loaded them to around 2700 fps and they worked very well, among other instances shooting lengthwise through a springbok (about the size of pronghorn), and taking two BIG gemsbok bulls, weighing around 550 pounds on the ranch's cattle scale. On the second bull the bullet broke both shoulders and exited.
But that was a year before Nosler introduced AccuBonds. At the time I was told they test-bonded all the Hunting Ballistic Tips, then shot them into media to compare whether the bonding affected penetration and expansion compared to the B-Tip version. In some bullets the bonding did help, and among them were the 260-grain .375 and 225-grain .35. So they dropped the Ballistic Tip version of both bullets, and only produced AccuBonds. In other instances they continued to produce Ballistic Tips--if I recall correctly one that passed the penetration test was the 150 7mm.
Eventually, however, the good reputation of many bonded bullets (including Accubonds) created demand from customers for AccuBond versions of some Ballistic Tips, even though Nosler's tests indicated there was no advantage in performance. Which is why there's now a 150-grain 7mm AccuBond.
