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

Original BT's so bad its been 20yrs since the last explosion and I'll to this day never give them another chance.. To many great billets to be dickin round.

Yep, and I'll throw in the rest of the monos for good measure. It's not so much about failures, I don't like how they work even when they work as designed. Leukemia bullets.

Misses?

I never like the terminal performance (instant upset and bullet separation on impact) of Fed Hi-shok ('06),. Both on the ram at 330 yards, and on the bull moose at 70, but they got the job done, 2 bullets each, 4 days apart.. Accurate tho - good for target practice- I won't use them on game after those two.

NP 210's in the .338WM are off my list for moose also after one use- front end of first shot at 100 yds fragged into BB shot on the near shoulder blade, peppering the near side lung without reaching the far side lung- never found the much vaunted back piece, which I suspect exited the entry wound. The second round twixt the eyes when he stood up on me at a range of 10 feet put him down for keeps, but I can do without the excitement. Probably work fine on caribou and coyotes tho.

before my reloading days, I bought a box of Federal Factory 300 Win Mag with 200 grain Sierra SPs on them...

edge of a Northern MN swamp, that had a small dirt road next to it... a huge Northern Whitetail, with a huge rack, came thru the brush headed toward the swamp.
I saw it before it stepped out onto the road to enter the swamp.. When it came out on the road, I grunted and it stopped to see where it was from, so it stood still for a second.
I pulled the trigger, and it came down nose first so the hit was good... I turned and grabbed my back pack, that I had taken off, and headed to that spot. It was 100 yd shot.

of course in MN, there was a fair bit of snow on the ground... there was a 2 to 3 foot circle of sprayed blood all over the snow on the road, and you could see where it hit the ground in the snow, maybe a foot deep snow fall...and fresh snow... however, NO DEER. there was also deer hair all over within that circle of blood..

if that deer had gone right into the swamp, 5 feet past the road, I saw no sign of it in the brush of the swamp...

The sun was going down fast and it was Sunday night, the last day of the season... I spent the night in my 4 Runner, and the next morning went out and looked for it..
In November the sun drops fast in Northern MN... I looked for any sign of that deer from 7 AM first light until noon. I had no idea where it disappeared to.... unless Scotty had Beamed it up...

(Yeah, I know_) called Sierra tech line, that after noon when I got home. They told me that my particular choice of round was a poor choice for a 300 Win Mag....that even tho the blood and hair all over the snow, meant that I had a good hit.... but the bullet was meant for Elk or Big Bears.... that it would have passed right thru, before ever getting a chance to open up....yet told me if I would have done the same shot and hit the same spot at 300 yds, the lower velocity, would have given the bullet a chance to open up more...they advised me to next time use a 180 grain bullet of theirs or a 220 grain RN, for that type of application... the 200 Gr SP was too hard, and the bullet passed thru the deer too quickly to do its job at just 100 yards...

Live and learn situation.. too hard of a bullet, going too fast for that short of a distance...

if I would have been using the same bullet in an 06 at those velocities, it would have dropped the deer and he'd have gone nowhere....

and only took my eye sight off the deer a few seconds after he went down to retrieve my back pack with my gear in it...

Live and learn... quit using that 300 Win Mag with factory loads in it...made sure I handloaded it with bullets that were a better choice for my application...

I've only ever experienced a few bullet "failures".... but the failure was really the application, not the bullet...

Whatever bullet Winchester used in their 100 gr 270 factory loads. As Seafire just wrote I’m betting application over bullet but it was a terrible whitetail bullet for me.

Those Federal made Tipped Bear Claws are some great bullets. I’m ashamed of myself that I didn’t buy 100’s of them when they were available. They’ve been nothing but great on paper and excellent hunting bullets.

Sorta the same principle as what the PT is other than the bonded front end. But they expand widely and do the business.

No tracks in the snow huh?


...they must do it different across the river.

At least you waited until you got home (that time).

Winchester 150gr Failsafe and 180gr nosler ballistic tips didn't preform as expected out of a 300 win for me. But as in most bullet failure cases it was the shooters fault in judgement and placement. I've sure killed a lot of deer and hogs DRT shooting FMJ ammo in .223 when all your trying to do is get a hole in them before they leave a farm field or tear out of a trap. The fact is there's no magic bullet.

I'll note an experience with a specific box of bullets, or couple of bullets out of that box. I've had different results with the same bullet on a lot of different animals but anyhow.....

.224 75 Amax. Loaded as a forming load in a .223AI. Very accurate. Shot a coyote at ~75 yards...maybe it was a little more, possibly out to 125. Hammered shoulder and the yote dropped screaming and doing helicopter circles on it's side. I watch/listen for a little while thinking it's going to end but it gets louder. I put another in it while it's on it's side. It keeps screaming and doing circles. Walk up to it and put it out of it's misery. First bullet blew up on the shoulder. Shoulder was broken but I don't think the bullet made it past the shoulder. Second bullet blew up on it's leg (it was on it's side, foot facing me when I shot the second time). It was ugly. Almost no penetration.

I've killed a lot of yotes, crows, armadillos, foxes, and bobcats with the 75 Amax and I've never seen anything like that before or again. I also shot up the rest of what I had loaded at targets before I went back to it. It doesn't kill as fast as a 50 vmax but it's been dependable....except for that group of bullets.

For straight up killing I have had zero issues with Speer bullets. Mainly hot-cors and the original grand slam, but a few of their other models too. They haven’t been more impressive accuracy wise than anything else but they have killed just fine. Sierras on the other hand…any anything remotely considered high impact velocity has been messy or FMJ like. With or, but no in between. I have not tried the game changer though.

It is always interesting to hear how other’s experiences are different.

I think sometimes there can be freak instances even with good bullets. Two instances of " failures". Years ago in the 90's I shot a nice mule deer in his bed at about 150 yds. Using a 7mm with 160 nosler partitions. At the shot, the buck casually got up literally unaffected. A second shot dropped him in his tracks. I was cussing myself for a no shooting sob. That is until I gutted the deer. The first shot had indeed hit the deer, pinholing through both lungs. The exit hole the same size as the entry hole. Second case a week ago. 243, 105 Berger hybrids. I have killed literally truck loads of critters with this bullet. Deer, coyotes wolves , antelope. They are awesome. Very quick kills, lots of damage inside, ect. I called in a pair of coyotes last week. Shot the first one at about 60 yds, he never took a step. The second one ran out there about 200 yds and stopped to look at the dog. At the shot, the coyote turned and ran, giving no indication of being hit.There was no sound of impact. The coyote ran full out for 150 yds then slowed up. As it trotted, I could tell it was hit. It then walked slowly in a circle, and then tipped over. I looked at the coyote, and found that I had center punched the coyote through both !ungs. The tiny exit hole was no bigger than the entry hole. There was no expansion at all. Not sure why either bullet didn't expand,maybe in and out between ribs, no bone contact, I don't know. But I am confident in saying nosler partitions, and Berger hybrids are still excellent bullets on game. But even good bullets are not perfect. Shoot enough bullets long enough,and occasionally odd things happen.

+1 Shot 2 mule deer bucks with them ~10 years ago and bullets exploded on both of them. Have since tried the 140SST's in .264 and they work as advertised.

Ain’t no bad bullets if you hit em in a good spot. I don’t think there are bad bullets any more, just bad marksmen, but what the hell do I know??

Honestly cannot ever say I was unhappy with a bullet. Perhaps I haven't hunted enough.

To date I've shot moose and deer with, that I remember: Only two things stand out on this list. The 120 gr Ballistic Tip coming apart very badly after going through a doe's shoulder, but it did so in the chest and that big deer was dead very fast...and a 180 gr Accubond from the 300 WM not opening much at all in a small whitetail my best friend shot at very close range.

The 30-06 SST loads were quite mild, as i had intended to shoot them in an M1 Garand and when hunting day arrived, couldn't find my bolt action loads. Go figure. They performed admirably on a cow and bull moose. I don't know how they do going fast. Never neede them to.



223 Rem 55gr GMX Superformance

6.5x55 120gr Ballistic Tip

308 Win 165 gr Federal Fusion

30-06 180gr Ballistic tip
30-06 165gr SST
30-06 Federal 180 gr blue box (Speer?)
30-06 Federal loaded A-Frame
30-06 Federal 180 gr Fusion
30-06 180gr Hdy Interlock RN

300 WM 180 gr Accubond
300 WM 180 gr Power Point
300 WM 18 gr Ballistic Tip

9.3x62 286 gr PPU SP

375 H&H Barnes 250gr TTSX

There was some miscommunication, or somebody fed you a line of bull.

Yeah I've heard variations on this whole "it just zips through, too fast!" thing as well and I really don't see how softer impacts are going to deform/upset bullets more than harder impacts....Perhaps this is overly simplified but push your hand through water and then slap your hand into water...

If there was a 2-3 foot cone of blood, it opened. Animals can do freaky stuff. But a hard bullet going slow won't do better than a hard bullet going fast, IMO. Doesn't make sense?

No, none whatsoever. That's like saying a baseball thrown underhand would hurt more than being thrown 90MPH...

Here's one way to think about it. Suppose I have some old, first-generation Ballistic Tips that are expanding too violently in deer when launched from my 30-06. So the cure is to load them in my 30-378 Weatherby. That way they won't have time to blow up. Right?

I don't think so.