Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 200 grain .338 Ballistic Silvertip for deer?

I bought a pile of them from SPS and my Mauser .338-06 shoots them quite well at 2850 FPS with Varget. Any issues with this bullet being too tough for big south-central Montana mule deer on lung shots? Any issues with it being too soft for going through both shoulders?
This bullet is just a basic .338 Ballistic Tip with a black coating and a grey tip, right? I recall JB saying those are pretty stoutly made with a thick jacket.
This old rifle is new-to-me and I'd love to "blood" it for the first time this fall if that load's a good fit. Got a Whitetail "B" tag too, so same question for those little gals.

Thanks in advance,
Rex

I killed numerous African animals with the plain jane 338 200gr BT...from a 338-06AI and elk too. your bullet will kill whatever needs killing....
Bill

I ran them just over 2900 with either 4064 or 4320....likely the latter. Hit a nice buck under 35 yds......hit back of the ribs, stopped under the hide on the off shoulder. Deer down in VERY Short distance.......nice mushroom. It's a good bullet. I was going to say the retained wt. was 120 gr but that does not sound right, probably more like 160. I will try to find it.......I shot another nice buck in Tx at 200 yds, he DRT.......that combo is deadly.

Not too tough.....but tough enough and plenty expansion. Nothing to worry about on Mule Deer. On Elk, my choice would be the 225 Partition, only drops a couple of inches more at 2670 at 400 yds with a 200 zero.

Good hunting Rex, nice combo there. FYI, I used WW brass, partial sized.....my 23" shot 1/2 MOA with that bullet and also with 225 Speers, Partitions, and Hornady's. Hart barrel.

Rex,

They are an excellent bullet, on of the best all round bullets for the .338 Win mag, and would serve well for your use.

They leave big holes and wide blood trails and are much more effective on deer then say the Sierra 215's or 250's, but still put the hurt on elk.

That and the 225gr Accubond are my two favorite bullets for the .338.

My experience with the 200 Ballistic Tip/Silvertip ranges from 100-pound animals to 500+ pounds, and it had always worked fine on both. Plus, when the original came out in 1993, I gave some to a local friend to test, since he had proven capable of providing a detailed report (unlike some other local friends).

The only one I've personally recovered was from a big gemsbok bull in Namibia, almost facing me at 150-175 yards. Aimed for the near shoulder joint and hit it. The bull dropped right there, partly due to the bullet clipping the bottom of the spine, and the bullet was found under the skin of the opposite ham, retaining 59% of its weight.

My friend killed a big cow elk with an angling-away shot at around 200 yards. The bullet entered the rear half of the ribcage on the left side, and it broke the bottom of the spine and exited in front of the right shoulder. (The cow was uphill from him.)

140’s out of a 7 mag work great on deer, pigs, and the 3 Aoudads I’ve shot. None lived to tell any tall tales, 200 grainers would hammer deer.

Thanks for all those inputs folks. It confirms just what I thought, but figured it was worth asking for others' opinions and experiences.
I'll plan to carry this rifle as the backup on my AZ cow elk hunt in a couple weeks (the Savage 99 .358 Win is the prime, and I've never hunted with it either) and then use it as the prime on the Montana deer hunt in late October.

Cheers,
Rex

.My experience with them mirrors above, they work.

I used them on two deer last fall and a SE Alaska black bear this spring.

I killed whitetail, caribou, and black bear with the 200 BT and the bullet did everything I wanted it to, it was very effective. I did swap it out to the 210 PT because I felt like the BT was giving me excessive meat damage on anything but broadside shots. I wouldn't hesitate to use it again but think the PT is a better all-around bullet in my 338-06.

Re: the 225 AB mentioned above, should be nearly as good as the PT, which is what I always chose over the 210. More BC/SD, energy than a 210, so for larger game, I say - what is not to like with a 225 vs a 210? Strictly speaking about the '06 but it would apply to the Win Mag round.

Perhaps my close up shot hit the shoulder knuckle to have stopped on that WT buck, but it sailed thru on the 200 yds shot, no heavy bone hit there as I hit that buck where the neck juncture of the shoulder area. He folded. Yes, the 338 bore with modest speeds in this round, and good bullets, does hammer game. I would think a similar bullet in 180 or 200 in the 30-06 might do very similar, but I always skipped 30 when going past the 7s. Just me, no doubt the 30 is proven, but folks who use the 338s, with shot placement are often very happy with the results. That could be said for most modern rounds.

Back on the 210, I see that bullet as ideal for the 338 Federal, where COL is a factor. A long spitzer Boat-tail will rob powder capacity. TO me the 338F is a great round to around 300 yds, and 185 Barnes, 200 SP, and 210 PT all do great.

T - hope to see some pics and stories of your upcoming hunts! Good luck! Btw, if you are looking for a good bullet for that 358 - take a hard look at the 225 PT for elk, and Sierra may also do fine, but I loaded them for deer in a 350, and they hammered them.

I have used the 180gr NAB, 200gr Hornady SP, NAB, Ballistic Silvertip, and 210gr TSX on big game.

I would personally choose a mono in the 200-210gr range before a 225gr NAB, but that is my preference. You will absolutely have all the penetration you need with less meat loss of the monos..

+1

My father and I have used them at 2,850fps and they are harsh on hogs and deer. Nearly always exit. Only stopped one on a hard quartering-away shot on a 300lb+ boar. Great blood trails on lung-shot animals.

A few more notes on this thread:

I used the .338 Winchester Magnum a LOT from 1989-99, not just in Montana but various other states and provinces in North America, primarily the North from Alaska to Quebec, as well as Africa and even a little in Europe. That was a period of great changes in bullets, so I also got to field-test quite a few.

The 200-grain Ballistic Tip appeared in 1993, and after using it some pretty much stuck to it as my "light" .338 bullet. The 210 Partition is a good bullet, but never could see much difference in how it penetrated than the 200 BT, or how much meat got shot up.

One example of penetration came not too long before the 200 BT appeared. We used to spend the last few days of the Montana big game season hunting with some friends near Bozeman, and often one of the friends was a guy from Back East who firmly believed in the .338. One year while hunting elk he ran into a pretty good whitetail buck at close range, which took off running angling away. He managed to put a 210 Partition into the rear of the ribs, and the buck ran a little ways and fell over. When we got the buck back to camp and started skinning it, we found an expanded bullet under the hide at the front of the chest, and my friend assumed somebody else had already wounded the buck. But when I put calipers on the bullets, the shank measured .338. It was his bullet, stopped by a buck that couldn't have weighed much over 150 pounds field-dressed, if that.

Also have considerable experience with the 225 Partition and AccuBond. They penetrate a little deeper than the 210 Partition, but not all that much. When I really wanted penetration from a .338 I used either the 250 Partition or the discontinued 230-grain Fail Safe, which performs on game much like the Barnes TSX and similar monos. The only Fail Safe I ever recovered was from a 58" Alaskan moose, from a facing shot. The moose was standing angling uphill on the edge of a 10-foot river bank, and the bullet landed just inside the left shoulder. We found it resting against the pelvis, retaining 96% of its weight, due to losing one petal. (Like TSX's, Fail Safes opened into 4 petals.) In fact it was the first 230-grain .338 recovered, and the guys at Winchester were very interested in taking a look at it, so I mailed it to them. (They were good enough to send it back.)

Never did recover a 250 Partition, though one did stay inside an eland I killed in Namibia. The range was about 200 yards, and the bull was broadside, so I aimed for the "pocket" just behind the shoulder bulge. The bullet hit a tiny branch from a small thornbush just before landing right where I aimed, entering sideways. The bull took off into the brush, but we found it standing in a clearing about 100 yards away, facing the opposite direction with its head lowered. I put another bullet into the chest, and the bull dropped. That's when we found the perfect silhouette of a 250-grain Partition in the hide, surrounded by little whorls in the hair from the thornbush. Would have loved to have recovered that sideways bullet to see what it looked like, but it was never found. The second one exited.

I don't use the .338 nearly as much these days, but did kill a whitetail buck a few years ago using the 200-grain AccuBond. It exited, not surprising on a 200-yard broadside shot, and the buck dropped right there.

I don't have nearly as much experience with the 338-06 as some here, somewhere between 300 and 400 rounds fired and just a couple of whitetail does tagged. After trying several different component bullets, I settled on the 210 grain Partition as the bullet that provided the balance of accuracy, penetration, and velocity potential that I typically seek in a load. The rifle is a S&W branded Husqvarna that is half of a matched pair, the other being chambered in 256 Newton.

I have also used the 210 grain Partition in my Ruger Hawkeye in 338 FED. I have thought about trying the 200 grain AB, but I like the peace of mind that Partitions give me, knowing that they will always work gives me one less variable to think about.

For those who’ve used the 225 accubonds, will they expand adequately on broadside deer? I’ve used the 210 partitions out of a 338 and a 340 on deer/elk/antelope out to 500 yds. They could always be counted on to open up. What about the 225 accubonds at 3050 FPS? I haven’t used the 340 in 13 years and want to use it on whitetails this season....just because. Range is typically 225-360yds.

JB, yes, that 230 FS was a little Gem that should have stayed around...it was a top choice for many in the know.

I do agree also, in the Win Mag, you are getting speeds high enough for decent trajectory, and then the 250 PT really shines. I was happy with 2670 in my '06 with 225s, 215 Sierra's ran 2790, but they are not tough enough for Elk IMO, deer should be fine. The 250 Sierra, I was told by Rich at Sierra was heavier jacketed.....

No doubt the 210 PT has that soft nose to open and has probably taken coutless deer....odds are a 200 PT in an 06 will equal it, and I believe Sam Fadala had a write up doing penetration tests in phone books as I recall, and the 30 cal did better the 338 in those bullets. Whoever did that test, it was in American Rifleman magazine, I do know that for sure.

Elkaddict, for me, the faster I push a bullet, with say a bigger capacity round, the more I am looking at heavier, and harder/tougher constructed bullets so they maintain integrity during penetration. Watched a buddy dump a Mule Deer at close range with his 340 and 210s, however I see no downside to stepping up to 225s and 250grains in a 340 and 338 Win Mag......on deer if you can get great accuracy, the 200 Nosler BT or AB will do whatever you need to do within probably 500-600 yds, IF You shoot that far, or had to and could hit vitals. Because of your speeds, if most of your shots are closer than further, I would use a Barnes 225 TTSX if it's accurate, or a 250 partition to lessen meat damage, unless you only take lung and perhaps neck shots. Just my thoughts, others might fell differently. I doubt many bullets will 'BLOW UP' in 338 on deer, but some will have less meat loss as others above noted. So if you like aiming for shoulders, bullet choice might make a good bit of difference especially if impact speeds are high.

Thanks 65BR. I’ve got numerous deer rifles so this is really about using my favorite elk rifle with a “do it all” load. Wby quit marketing their 210 Partition loads and I’m down to my last box so I figured it was time to load for it. Those factory loads regularly shot 1/2” and at 3250fps. I spent quite a bit of time trying to match that load and could never match velocity and accuracy at the same time. I’ve got the the 225 Accubonds shooting moa with RL26 but because I know what the rifle is capable of, I’m now working with IMR7828....

I tried the X bullets when they first came out and was soured on the inconsistent expansion and the amount of effort it took to scrub all that copper out. I’ve had a hard time abandoning the Noslers given 35 years of predictable performance. Yes, I know I’m being stubborn.....

I enjoy venison....but don’t fret about a few pounds of lost shoulder meat. And yes, I am a shoulder shooter....because it’s never failed.

When I lived in Alaska I killed and saw killed a lot of deer with the 250 partition, they worked perfectly

Heck yeah! My buddy hammers Virginia deer with a 338/375 yearly with the 225 AB at 3050. Most get straight flattened!

Yep, the soft front core opens easily

In my experience 250 Partitions may not kill deer super-quickly, but have never had one (or a similar-sized African animal) go more than about 50 yards--and at even .338 Magnum velocities the meat damage is minimal.

Same deal with the 200-grain Partition from the .30-06, driven at similar velocities as the 250 from the .338 Magnum.