Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game What is the WORST hunting bullet?

I would have to nominate the Nosler BT. It'll get the job done but destroys too much meat in the process. I have used them in the .300 H&H, .30/06 and .243. YMMV

I have also had the joy of flattening a .375 Hornady on an elk. Pic was posted a week or so ago ("A pic to go with the threads" here in GH). Very accurate practice bullet!

I wouldn't shoot Cor-Lokts at any animal except varmints....
They get my vote...

I cannot count the numbers of deer and elk me and my buddies have shot with Corelokts. Great bullets in my opinion.

I think all the bullets on the market today are fine for hunting if you actually hit them in the vitals. I must say, I have never gotten decent accuracy out of any of the Speers I have tried though.

The worst hunting bullet by far is........

























the one sitting on the loading bench while your out in the field with out any.

My vote goes to the Federal "High Shok" or the now defunct Remington Bronze Point.

I think Corelokts are as good as most bread and butter bullets out there- at least as good as PP or STs.

I have had bad experiences with Ballistic Tips but I think they are pretty good in many situations.

Hornady SSTs

Please, please, please...don't ANYONE say "Match Kings."







oops



bhtr

Doubious "muck-raker"........grins

bhtr

Winchester Silver Tips. And pretty much any cup and core boattail bullet. Now I have some experience with 130 gr Speer SP's in the 270, Its a good deer bullet and I have killed a bunch of white tails and Mule's with it. But not the Boat Tail version. I still have a few of those old Silver Tips laying around. God awful

I hope no one would be stupid and inhumane [enough] to use a non-hunting bullet to wound game with.

But before reading the post that inspired this one, I've seen more than my share of thin-jacketed Sierra bullets that came apart when they shouldn't have.

As for Nosler Ballistic Tips, they work great for me! Killed everything I've launched them at (mulies, elk and pronghorns). Sure Ballistic Tip's aren't as hard as I would like them and they can expand violently, but every bullet-design/brand can "explode" if not used within the "envelope" it was designed for- or just shoot one into heavy bone and see how much blood-shot meat is destroyed.

Jeff: You're so twisted........ Uh, by the way, are we allowed to list more than one?

Corelocs above 2,800, or so. Same at moderate velocities, good pills.

That Sierra pro hunter was the worst I've used.Interbond not too far behind.

I'd have to say any bullet that groups like crap out of your rifle is a lousy choice.
All the controlled this that or the other thing is pretty much meaningless if you cant hit what your aiming at.
I've shot 165gr. Sierra's out of my 30'06 killed moose like nobodies business.(2850fps)
I shoot 165 Interbonds out of my 300WSM, kills deer, and moose very well (3150fps)
I had a hunting partner killing deer and moose with a 70gr. 6mil wildcat and Nosler BT's at darn near 4000fps, put em in the lungs and everything was DRT before the muzzle blast died away.
My wife killed her first 6 deer with 130gr. Corelocts, out of her 270Win (3055fps) never recovered a single bullet. All of them were dead by the time we got there.
So yup it depends on a lot to make a bullet un worhty of hunting.
I guess my vote goes to inaccurate ones.

According to the great ballistician Lee24 it's the 120 gr TSX hands down....

This has been very interesting.

One thing I have learned by visiting various bullet factories, and sectioning and shooting various bullets in both test media and animals, is that most cup and core bullets are pretty similar. Jacket thickness and alloy, along with the lead alloy in the core, are all very close, whether we are talking Core-Lokt, Power Point, Sierra GK or PH, Hornady Interlock, etc.

There are exceptions. Some of the roundnose Core-Lokts still have the thicker jacket sidewalls that were originally part of every Core-Lokt, but haven't been seen in the PSP CL's for close to 20 years. The Speer boattails are not Hot-Cors, which use a fairly hard lead alloy, but are swaged from a soft lead alloy, softer than about any other "big game" bullet on the market.

But the rest of the cup-and-cores are pretty much the same bullet. One may have an Interlock ring, another may have hadsthe core dripped in as melted lead, rather than swaged. Other than that there is no vast difference in jacket or core.

Anybody claiming one is vastly superior or inferior to all the rest is, I suspect, coming to that conclusion on the basis of limited experience, perhaps even a sample of one. When impact velocity is moderate (and really big bone is avoided) they all tend to work pretty well.

I have also gone through my hunting notes on hundreds of big game animals taken over the decades (both mine and those that other folks shot when I was there), and found that cup-and-core boattails do not separate core and jacket any more often than square-based bullets. In fact, in my data they separated less often. I suspect that we have been told boattails come apart so often that we have started looking for it....

Nosler Ballistic Tips are designed to open violently. That is why they kill so well, and also why they chew up meat. You cannot have one without the other.

JB

Interesting notes JB, I did taxidermy for many years as a living. The interesting thing I saw there was that IF I found a seperated jacket/bullet it was almost always a boattail.

Beyond that everyone has their opinion and need. Thats what drives the debates. I personally love to blood trail animals, its part of the hunt, I hate bang flops. Its probably the over 100 bowkills and the archer in me... I also am an old tightwad country boy... I hate to see meat wasted so I hate destruction of meat. Probably part in fact that the old codger that started me hunting(Dad never hunted deer till after I started and then not much) taught me while I was in 4th grade to head shoot and trim every scrap... I'm not saying it was all correct, but it was how it was.

Bullet failures, have seen 2 from Sierra bullets. Both failure to expand at all. 2 Nosler Partitions that did not penetrate like I'd expected or demanded. I've seen exactly Zero failures in any of the Barnes offerings and that includes well over 100 animals deer size and up. Though I'm aware they may fail also, I've never seen it. So after the destruction noted in the BT series turned me off, I went away from them needless to say.

I am not sure exactly how to interpret the statement about BTs killing so well... all animals I've run any type X through are dead shortly thereafter, but I suspect its the shock effect, which does not instantly kill but does tend to instantly immobilize them while they bleed out.

And actually IMHO with a good fast X series you can have both, bang flops and much less meat destruction than the BT series though we'll never convince each other that the other is right/wrong. But it should keep ya employed a bit longer!

Jeff

Should note the reports of lodged projectiles or parts in tubes from the noted alteration. You will note a FMJ is typically open in the base, if you open in in the front one could see that a jacket and core could seperate going down the tube.... Just a reminder.

That being said my cousin was heck on deer for some years with a 39 dollar (circa 1990s) Nagant and ground off tips on the cheapy ball ammo.... Would run the water hose down the barrel after shooting corrosive... it was a beater rifle he kept on the tractor for yotes and meat and worked well!!

Jeff

I believe it was Rick Bin that stated "if you poke a hole in the lungs, it is going to die".

I can tell you, running a taxidermy shop gives me a lot of access to dead animals. I can tell you, a lot of animals I see are shot in the neck which is puzzling. The last four archery animals I have mounted were all shot in the neck! That is a big no-no with archery. I mounted an elk that was shot in the neck twice with an arrow. These guys were lucky that they found the animals they shot. I imagine a lot of "bullet failures" are actually "hunter aiming failures".