Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Loaders, which bullets you going to play with this year?

110 ELD-X in 25-06.
150 ELD-X & LRAB in 280AI
140 ELD, and some TBD's in 6.5 CM. Suggestions for the TBD's?

The only new one I plan to tinker with is the 140 grain 7mm Trophy Bonded Tip.

300gr. Hornady pistol bullets - full house loads in 444marlin H&R single shot , pig test media .

Have used them in my 7 Wby. Ran them at 3250. It is a great bullet, does what it is supposed to. They do expand wide creating a larger frontal area than the Accubonds. That decreases their penetration. But, the last one penetrated 24” on a large heavy Axis. Due to its frontal area its penetration was hindered by a full stomach of quite dense grass. Put the boy down though in short order.

I would use them again. Nothing against them. Prefer Accubonds. Don’t care for the long drawn shape of the S2.

Me too, if they’ll ever show up from backorder.

I'm trying some 120 ttsx in the 7mm08. I have a bunch of 140 fed tbt loaded up and ready to go. They shoot well. Depends what I get drawn for. If I get an elk tag this year I will probably load for the 7rem mag a 160gr accubond but then again the 140 etip worked really well on a moose last fall.

For deer it will be the same old thing, the 170 gr Hornady RN in the 8x57, but for black bear with a .350 Rem. Mag. I'll switch from the 200 gr. Hornady SP to something else. Probably the 225 gr. Sierra.

Going to see if I can come up with an acceptably accurate load with the Nosler 64 gr. BSB and 60 gr. partition in my .223 for whitetails. Got an acceptably accurate load for my .22-250 with the 64 BSB last year but as it worked out I filled my tags with my .30-06 and didn't end up killing anything with it. Hopefully that will change next season.

Going to try Trophy Bonded Tips, 160 grain with R-26 in my 280ai.

I've been waiting on those as well. The 130 grain 270 was a real sweetie. Should have gotten a couple boxes of them when the getting was good.

I'd be very interested in your findings.

200gr Speer Hot-Cor(8mm), don't think there is anything I can't get done with it. Of course I will proably use some others here and there.

So far it has been the 130 gr Partition via 270 Win, 200 gr Hornady via 348 Win and the 200 gr Maker via 35 Rem. Come June it will be the 168 gr TSX via 30-06 in Namibia.

I tried them today, shot 1 inch group, only 2850 fps, flatten primers. I wasn't real happy. I'll probably stick with 150 ttsx's.

257 80gr TTSX

127 LRXs, 143 ELD-Xs, and 140 Partitions with RL16 and 26 out of a Fieldcraft.

Loaded up a bunch of 165gr SGK's for a 308win and 300gr SGK's for a 375H&H, both ahead of varget. Only whitetail on the menu so far for this year. Going to eventually have to work up something a tough more stout for the 375 for moose next year, thinking SAF's.

300 H&H 165gr Trophy Bonded Tipped and 270 Weatherby Mag 130gr Trophy Bonded Tipped

Results of 2017-2018 experiment:

6.5 x 55, Berger 139 gr VLD. 266# 8 pointer broadside at 60 yards. Double lung hit. Ran and ran .....and ran. Then he ran some more. Gutted at home so I could examine the damage, or lack of it. Icepicked. No expansion. Both lungs showed little bitty 6.5 mm diameter holes with no sign of hydrostatic shock/damage at all. No coagulated blood indicative of any terminal performance whatsoever.

300 Win mag. Berger 190 grain VLD. 340 yard quartering on shot on a 180# doe. Results were 180 degrees opposite of my 6.5. Bullet entered between the shoulders right where you tie your bow tie. Passed between the lungs, through the rumen, etc and lodged in the right ham. The bullet, as expected, lost a significant amount of weight. However, during its path to the right ham, it expended so much energy/shock, it split the belly wide open, dumping everything behind the diaphragm on the ground. I knew the shot was good and it wasn’t a gut shot.....but Lord what damage.

The 300 loves the bullet....shoots under a half inch with the load. The 6.5 hates the 139 grain....1.5”-2” groups at best....loves Hornady factory 140 grain loads though...half inch groups.

That was an amazing doe. The oldest one I got was 4-1/2 years and no where near that weight.