Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Partitions...misunderstood?

At $13 a box of 50 from SPS, they are perfect for my elk hunting.If I get 1" to 1&1/2:" groups at 100 yards and dead elk , I'm happy

Anywhere from 20 to 50 yards. That might not sound like far but when there is a nice big thicket 20 feet from them, it can make it tough to find them if you do not have a blood trail. Never lost one but did have to go back the next morning one time and look for him again before I found him.

Partitions work great if you match grain weight of the bullet to weight of the game.

How do you know? Guidelines?

130’s work fine for Deer, but not Elk?

Never had a problem with a Partition and velocities as high as 3100 fps. Had lots of problems with Barnes early mono's. Got sick and tired of spending good money for unreliable bullets. Supposedly they work now but I will never buy another Barnes bullet.

The thing that confuses a lot of people about Partitions, is that it is a premium, but also fills in for a standard bullet. It expands at low speeds and then steps up to penetrate extremely well, also. It is like combining a standard c and c and a mono metal. They do not always shoot well in every rifle, but I have not had any problem getting them to shoot in the rifles that I have tried them in.

I have had nothing but stellar results on elk shooting the 160s from my 7 mag at 3000 fps.

Often a couple of feet, straight down...

DF

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^THAT^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Top target 85 Ballistic Tips, bottom is 100 Partitions @ 100 yards, back to back.



I've taken a number of hogs and deer with Partitions and without fail it works like this: Bang-Flop.

I remember when bonded bullets became popular, people would trash the Partition for it's 65% weight retention. People were shocked to find out it was designed that way. Now the fad is ultra high BC.

True, but BC doesn't kill.

Another quotable...

DF

Keechi Kid,

WTF?

That original thought can only come from Nosler placing those pics of game animals on the box.

The 140 gr 6.5 mm and 150 gr .277 didn't shoot as accurately as other bullets for me in two rifles but the 200 gr 8 mm is amazing in my Rock Creek barreled 8mm Rem mag. If I do my part half inch 100 yard groups are pretty routine and when shooting at 200 yards before an elk hunt two years ago my three shots printed four tenths of an inch. The bullet I recovered from the off shoulder of my big bull shot at 450 yards looked just like every other picture of a recovered Partition. My big 8 will never launch a different bullet.

Agree, Sambo.

When I find a tight shooting NPT load for a rifle, I quit load development and load up a good supply.

When the NPT is hot, to me it's like hitting a home run.

Hard to go wrong there.

DF

Have probably mentioned this before, but Eileen and I have taken more than 20 species of big game around the world with Partitions, from the 60-grain .224 to 400-grain .416.

I started using Partitions at the tail end of the lathe-turned era, and while once in a while a certain bullet refuses to shoot in an inch or less, even those first bullets with the "relief ring" would do an inch or less, in the Remington 700 ADL .270 and "sporterized" 1903 Springfield that were only two big game rifles I owned at the time. (The Partitions were 130 .270's and 200 .30's.)

This doesn't mean I consider Nosler Partitions the only premium big game bullet. Have used a bunch of others, mostly with good results Eileen was the first hunter to provide a field report on elk with the 140 TSX, back when TSX's were introduced in 2004, but I had already used various versions of the original X-Bullet on considerable big game. Have also personally used, or witnessed, the results of many other premiums on big game, including some no longer made, such as the Winchester Fail Safe. Most have worked great, though there have been a few failures, whether in expansion or penetration.

Every year we both use several different kinds of big game bullets, either to see how they do, or because we like how they work for specific jobs. Last fall we used the Barnes TTSX, Hornady GMX and SST, and Tipped Trophy Bonded on our big game animals. Please note there wasn't a Nosler Partition (or indeed any Nosler bullet of any kind) among them.

But so far, over 40 years of Partition use, I haven't found another bullet that kills game significantly "better," or penetrates meaningfully deeper IF the right Partition is chosen for the job at hand, whether shooting pronghorns at 400 yards or buffalo up close.

Moderate expansion, deep penetration, and consistent terminal performance across the widest range of velocities of any bullets I've observed. I know that many will say a premium bullet isn't needed for deer, but there has been occasions when I was glad to be using Partitions when I've shot mature muleys.

Plus, when I can have Partition 2nds delivered to my door for almost half the street price, it's an easy choice........

I shot several deer with them over the years. Small hole in and out and mush inside. The only reason I don't use them for everything is cost.

Shop SPS. They don't always have your bullet, but sometimes you'll find a deal you can't resist.

http://www.shootersproshop.com/loading-reloading-bullets.html

DF