Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Accbond vs. Ballistic Tips?

For me, it seems as though the Ballistic Tips are a shade more accurate by a narrow margin.

Which have you had the best accuracy, Accubonds or Ballistic Tips?

Ballistic tips, hands down, are more accurate.

It's a simpler process to make them, and when searching for accuracy simplicity is your friend.

Yup, Ballistic Tips are a good bit easier to get to shoot well in my experience.

Ballistic Tips for me! Nosler solved any problems they had with them years ago.

I’m an Accubond fan , but I like a tough bullet that will exit .

I try em both and see which the rifle prefers. Sounds cliché but I’ve had several rifle actually show a decided preference for one over the other….and it’s not always the BT.

If my rifle won't shoot Ballistic Tips,there is something wrong with the rifle.I know the first accubonds I shot about fourteen years ago did shoot a bit different than Ballistic Tips the same weight.The newer ones I've shot in 338 200gr and the 30cal 180gr shoot the same for me.As for how they perform on game,I'm equally confident using either one,they both work.

In my rifle i get the same accuracy with both,

This is from Nosler's FAQ's
What is the difference between the Ballistic Tip® and the AccuBond®?

Externally, they look the same except for the tip colors, Ballistic Tip® bullets are color-coded by caliber while all AccuBond® bullets have white tips. Internally the Ballistic Tip® is not bonded and is designed for controlled expansion on medium game with approximately 50-60% weight retention. Conversely, the lead alloy core of the AccuBond® is bonded to the jacket. This bonding increases weight retention (65-70%) and slows expansion resulting in deeper penetration and enhanced bone-breaking potential in larger animals.

Ballistic tips for the most part, but a 257 Weatherby likes the Accubond better.

My comparative experience with the two bullet styles in the same rifle is limited. But that experience indicates the BTs are more accurate.
Further reading, but not yet my own testing, has informed me part of that may be that ABs may be fussier about seating depth. We had a thread on here a while back where a number of respondents said they were getting great accuracy with ABs once they moved them into the .050" or greater jump area. Might have to do with the whole bullet being a little "harder", like we have seen with monos that like to jump.

Cheers,
Rex

Ballistic tips are on my short list of bullets which are likely to be accurate without much diddling about. Old Sierra MKs and TSX/TTSX are also on that list for me).

I have in several rifles tried to develop a BT/AB load where I have the BT for low cost practice and the AB for hunting and it was easy to get a good shooting load with the BT in each case and no matter how much playing about I did I couldn't get the AB to match it accuracy wise the exception was the 7mm-08 AI, that thing shoots everything great. Some times the AB was accurate enough to hunt with, just not as good as the BT, in other cases the AB was significantly worse than the BT.

I have tried them in:

140s in a 7mm-08Ai

140's in a 7mm SAUM

150s in a 308

165s and 180s in a 300WSM

165s in a 30-06

140s in a 6.5 CM. ( although Oddly the 130's shoot exceeding well.

In my experience trying to match BTs and ABs, sounds great it just doesn't work out easily.

I think sometimes we get seduced by accuracy at the expense of terminal performance; I have been guilty of this.

As such I now consider first what I want the bullet to do when it hits a specific animal. Most of the time, for me, this also involves both the size of the animal and that I want to be able to drive a bullet through bone if necessary to get to the vitals. This means that I usually start with Partitions and Accubonds, which in my experience are similar in effect in game and weight retention. I’ll also throw Barnes TTSX in that mix. Of those, I pick the most accurate.

Also, a lot depends on the specific bullet in question, such as a 120 grain Ballistic Tip launched from a 7x57. These penetrate quite well and seem to punch above their weight. But again, I start with effects in bullet selection, then move to accuracy.

To the specific question of accuracy of Accubonds vice Ballistic Tips, I also concur that generally the Ballistic Tip is more accurate.

Ballistic Tips by a wide margin.

When I first starting loading the ballistic tips and accubonds in the late 90's and early 2000's (for the accubond), the ballistic tips were always a lot more accurate and much easier to get to shoot straight. The accubombs may be better now, but the earlier impressions put a bad taste in my mouth, so I have not used them since.. As a side note, I always had good luck with the Nosler solid base, which the ballistic tip replaced..

When the Accubond first came out, that was the expectation. To work up a load with the cheaper/less expensive ballistic tip and then substitute that for an accubond. Many gunwriters wrote about that with the inception of that bullet in the early 2000's. Many tried and hoped, but we all failed... Or I should say the bullet failed to make things easy. One of the reasons I gave up on them. Also as Trex said in a post above, they are extremely particular about seating depth. More so than most hunting bullets. Generally for most hunting applications, I load bullets at .020" off the lands for reliability and work up for accuracy. Never any issues doing this with partitions, ballistic tips or 100 other hunting type bullets out there...

I've found it depends on what I'm loading them in. I have found very comparable accuracy between the 150 BTs and 150 Accubonds in my 30-06 , my brother's 30-06, and the 180s in BTs and Accubonds in a couple 300 Win Mags I load for. My 26 Nosler loves the Accubond 140s, but is a bit more picky when I load up BTs. My 338s are quite equal also with the BTs and Accubonds in the 225 grain version so I shoot the Accubonds for elk and bears now- replacing my Partitions in almost all my rifles now...

Bob, you have 225 .338 Ballistic Tips?

Never saw those but I haven’t seen alot either

Can't remember if I had 225 BT's but I think they made them for a while... I know I loaded some tipped bullets for a while when I was using the Partitions and I preferred the Partitions so stayed with them until the Accubonds started to interest me....

The only situation when I've had ballistic tips and accubonds stack together is in two .30-06 rifles with 57 gr. of IMR 4350 behiind them. But every 165 gr. jacketed bullet I've used in that load has stacked in the same place.