Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 6.5mm 120BT's vs 7mm 120 BT's

Well then, I’ll take it back.






Still looks good to me.

Jerry

Well, that does give you a "dog in the fight"...

DF

Not so good.
I feel like the "odd" man out here. Didn't have the results I wanted.
I hunt an area where I want an exit because it's very thick. Shot a mid sized buck in the pocket behind the shoulder. He was slightly quartering away and no exit. Shot a large dry doe almost same shot and same results, no exit. Shot a small buck behind shoulder a little farther back and he was standing almost exactly broad side and no exit. They each ran about 70 yards and fortunately they didn't run into the thick stuff. Had they, I would have had a difficult time finding them and I may not have. 6.5X55 at about 3000 fps muzzle. 60 - 120 yard shots. I did use the rangefinder to get exact measurements but without digging out the notes my measurements above are close.

Dead, recovered Whitetail is no bullet failure - BUT the performance I want (exit hole) hunting where I do just didn't materialize. I realize unexpected stuff happens after you pull that trigger and 3 shots cannot be relied upon as an exact results guarantee. I did, however, take those results as an indicator and am weary of shooting them. My gun really likes the 120 NBT. Great results at 100 - 200yd range sessions. My old Model 64 32 Win Spl shooting 170gr. at 22-2300 fps would have probably served me far better in the field. The 125gr Nos Partition through the 6.5 has produced the results I want through the shoulders and exit. My son has had great results with the 120NBT through his Model 70 .284 Win.

Was the "not so good" results with the older BTs?
The new 120 "Hunting BT" in 6.5 and 7mm hold together just about perfect for me. I have not recovered on yet and
animals quite dead.
I go for the heart and/or lungs and like for them to run 50 yards or so to let the muscles push the blood out a little.
I do not like a lot of shoulder damage if I can prevent it.
just my 2 cents.

I've not shot the 120gr 7mm but the 120gr 6.5mm is a great performer from my 260 Rem. I shoot them just over 2900fps and I've never recovered one from coyotes or whitetail deer.

I have taken quite a few deer and hogs with the 120 grain 6.5mm Ballistic Tip bullet from three different rifles chambered in 260 Remington. I don't remember finding one that didn't exit. Everything died quickly too.

This year I want to use the 120 grain 7mm Ballistic Tip out of the 7mm-08. Can JB or anyone else with experience tell what their favorite handloads are?

I want to push it fast,hoping to approximate 270 ballistics in a short action.

Check me on this, but something like 45 grains of Varget is your huckleberry.

Thanks, I have Varget on hand. I used to use W760 in 7mm-08 with 140 grain bullets,but was hoping to use a more modern temperature resistant powder.

I will check out loads with Varget.

doc, Varget is great with the 120's and it is supposed to be pretty temp stable, but given where I usually hunt it's a non issue. Just checked my load and mathman has it pegged.....45g Varget running 3100'ish. I used a toned down RL15 (2800fps) load on a recent axis hunt and dumped a big, meat buck pretty handily. One shot through the shoulder, bullet found under skin on off-side weighed 80.5gr.

Big Game.





Same load, different Tikka





3100+, not bad.





P

Not to start a pissing match, but running those 120's too fast can be a messy problem at closer ranges. I've whacked enough hogs with them to know.

rug3 I will assure you that you are not the only odd man out here as I guess I'm the same as my prerequisites in my deer hunting bullets are the exact same as yours. I also hunt some thick/nasty undercut briar infested junk that is 2-3 hops from the shot usually. I too much prefer 2 holes in my deer with a good energy dump in between them. now I've only shot (1) small buck at 120 yards with the 120 grain bt and it did exit with a decent blood trail. I hit him a touch high and back still hitting lungs due to my rifle sighted 2" high at 100yds. I guess I'm just trying to prepare for that oops where I hit a shoulder as I still want penetration and an exit. so in conclusion in my very limited use of the 120 grain 6.5mm bt it did well on my 1 small deer but not so well on my penetration test where the 125 partition and the 130 grain accubond excelled. I sooooooooooooooo wanted the 120 bt to hold together in my tests so I did it x 2 and wasted 4 more precious water filled milk jugs only for both instances to be the exact some outcome.
good luck,
Big Ed

I like to sneak up as close as I can get, then move back about a quarter mile before I shoot.




P

Thanks,

Varget and Big Game sound perfect. Wanting about 3100 fps,flat and fast enough load to shoot out to 300 yards or a little more without having to zero too high at 100. ( I usually sight in at 267 yards,which just happens to be my range distance.)

My shots are usually at around 100 yards in small food plots,or a little over 300 yards in Ag fields. That's just the way my stands are set up on the family farm.

I can assure you that water jugs/milk jug tests of bullets do not correlate to actual terminal performance in game.

By the way,my son killed his first bull elk with the 7mm Rem Mag that we got from you. With a Ballistic Tip that exited the barrel at 3100 fps. In this case a 150 grain version,which I recovered just in the hide on the off side shoulder.

Actually.I only recovered the jacket,because the core exited.

Which makes me wonder,if there is really any practical difference between the killing ability of a 7mm-08 with a 120 grain Ballistic Tip at 3100 FPS,and a 7mm Mag with a 150 grain Ballistic Tip at 3100 FPS. I am sure at really long range,over 500 yards,the higher BC of the longer bullet gives it the advantage. But at practical hunting ranges,400 yards or less,is there really any difference between them?

thanks fellas but a little reasoning on why I chose water filled milk jugs as my test medium. my thoughts but in my head I figured the lungs to be air filled with blood surrounding them in the chest cavity. blood/liquid should be close to same consistency as water and the plastic shell of the mile jugs served as "skin". now if I had a scapula to put between #1 and #2 just to simulate a shoulder penetration that would be sublime but alas I don't. in my thoughts a projectile going north of 2,900 fps and hitting water is like hitting rock until the jug explodes then the penetration test starts. hence my "worse case scenario" test. besides milk jugs are cheap when you have 2 boys age 14 and 7,gallon will last 2 days, so they jugs are available and re-purposed which I love to do. kinda feel like I'm saving money or something.
thanks guys for the reassurance but man its fun to see bullet performance true or not,
Big Ed

That's outstanding doc. The last mule deer I killed with that rifle, shooting those exact 150 BT's, acted exactly the same way. The buck dropped very quickly as the bullet entered his back ham (quartering away at 150 yds), core exited in front of off side shoulder, jacket found under skin. Great performance.

Not sure how much difference in killing power there is though. Maybe MD or some else can answer that.

No.




P

Better than nothing, I guess, but hide (especially elk) is some tenacious stuff. Plus, I seem to centerpunch a rib, unless of course I hit the scapula first.

I’ll bet it’s a blast to watch the jugs explode.





P