Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Worst bullets for Killin game

Pronghorn and up, what’s the worst performing bullet you’ve used? For me it’s gotta be any of the Barnes mono bullets.

I don't know about "worst" as every critter I've shot with it goes less than 3 feet but the 162 Amax tends to disappear in animals. I'm not getting a large, or any exit hole but I do get goo in the chest.

Talking whitetail at 30-170 yards out of a 7-08 over near max charges of Reloader.

Just sort of makes me nervous.

Never lost a critter with either the 105 nor 162 but I wonder if it's coming.

I’m a goo fan personally. Ol man has shot 162 Hornadys out of his 7 mag every since I can remember. Always raspberry gelatin in the chest cavity. 👍

I've never seen a drop of blood from an entry hole with them but, like I said - deer went 3 feet and croaked. So it's ok but just not what I was used to with core loks or partitions in the past.

Outside of being grossly wrong for the game - 22 Hornet on shoulder shot grizzly for instance - its likely hard to chose a bad bullet these days. We are living in the golden age of gun chit.

I can't seem to recall an instance where I told myself, "Gee, that bullet sucked." Unless you include cases of TOO MUCH as being worst then my vote goes to Deer Season XP with I believe a 150 projectile out of a 300WSM. The couple I've seem shot front to back made me glad I didn't eat first before cleaning 'em. 😝

I’ll add Berger 210’s at 300 rum velocity. Pard used em for a while, just shook my head. Fuuckers penciled through like a steel rod, few bulls, antelope and some bucks. Love me some 140 Berger’s though

Core Lokts from the 7mag in the 80s.

Several friends talked about 7mags giving terrible results, i really didnt believe them.


Then we started using them. Hunting elk, and at home on deer.
Saw a guy using 140s destroy a cow, run out of ammo and have to borrow more to kill it.

Dad had experiences from pencil holes to massive damage with the 150s.
One, a doe shot at about 35 yards, penciled through the lungs.
Only his disbelief he could have missed kept him looking until he found a drop of blood.
A long track lead to the deer. Without snow, it would have been lost.

I was loading my owm by then, Dad saw me use Partitions for the elk hunts, and suddenly he overcame his prejudice against reloads.

First, I pulled the Remington bullets from his stash of factory loads, and replaced them
with Partitions and Solid Base Boattails (a great bullet discontinued to push BT's).

The original BT bullets .no problems now .

That ain't no chit, as sorry assed mf'ers I ever saw. it was 20 years before I tried them again. I shot a buck antelope with 120 gr Hornady hollow points out of my 25-06 at 300 yards and the bullets just pencil thru. Haven't used them since....mb

Out of all of the ones if used I was most disappointed with Barnes 150 gr XLC ‘s out of my old ‘06. Not much of a blood trail or exit hole. About the same size going out as going in. Dead deer all the same but it went the furthest with the least amount of blood trail. Perhaps a lighter bullet going faster in mono but that was my experience with them. 180 C&C bullets did better.

Old style BTs fragmented badly. I even had a 7mm 140 fail to exit a small coyote from 362 yards.
I also had poor penetration and a big entrance hole on a doe from an early 6.5 mm 129 SST.

Same here. Had a REAL bad experience when they first came out and didnt touch them again for at least that long. Now they are favorites in a couple guns.

That and Federal stuff back in the 70-80’s

One episode tells you exactly nothing BUT I quit using Bergers after a little 3x3 Mulie decided not to die quickly despite 3 solid lung hits with a 140 gr VLD-Hunting from a 7mm-08.

He died sure enough but it took far longer than I either wanted or expected.

7mm Mashburn.
168g Berger "hunting" bullet.
250 yards.
Good-sized doe.
Off side hole looked like a window.
Kinda reminded me of the John Carpenter movie,
The Thing. Where the dog gets
taken over by the alien and turns itself inside out.
Most disgusting thing I've ever seen. Bullet obviously exploded.
dave

Judman: I see that lure out there shining in the water……hell I’m gonna bite, at least once.

The worst bullets are the one used outside of their design parameters

The first 30 caliber 150 grain SST's that came out, explode on impact. problem is still have 100 plus loaded and laying around.

Never had a bad bullet in centerfire rifles but, CVA Shockwaves 250 gr. in muzzleloader didn't impress me. Behind shoulder shots wouldn't open up good for some reason.

Seems like you don't shoot enough for recreation.

About the only bullets I’ve had poor luck with that wasn’t because I was loading them way faster than they’re supposed to go or way slower were Remington Corelokts and old WW Silvertips. Back in my factory ammo days I had several 140 Corelokts loaded in factory 260 ammo blow completely up when bones were hit, same with the 130s in factory 270 ammo.
Those two loads at least seemed consistent, they’d go to steam when you hit bones. The Silvertips were all over the place, blow a coyote in half with one and pencil on a deer with the next shot.

If you load your own it’s easy to make about anything work well. If they come apart at 300WM speeds, load them in your 30-06 and they’ll probably work great. All I ask is for consistency, if I can find out how they behave I have a wide enough selection of rifles of different chamberings that I can usually find a good use for them.

Like I stated in the premium bullet thread, I don’t care what they say on the box I just like good bullets. If they’ll shoot and behave the same way every time when they land I can adjust the velocity to make them suit my needs.