Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles How would you rank big game bullets?

I think so much has to do with caliber and situation.

For example, out here in Az a lot of my hunting is or can be 400-800 yards, so I choose the 180 Berger Hybrid for my 28 Nosler and it is a perfect combo.

Before I got in to the long range game, TTSX and Accubonds served me perfectly.

If I was going on a hunt where I knew the likely hood of a long shot was just about 0, I would take a TTSX and feel comfortable at any angle, any size game.

Started out with Nosler Partitions and liked them, until I seen the same style premium 100 and 140 grain bullets from Barnes were about $2 a box cheaper at the local gun shop years ago. Been using Barnes ever since.

(1)Barnes TSX or TTSX
(2)Nosler Partition
(3) Hornady Interlock
(4)Rem Core-Lokt

Bullets I have shot game with and pleased with results in various rifles/cartridges ranked:

Barnes TTSX
Barnes TSX
Fed Trophy Bonded Bear Claw
Speer Grand Slam (.308 Win only)

I have some Barnes LRX loaded in 6.5-300 Weatherby and .30-06 that I hope to try this season and some Nosler Partitions in .35 Whelen on deck.

Ranked only with what I've taken big game with:

1. Partition
2. A-Frame
3. AccuBond
4. ELD-X
5. Core-Lokt
6. Silvertip

In the 30-06
Barnes 180 X
Hornady 165, 180, 220 in order of weight not performance
Speer Hotcore 200

In the 35 Whelen
Barnes 225X
Cast 280 RN

In the 260 Rem
Remington CL 140
Hornady Interlock 140

In the .458WM
Cast FN 485 at 1700-1950 fps

Always had good luck with Hornady Interlock and Remington Core-Lokt. Had failures using Ballistic tips in both .243 and 300win when they had the thin jacket and never went back. If something works and does what I need it to do, I don't change just for the he'll of it.

I started hunting big game in the mid '60s. I shot my first deer in 1965 with a borrowed 94 Winchester in .32 Special, and my first elk the next year with a borrowed .30-40 Krag. The bullets that I used were whatever came with the rifles, probably Winchesters and Remingtons.

In 1967 I bought my first centerfire rifle, a .30-06 from Herter's. I've always been a DIY guy and I started loading my own with that rifle. I loaded 150 grain Hornady's for deer and antelope, and 180 grain Sierras for elk. When I put the bullets in the right place, I put meat in the freezer, and other than a 4 year time out for Vietnam, those bullets put a deer and elk in my freezer every year until about 1978 when I had my .30-06 re-chambered to .30 Gibbs mainly for elk and I built a .257 Ackley for deer and a .22-250 for varmints.

My .30 Gibbs liked 180 grain Nosler Partitions and over the years it put 20 some elk, 2 Shiras moose, a mountain goat, and an Alaskan caribou in my freezer. I've experimented with a variety of bullets in my .257 Ackley, but most of the game that I've shot with it were with 117 grain Sierra GameKing bullets. Along with dozens of deer and antelope, those 117 grain Sierra bullets made one shot kills on 3 bighorn rams, a Dall ram, a Mountain caribou, and one of my best 6x6 bull elk. The key was putting the bullets in the right place.

In 2000 I went on my first African hunt. At the time I was in the middle of a long, nasty divorce and had to borrow a 7 mm Rem mag from one of the guys thay I went with. He had an accurate 140 grain Ballistic Tip load for that rifle, so I loaded a couple of boxes of them and that's what I shot on that trilp. My PH and others told me that those bullets were too light, but they made one shot kills on my Kudu, Gemsbok, Black Wildebeest, and a number of other plains game animals.

After that trip I bought my own 7 RM and developed a load for it with 160 grain Accubonds that has worked well for me on other African hunts, Canadian caribou and Muskox hunts, along with elk hunts here at home, and that rifle is still my foul weather back up rifle for deer and elk hunts.

In 2005 I booked an African Cape buffalo hunt, and for that hunt I built a .375 RUM. For that buffalo hunt I worked up a load with 300 grain Barnes TSX bullets that worked great on my buffalo and a number of plains game animals. On another South African hunt I used that rifle with 270 grain TSX bullets that worked great on a variety of plains game animals varying from a 25 pound Steenbok to a Cape Kudu. Last fall I used my .375 RUM with 281 grain Hammer bullets for an Alaskan Brown bear hunt.

Ever since I started hunting I've admired Weatherby rifles, and finally in 2009 I bought my first Weatherby, a Vanguard in .300 Wby. Because I had good results with TSX bullets in my .375 RUM, my first loads for my .300 Weatherby were with 168 grain TSX bullets. Those bullets worked great on a Texas exotic hunt and a Montana bull elk.

About that time Barnes came out with their TTSX bullets, so I tried some in 168 grains in my .300 Weatherby. They were slightly more accurate in my rifle, so them became my .300 Wby bullet. I used one on another Montana bull elk, a variety of New Zealand animals, and on 3 more African hunts. In 2017 I put a new Leupold scope with their CDS turrets on my .300 Wby and decided to shoot the heavier 180 grain TTSX bullets in it and had Leupold make a custom turret for that bullet. That is now my standard hunting bullet for that rifle.

This reply became more of my history of hunting bullets than a simple list ranking hunting bullets, but I believe that it is more the shooter and where he/she puts the bullets than which bullet is better that some other bullet.

I rank them as things I kill stuff with and ones I miss.