Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Old Ballistic Tips any good?

I blew some big holes in deer and antelope in the early 90’s with the 150 gr BT from a 30-06. In the late 90’s I shot a 15 lb coyote at 362 yards with the 140 gr from a 7mm STW. Granted it was an almost frontal shot but I would have thought it would exit such a small animal, which it did not.
Since then my only experience is with the newer 150 gr 7mm from a 7mm mag and a 7mm RUM. Performance has been excellent, even on a whitetail buck shot broadside at less than 50 yards with the RUM. It shattered the off side shoulder and exited. Pretty impressive given that it was still traveling at close to 3400 fps at that distance.

From my experience with them, the early ones were good on paper but not to be used on meat.mb

Deer tip over easy. Never shot a hog.

Early BT's came apart pretty violently at close range.

Buddy shot a whitetail at 30-40 yards with an old 130 grain in a .270 Win. One hole in. 3 holes out. Dead deer.

I shot a whitetail at about 60 yards with an old 150 grain in a .300 Win Mag. Hit too far back. Back of the liver on a broadside running shot. There were chunks of lung laying where the bullet met deer. Dead deer.

Sort of funny to me that ballistic tips even the early ones get a bad rap, but everybody and their brother seem to be shooting crtitters with amax, eldm, and tipped match kings because of the high bc these days. These are really nothing but very thin jacketed and soft core versions of the ballistic tip, even compared to old version and work ok if put in the vitals

Lou

For many years all I shot was a Win 670 in 30-06. Usually loaded with a 165 BT over 60 gr H4831. I killed a couple dozen deer with it, all one shot kills. It also served well to head shoot grouse, and kill ground squirrels.

In 1995, I killed my first cow elk with that combination, broadside shot at 200 yds from prone. Two shots impacted within two or three inches, right over the upper heart. One bullet entered between the ribs, penetrated well, but did not exit. The other bullet struck a rib, where it detonated. There was an entrance hole I could put my ham fist through.

The liver was lacerated, one lung collapsed, the heart sliced to pieces, diaphragm pierced, and the cow tipped over dead 40 yds from where I shot her.

The 30 cal 165 BT was a perfect deer bullet at 308/30-06 velocities, buy its performance on elk prompted me to pursue the Hornady 190 gr spbt for heavier game.

I started using 150 gr. .308's in the mid 80's and still use them and can't say they killed different over the years. Killed tons of deer with them

I always got complete pass-throughs on paper and never had a lengthy trail to follow on any target. Exit hole was only a ragged image of the entrance hole - i never recovered a bullet.

From the get-go Nosler explained/advertised the original Soft-Point Solid Base WAS designed specifically as a lower-cost "deer" bullet--because they already made a bullet for larger game.

When they put a plastic tip in the Solid Base, around 1985, they said the same thing, quite frequently, but that was when BALLISTIC COEFFICIENT was becoming a big factor among big game hunters. This was before laser rangefinders appeared, yet BC became a major advertising number--to the point where one of Nosler's competitors started producing a 7mm bullet they claimed had BC exactly .001 higher than the equivalent Nosler Ballistic Tip.

So a bunch of hunters used Ballistic Tips on bigger game, apparently because they shot 1-2 inches flatter at 400 yards, and often (but not always) grouped tighter than Partitions. This "accuracy advantage) didn't matter when shooting, say, elk at 500 yards, but as I have mentioned elsewhere, this was about when big game apparently shrank in size considerably, to about the size of a mature prairie dog.

As a result, elk that could have been killed quite reliably with Partitions were shot with Ballistic Tips that weren't designed for the job--and not surprisingly problems occurred. (This also happened with deer shot at "woods ranges," because apparently some hunters also believed there was some advantage in half-inch groups at 100 yards.)

Soon Nosler realized what was happening, and started toughening Ballistic Tips, both with thicker jackets and harder cores. This helped considerably, but some people still whined about everything, so Nosler introduced the AccuBond. (In this they followed the Leupold sales-model--Leupold owned Nosler back then--which was to make a scope for every tiny sub-section of the market.)

All of which is partly why some people still whine and moan when the performance of a particular bullet doesn't ALWAYS match their notion of ideal, at every range on every kind of big game....

Early BT where not varmint bullet explosive.
If meat damage is an issue don't shoot them in the meat.

By 1995 they where pretty tough. The fragile ones where in a green and red box and sold in the around the middle 80's.
In 1996 I shot a mature mule deer buck 200 yeards out with a 7mm 140gr BT at 3100fps. It entered just behind the ribs and was found in the deers chest just under the hide perfectly mushroom. I'd estimate it retain about 50% of its weight give or take. And the buck stumbled at the shot and was down within a few seconds. I shot a pile of deer with that bullet and never had a single issue and many were under 100 yards. I would use that load on elk all day long without reservation.

Ive shot BT's for years in my 280 Rem and have killed probably 80-85 deer with them and I have never had any issues with any BT. With that said, the past several years I have started using the 154 SST. IMO, these are excellent bullets and accuracy is outstanding

I hope they are good, I have about 500 bullets in the old 100 round boxes, 257 100gr to run through the 257 Roberts and 257 imp. I figure they will work just fine

This is my $50 purchase - 232 140gr BT's, 56 120gr BT's, a handful of 150gr Partitions, a box of the new variety 120gr BT's and some Hornady bullets. Considering that the one new box of 120gr BT's in the center of this picture costs $36.95 at retail, I think I did pretty good!



I'll be using the 140gr BT's on deer out of my 7mm-08 @ about 2800fps, so I have no qualms about them blowing up. If I ever get another chance at an elk hunt, I have better bullets and cartridges to use.

The Hornady bullets, however, are useless to me. There are only 15 of the 162gr BTSP's, and I don't have a "single shot pistol" in .284 cal to make use of the 55 120gr soft points. In fact, I've never heard of those from Hornady, and can only assume they are built to open up reliably at lower velocity.

If someone can make use of these, pay the postage and they're yours!

I would have been all over that deal. I loaded a lot of the old Nosler solid base bullets for a buddies .280 Rem. He shot a bunch of deer with them and never had a issue. I believe you will be just fine with them
Congrats on a great deal.

Those single shot pistol bullets would be just the ticket in a reduced recoil youth load on top of something like 4198.

I'll bet Seafire has a perfect reduced load recipe for my 7mm-08 and those bullets!

Yes, it's been a long time since I started this thread, but I finally thought of asking Nosler whether the Solid Base Ballistic Tips I have are the early "blow up" version or the later improved version - and I used exactly that language.

They asked me for the lot number printed on the boxes so they could determine the year made.

The Ballistic Tip was introduced in 1984, and it turns out my red/green boxes of 100 were produced in 1993 and 1994.

The Nosler technician said that all of the major improvements to the BT - except for the continuous tweaking process all their bullets go through - were complete over that 9-10 year period.

He didn't explain how to interpret the lot number, but he told me how to find it: look on the bottom of the box for a set of numbers that start with 2 letters, then 2 numbers, followed by more letters and numbers.

For example, my 140gr 7mm bullets had a lot number of FS24c1. He said that indicated 1994.

Maybe someone else here can explain the code in detail, but I got all the information I needed from his response. I'm happy!

I'm glad this thread was brought up. I just loaded some red box 7mm 140gr "Solid Base ballistic tipped" bullets for my 7mm-08s. I ordered two boxes of the newer 140gr bullets this week. Glad to see they 140gr bullets haven't been changed much.

the bullets you have are magic in a 7mm br or 7mm tcu pistol , performed like you would like for a deer bullet at their moderate 2200-2000 fps start line . I n a 7mm mag or even 280 they make good varmint bullets
The 140s in the 100 ct red and green are the ones I am speaking about, the 120gr bullets in the gold boxx are the newer tougher ones ,