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

Good info there. I was wondering. Have some on the shelf and wondered about them.

What were you shooting them from where they were so explosive?

I’ll add my partition experience. Bout 30 years ago my brother shot a dandy 6 point Roosevelt bull, bout a mile from my current residence. Husquvarna 7 mag, 150 partitions, bout 200 yards. Said he shot, no response whatsoever from the bull and his pard that was a twin. Got me, the Ol man and another pard to go look. Cut the 2 sets of tracks in a clearcut, absolutely no blood whatsoever. Tracked em from the clearcut to the reprod. Once in the reprod we lost the tracks, as you do when you look down in the shiit we hunt and can’t see your own feet. We all spread out and started looking, took a hour or so, and 250-300 through the thickest shiit you seen and we found his bull. Perfect behind the shoulder shot, both lungs, complete penetration, nickle size hole all the way through, no bloodshot, not [bleep] in the lungs/chest cavity. Ended up with a dead bull, but a fuucked tracking job.

I see what you did there

Worst for me was a .277 130 grain Speer BT that I tried to use for hunting in the late 80's. I shot 3 animals that fall using that bullet (WT buck, bull, bear) all at ranges under a 100 yards. In every case, the shot would knock them down or stagger them and in each case the animal would get back up and be on the move. Every animal took multiple shots to eventually kill even with shoulder shots. Very little penetration in every case.

On the buck, the bullet literally exploded with less than an inch of penetration. It was a long tracking job. I was young, inexperienced to bullet performance and didn't know this wasn't supposed to happen. That was until my uncle saw the rodeo with the buck and suggested using a Partition, which I did for many years with no problems. I'm pretty sure Speer doesn't make that bullet anymore.

That’s pretty surprising, most folks trip over themselves telling you how well the 215 version works.

I noticed that too. I had some explosive 139g 7mm set's early on too. They worked well on rock chucks.

Bb

I’ll admit Lonny, I’ve never loaded a Speer bullet in my life.

I've had very good results with the 215 hybrid. I killed another 5 point bull last fall with a 215 h at 2800 mv from my 300 wsm.

Bb

Yes sir. I barely if ever hear a bad thing about them.

About 15 years or so ago I had a friend complain the 180 I interlocks I loaded for him were blowing up on game. I'd had good luck with that bullet for years so I looked into it. We glued an older one and a newer one to a board and belt sanded them about in half. The older lot had a thicker jacket and a heavy interlock ring and the newer one had a thin jacket and a barely noticeable interlock ring in a different place.

I called Hornady and finally got through to a tech that told me the engineers change them around all the time trying to make them more accurate. I lost a bit of faith in a bullet I'd used for years after that. I used to use interlocks all the time and loaded them for friends that didn't want to spend much.

One time SPS had nosler 180g partition seconds for about $14/ bag. I stocked up because that's about what I was paying fir 180g interlocks at the time. When I had a friend that wanted a hunting load for regular ranged after that I just loaded them the 180 partition seconds. I've never had any complaints on those.

Right after we sectioned the interlocks I switched my rifles over from to the 165 interbonds for a few years. You don't hear much about interbonds but those things worked incredibly well. They hit hard with a large eide mushroom that held together well.

Bb

The first deer I shot with one of my handloads was with a 117 grain InterLock from a 25-06 at ~3050 fps. She was broadside at roughly 100 yards. I took the high shoulder shot, she dropped. I rolled her over when I got to her and find an exit hole that was 12-14 inches rearward from where I hit her. Again, she was perfectly broadside. While cleaning her, I find that that the core and jacket completely separated. A good chunk of the jacket was stuck in the shoulder not far from where I hit her. The core had taken a hard right turn and left exit hole noted above, damaging some fine blackstrap in the process. I know bone/spine was hit but don’t remember where. I went over 20 years before slinging another InterLock at anything.

I believe that's the stink I referenced above.

I much prefer the ttsx to the tsx in anything under 338 if going monometal. I know why sometimes some tsx bullets make it to market that don't expand. While most work well there are some that fail their own expansion tests. They then retool and get them expanding again but somewhere between 2 tests they started to fail and it used to be that the bullets made just before the failed test where still heading down the line for packaging.

That was nearly 20 years ago before the ttsx. I suggested the ttsx at the time because it allows a larger more forgiving hp. They didn't want to go tipped at first because they felt their bullets were already too long. Thats when they played around with a tungsten rear core called Mr X i think. I told them just go ttsx because people should be using a lighter monos anyways. Later when they decided to try the ttsx i got some 150g 308 cal and shot one diagnoly through a moose at 547 yards. I told them I don't see a use for a 30 cal mono over the 168g.

They can form the hp for the ttsx more reliably even as the tungsten punches that form them wear down a bit. In the larger size the tsx are pretty reliable because the punches wear less and the hp is bigger. The bigger hard kicking rounds can sometimes be a bit tough on tips so I like the 270 tsx in a 375.

Bb

Probably, I wasn't the only one who noticed it. I think I figured it out around the mid 2000s maybe 2004 or so.

Bb

First gen Nosler Ballistic Tips. Couple of the funniest elk races I've ever been a part of were because of those early NBTs. Although there are several others popular bullets here on the fire that are almost as bad, at least for elk.

Killed a cow last fall with a 308 and 150g TTSX. I liked how it performed.

Too bad it's too hard to manufacture a tipped boat partition with a high bc. I think that would be close to my ideal bullet. I know the NAB was meant to perform like that but I'd like to see a soft front core and a separate rear.

Bb

Winchester Failsafes weren't too good at expanding for the short time they were on the market.

After the experience I had with that bullet, I never tried a Speer bullet for hunting again.

Some of the last Silver Tips I used lacked in performance on deer and hogs.

GreggH

Interesting. 2004 I was trying the Nosler 180g Accubonds out of a 30-378. I would consistently lose the Abond tip inside the magazine pan after the first shot I fired. The second cartridge to be chambered would have a cavernous hole in the metplat where the tip had come off.

I was grateful that, one hit from the 30-378, would typically be enough. I sent the (2) partial boxes back to Nosler for them to analyze. They couldn’t come up with a definitive answer on why the tips were coming off.

They asked me if I wanted (2) new boxes of the same? I passed on them and asked for boxes loaded with the Barnes TSX bullet.

🦫

PS

After years of shooting the Barnes TSX. I switched back to the Nosler Abonds. They’ve been great at killing things for me. I don’t have the 30-378 anymore. Maybe that was the problem to begin with 🤷🏽‍♀️