Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game How good of a big game bullet is the 30/125?

Bullets that have a design velocity window need to be shot within the recommended velocity range for best results.

In hypervelocity rounds I tend to go with monos.

DF

Just saw that 125gr. 308 Accubond blems are available at the Shooters Pro Shop. It was tempting but I just worked up 150 BT loads for my 300 WM and bought a couple years worth of those. If the 125 is designed similar to the other Accubonds and not geared to cartridges like the 300 Blackout it should hold up to higher velocities. Could still be destructive at 300 Weatherby velocities but pass throughs should be the norm on medium game.

That's my thinking.

“Ballistic Tips should never leave the muzzle above 3100 fps.”
John Nosler, Sr.

Mr. Nosler told me that after I had a 180 .308 disintegrate on my first Axis. It was a 300 Wby. The bullet exited @ 3250 fps & impacted at 200 yards.

I'm not positive about the time line, but if Senior told you that then it may have been before they considerably stiffened the 30/180 because hunters kept shooting them out of 300 mags into elk.

I'm a firm believer in going with the manufacturer's velocity design window for any bullet. A great bullet at one speed can be a terrible bullet at another.

I think the 125/130 gr. choices for the '06/308 are very underutilized and unappreciated. For WT's and similar, a properly constructed 125/130 gr bullet will blow thru a WT and at faster speeds than 150, 165 or 180 gr. Now, for bigger, tougher, heavier animals those bullets may be better choices.

Speed kills and a bullet moving at over 3K fps can have pretty impressive terminal performance.

DF

Reloder 28,

Big John passed away in 2010. Dunno how long before that you talked to him, but MANY Ballistic Tips have been changed considerably since they were introduced in the mid-1980's.

The first was the 200-grain .338, which appeared in 1992. The jacket's about 2/3 of the bullet's weight, so even if the core and jacket separate, the jacket alone ends up weighing around 60% of the original bullet's weight.

I know this not because of hearing or reading it somewhere, but because of testing plenty of 200-grain .338 BT's in both media and game. In fact, the first thing I did with the sample received in 1992 was shoot some into the same stack of DRY (not wet) newspaper alongside some 210 Partitions. Muzzle velocity was around 3000 fps, and the newspaper only 35 yards away. The 200 BT's penetrated 90% as deeply as the 210's.

Since then have only recovered ONE of the 200 BT's from any sort of game, a 450-pound gemsbok bull shot in the "front shoulder" at around 150-175 yards. The bullet ended up under the hide of the ham on the opposite side.

Many Ballistic Tips have been beefed up in the same way since then, the 165/168/180 .30's among them. A good friend here in Montana used one from a .300 Weatherby on a cow elk, with basically the same results as the 200 from my .338.

MD. is it safe to say that any of the currrent production BTips labeled as “Hunting” have jackets that have been beefed up ? I’m specifically interested in the 100gr 257. Thanks in advance.

With a few exceptions (which always worked well) all Hunting Ballistic Tips are tougher than they were when introduced, and some have gone through several generations of refinement.

In calibers under .30 the jacket is generally about half the bullet's weight, and when recovered they tend to retain 40-60% of their original weight. In calibers from .30 up the jacket's around 2/3 of the bullet's weight, and they generally retain at least 60% of their weight. That includes the 165, 168 and 180-grain .30's, 8mm 180 and 200-grain .338.

Thank you. So I will assume that the 257 100gr either has been beefed up or it was one that always worked well.

I never started using the .25 100-grain until a few years ago, but the first one broke the shoulder joint of a good-sized whitetail doe quartering toward me at around 50 yards, using a .257 Roberts handload getting about 3050 at the muzzle. The deer staggered maybe 25 yards and keeled over. When I skinned it, found the bullet at the rear edge of the ribs on the opposite side, retaining 42% of its original weight.

Thanks for the info.

I've been impressed with the toughness of the 150 BT over the years on a lot of close up, tough angled, shots on deer. I'd heard horror stories about BT's blowing up so I was hesitant to use them. Some how ended up with a bunch of them on a trade and used them with a generic Varget load to get a scope on paper.....they shot so well I had to give them a try. Dig way deeper than I ever expected.

I'd like to try the 30/125 in Ruger/Lipsey's stainless #1 30-30 for my left eyed kids. I'm sure Lipsey's will donate one since it's for the kids.

https://ruger.com/products/no1/specSheets/21317.html

That #1 is way classier than my my left eyed kids have! I like it!

JCMCUBIC,

In 2005 I shot lengthwise through a pronghorn buck with a .30 caliber 150-grain Ballistic Tip. The buck stood facing me at 250 yards, and the bullet entered just left of center on the chest, exiting between the hams. The cartridge was the .308 Winchester.

I think it's all about bullet construction.

I suppose it depends on the definition of “big game”. Deer aren’t big game in most circles nor are hogs and antelope. Elk, moose, and black bears are at the bottom end of big game in my view. Surely most of the African critters are big game along with the big cats and bigger bears. Lighter bullets are fine for deer and hogs but I prefer the lighter bullets in a .257 or 7x57 not in a .30 cal. BC tends to be low for lighter .30’s. Happy Trails

20 yrs or so ago, they were so bad, our deer camp banned them. Even 150's out of .308’s were blasting chunks out of the sides of WT's without dropping them. Today's NBT are both accurate and have good terminal performance. Well, the old ones were accurate.

Even 180's at 300 WM speeds were blasting big, gaping entrance wounds in head shot hogs. Dead hogs, but entrance wounds 6" wide with internal parts showing. And it was consistent, not a fluke here and there.

I'm glad they fixed that problem.

DF

I have killed a lot of deer with a 125g Nosler BT and a 125g Sierra Pro Hunter, load is somewhere between 49-52g of Win 748. This 748 load is magic in terms of deer killing with DRT kills. Accuracy out of Remington factory sporters is amazing to say the least in a tuned rifle.

I never fetl the need in using an accubond or a Barnes bullet in this bullet weight in a 308 at MV over 3000 fps. I killed some large bucks over 200lbs with the 748 load.

That Sierra 125 Pro Hunter is a hard bullet. They designed it for hunting deer-sized animals. It isn't a varmint bullet. It punches what seems to be above its weight, though I have little experience with other 125gr 30 cal bullets. I'd not hesitate to use the Sierra on deer, or the Nosler 125's, or the Hornady 125's either, at 30-30 to 30-06 speeds. I have no doubt that they all would work well with proper shots.