Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Am I overthinking bullet construction?

They both looked perpendicular, but I do agree with you on the BTs and SSTs being toughened. Like you, I have no idea about the Creedmor's velocites, etc. All I can tell you it was pretty obvious they BTs expanded explosively

Please clarify;
If a box of BT's have the word "HUNTING" printed on the end of the box are they of the heavy jacket variety, regardless of caliber and weight?
OR
Are there some BT caliber and weight bullets that have the word "HUNTING" printed on the end of the box that are not the heavy jacket variety?

That's the problem with the ballistic tip bullets. Some are meant for varmints, while others are said to be built like a tank or have been beefed up with thicker jackets. When the ballistic tip first entered the market in the 90's, they were pretty frangible bullets. I shot a lot in my 30 cals and they didn't hold up well. I eventually stopped using them all together and went back to old tried and true cup and cores that held together better. Those consisted of Hornady interlocks, Winchester power points, and even the Sierra game kings. When I used the gamekings, I always shot heavy for caliber/cartridge pills. Examples of that are the 200gr 30 cal in my magnums, and 250gr in my 338 win mags. Those bullets worked very well, but you have to expect the core is going to separate from the jacket more times than not. I will take that over the bullet simply exploding on contact and causing excessive blood shot meat and waste. Other guys don't seem to be bothered that the bullet of their choice is going to ruin a lot of eats, as long as it puts the animal on the ground. A lot of those guys don't care how many shots it takes either. To them, its more about killing I guess. I actually like to eat deer and elk, so I'm going to use a bullet that generally punches a hole clean through, kills with 1 shot and creates the least amount of ruined blood shot meat.

No, not all of the HUNTING Ballistic Tips have the heavy jacket. As far as I know, the heavy-jacket models start with the 165-grain .30, and go up from there. The heavy-jackets tend to act more like Partitions--the few I have recovered retained an average of 60% in weight, even if they lost the core, because the jacket's so heavy. (There are exceptions, like the 120-grain 7mm, which has a lot of jacket compared to the core.)

The smaller-caliber Ballistic Tips tend to retain about as much weight as Hornady Interlock Spire Points--or they have over the past decade or more. The few I've recovered have averaged about 50% weight retention, give or take 10%--which is about what the few Interlocks I've recovered have retained. A good example of a high-impact shot would be the 100-grain from a .257 Roberts that I put into the shoulder of a big Montana whitetail doe (as heavy or heavier than many South Texas bucks) that was quartering strongly toward me at 50 yards. Found it under the skin at the rear of the ribcage on the opposite side, weighing 41.7 grains.

Jorge,

Those 140 Ballistic Tips from 6.5 Creedmoors might have been very old stock. A good friend uses the 140s from his .26 Nosler at close to 3300 fps, and hasn't had the slightest difficulty with penetration even on big mule deer.

Big difference, old vs new.

I ‘bout wrote’em off. Now back using them.

DF

You and me both DF.

Me too. But I still reserve them for deer and smaller. Except for my 243's, then it's pronghorns or smaller.

Now that you're vulnerable, I dare you to read the "deceased by Scenar" thread, and go down that rabbit hole...

Just got off a 20 minute conversation with Nosler. I called a friend who has worked at Nolser since the early 90's, he was busy so directed me over to another person (Mike) who is the Ballistic Tip guy, and was nice enough to answer my questions in detail.

I asked him about different jacket thickness in various BT's and how much they expand and how tough they are. He said jacket thickness is only a minor part of expansion, instead core hardness is the biggest factor in how much BT's expand, and every caliber and weight has a specific core hardness, and the hourglass shape of the core (see a cutaway of the Ballistic Tip), will vary to control expansion. The thickness of the base will also be specific to a bullet in each caliber and weight, and will be a factor in expansion. He also said the Ballistic Tip is not an elk bullet, and he does not recommend it for elk regardless of caliber or weight. He does recommend most of the Accubonds for elk, which he says expands slower than the BT.

Another tidbit I was not aware of is the Partition front and rear lead core are of a different hardness, and again the hardness of the two cores will vary with caliber and bullet weight, with jacket thickness being a small part of the expansion equation.

He was also careful to emphasized Noslers bullets are not drawn, but instead extruded. That's been discussed on here in detail before.

That’s pretty interesting. I run the 140 BTs up to 3200 from my 264 Win and I haven’t began to keep one in a buck yet. They also faired real well in water jugs, penetrated and held together as the same load using Accubonds. Hard to believe the little CM tore them up that badly.

The 180 .308’s, 95 .243 and 150 .277 are a few others that have worked real well too.

Disregard.
No need to get disagreements going.

I used to read that years ago. I got a lot of information from Dober before he left the site. I miss his information and delivery. I dont think about the scenar much because I cant buy them off the shelf anywhere here in town and I never see them. I do have a 50 round box of 6.5x55 loaded up with scenars that I bought on a clearance sale at Midway or something. I have not used them on game. I know Dober loved the Scenar.

We have had real good luck with the .308 165/168 and .243 95 as well. 2 oryx, a bear and an elk fell to the 165 last year and they all behaved great, granted, one oryx and the elk were small. I consider the oryx tougher on bullets than elk, and I have seen 4 oryx taken with the 165 BT and all worked well.


I’ll take Nosler with a grain of salt until I see otherwise. Doesn’t make business sense to say one bullet out of the line works from mouse to moose.

I have been given somewhat different information from Nosler over the past 30 years, though not from Mike:

Yes, core hardness is a major part of the performance of Ballistic Tips (as it is with many bullets), especially the first "Hunting" versions they brought out, which proved to be too expansive. This was because they were basically the same bullet as the Nosler Solid Base--but with a plastic tip. In my experience the Solid Bases were pretty tough bullets, and I used them in calibers from .224 to .30 on big game. But the tip changed things, because a BIG hollow-point was required to insert the tip.

Some of the early Ballistic Tip "Hunting" bullets were definitely OK. One was the 140 7mm, which I used in the 7x57 at around 2900 fps for years on deer-sized game, and never recovered one. But many were were not. The 115 .25 was one.... (The same thing happened when Hornady introduced the SST, but they fixed that as well.)

The heavy-jacket Ballistic Tips (which as mentioned earlier started with the 200-grain .338 in the early 1990s) were indeed much tougher, and the jacket was a LOT heavier. I first tested them in dry newspaper and they penetrated almost as deeply as the 210 Partition. Used them a lot in the .338 Winchester Magnum after that, and among other animals, one dropped a big gemsbok at around 150-175 yards. The bull stood quartering toward me, and the bullet broke both the right shoulder and the spine. Found it under the skin of the left ham, retaining 59.4% of its original weight. That was not surprising, since in the "heavy jacket" B-Tips the jacket is around 75% of the total weight. In fact, when the 200 .338 was first introduced, the late Chub Eastman said it kind of resembled a monolithic with a little bit of lead behind the plastic tip.

I'm not going to overthink. I have some factory 270 win loaded with that Federal Trophy Copper bullet that will be used and also have 270 cal Partitions to reload once that supply dries up.

My favorite rifle is my Ruger compact rifle and it's in 338RCM. I've got about 700 old Hornady 250gr roundnose for it I've collected since 2016. I seriously need to load those in that little freak and get some game with it instead of the premiums I've been using. My only legit complaint about Partitions and cup and cores is that they leave tiny lead and antimony fragments in the meat that are impossible to completely remove without tossing a large amount of meat.

I posted this earlier in the post. Need to change it to "we are overthinking it"

I have not shot/witnessed as many critters being shot as some on here. But after seeing and putting hundreds of critters in the freezer. I can honestly say I have never lost an animal due to bullet construction. Every issue has been attributed to less than optimum shot placement.

I have some interesting anecdotes that made me go hmmm. But they are examples of one.

I prefer mono's for reasons stated earlier, but I have certainly taken and seen plenty tagged with standard bullets.

Self admittedly, my only lack of experience would be using Berger's, Scenars, hollow point type etc. I acknowledge they work. But I have zero interest using them on big game.

Lied earlier.

Have used the 250gr Expanders in an inline.
They have a hollow point bigger than some bullets, and they expand big.
My choice in the Omega.

But that's so far off "normal", its not pertinent.

I read it a few months ago a swallowed enough Kool-Aid that I decided to see for myself this year. I'm leaving for Montana in two days with three tags in my pocket and .308 155 Scenars and 6.5mm 139 Scenars, both loaded to 2800 FPS.
With the exception of one Pronghorn that fell to a 225 SGK out of my Whelen back in the early '90s, I can't remember ever having killed a critter with anything but a Nosler or Barnes. But the success stories on that thread made me want to give Scenars a try this year. They sure are accurate.
And yes, I do overthink it too...

Cheers,
Rex

Good luck on the hunt!