Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Pictures Of Recovered Accubonds

Please post pictures of your recovered Accubonds here.

Here's a few from Africa, 160gr 7mm's

Never found one in a whitetail, always a pass through

I wasn't even aware that they had a drinking problem.

Have a collection of around a dozen, about half from animals I killed and half from hunting companions I was standing alongside. Am not about to go through the collection and take a photo, but will post this one--the single 9.3 250-grain I've recovered after killing a bunch of big game with it from my CZ 9.3x62 from Africa to Alaska, the animals weighing up to around 700 pounds.

This was from a 7-1/2 foot interior Alaska grizzly, angling away at around 50 yards. The bullet entering the right rear ribs, and ending up under the skin on the left side of the neck. It retained 81% of its weight, which isn't exactly surprising since Nosler designed AccuBonds to perform like Partitions, and since around 1990 had been making Partitions from .33 caliber on up so they'd retain more weight.

The smaller-caliber AccuBonds recovered average around 65-70% weight retention, like Partitions. The last I recovered was 150-grain .30 from a .308 Winchester, muzzle velocity around 2850 fps. It killed a whitetail doe at around 75 yards, which was almost directly facing me. It entered just inside the left shoulder and ended up in the left ham, retaining 70.5% of its weight.

Was expecting some solid animals on this one.

Very good.




GR

I've got some of those Acubomb things.

I used my first, a 165gr .308, on a head-on shot last Fall at 50 yards. Didn’t pass through, but thankfully was captured in the stomach and nothing was spilled. DRT.

I use that bullet and the BT of the same weight, all blems, interchangeably at the same moderate load level in my .308s. 41-42gr of RL15 shoots very nicely and kills very dead. Think I have enough for my duration, as long as I don’t squander them on paper.

I also have a small pile of the 129gr ABLR 6.5s and some 130gr .270s. Load work on those is still pending. StaBall 6.5 should get those .270s humming right along. I’m so pleased with 6.5 Gold Dots that it’s going to be a while before I get to those I think.

Pappy,

Have taken some game with the ABLRs, especially the 129-grain 6.5s. While they hold together, they're designed to expand easily at longer ranges. Those recovered at "conventional" ranges average about 50% weight retention, give or take 10%, which is about what I've found with Ballistic Tips and Hornady Spire Point Interlocks.

John

[img]https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/galleries/18451500#Post18451500[/img]

Here are a few.

The 1st was driven at 2744 fps MV and recovered from a hog I killed at around 140 yards.





The next -- a 6.5mm 130 grain AB -- was taken from a quartering shot on an old boar. MV from the 6.5x30-30 AI was around 2550, if memory serves. Range was about 170 yards.



The next set was driven around 2450 fps MV from a Contender carbine, but it's been so many years ago that I don't recall the details other than they were likely taken from hogs. (I never recovered one from a deer that I recall.) At some point, I must have tumbled them clean because there was a bit of corncob media in the mini-ziplock these were in.



I have more, but those were primarily stored on photobucket, which is a bit of a sore subject with me LOL. A few others were on the now-defunct Specialty Pistols forum. Everything was deleted when the owner shut down the site, and there seems to be no archived copies, either.

I’ve heard that before, probably from you come to think of it.🤔

The 6.5s are for my Grendel, which should provide about the right velocity for good performance at the ranges I deal with, and even out there a bit if it comes to that. The .270s are the standard ones, picked up cheaply from SPS and may never see the field since my .270 is pretty hefty, and I’m pretty old, but perhaps my offspring can make good use of them. I find myself with a schitt ton of bullets since I have a hard time passing up stuff I don’t need at a price I can’t resist, as the saying goes, and for a while SPS was almost giving stuff away at times.

If your experience on deer using the 129 gr. ABLR out of a 6.5 Grendel matches mine you’ll be very pleased with it. I took three deer using the 129 gr. ABLR out of my 6.5 Grendel this past season and was well pleased with the results. Quick kills with pass throughs, no tracking required.

Music to my ears, friend.
My "new to me" CZ 527 Grendel shoots the 129 ABLR very well and I have been playing around with the most temp-resistant powders to try to get a good hunting load that shoots as well as CFE-223 does (but it is really temp-sensitive). It is looking like AR-Comp is going to be the best of the stable powders, and give me an easy 2500+ FPS. This holds over 2000 FPS to 400 yards and seems like, on paper, it'd be the perfect hunting bullet. I've not hunted this sweet carbine yet but will be taking it to MT this fall for deer, and hopefully, Pronghorn.
Thanks for sharing your experience with it,
Rex

EDIT: Realized my post above is not germane to the OP. I have only killed a few head of game with the basic Accubond, and have yet to recover a bullet. Mule deer and Pronghorn with the 6.5mm 130 grain, and elk with the 9.3mm 250 grain. All critters died, so no complaints. Interesting observation on the autopsies is that the entrance holes looked more like exits and the exits looked more like entries. Kind of strange, but dead is dead. I did recover a 90 grain .243 AB from a MT whitetail buck my buddy killed with my .243 Win handloads. Under the off-side skin, and textbook 65% weight retention. That year, he and his brother killed 4 deer with 4 consecutive shots from the same rifle with that load, 2 whitetails in MT and 2 mulies in AZ. Only the one bullet recovered.

110 Gr Accubond recovered from an Iranian Red Sheep shot at 125 yards. Bullet entered the front right shoulder, breaking both shoulders, and recovered underneath the skin on the off side. Starting velocity was 3450-ish from a 257 Wby.

I'll follow the jumped topic for a minute with the 129 ABLR. I've been using it for several years out of the 6.5 CM. In most cases, I've had pass throughs, even on shoulder shots. I've not dug out any of the non-exits out as they were using an angle where they ended up in guts. Exits have been notable but not messy. Most of these have been sub 100 yards though a few have been over 400. I'm several grains under a max load so that may help with it's performance. It's been a great bullet for my use. At some point I'm going to try it in the Grendel.

I've used the 150 gr AB in the .308 as a replacement for the ballistic tip. I've not caught any of them, all have been passthroughs, and all have been behind the shoulder shots. My experience with it has been good, but my experience with it has also been limited. When I couldn't find 150 ballistic tips, I simply used the same load and seating depth with the AB and the results on paper were exactly the same.

I shot a 5pt bull elk in 2010 with a 180gr AB out of a 300 Win Mag @ about 3100 fps muzzle velocity. He was moving 100yds away, the bullet broke the near side shoulder and continued thru the far shoulder with less bone contact and was found just under the hide. Retained weight was 82.7 gr and all that was left is basically a blown jacket. The damage was quite extensive, he dropped out of my line of sight but was pretty much dead right there. I hoped for a little better weight retention but it was a fairly severe test for a bullet.

200ab, 300rum, mid 3100s mv, 348 yards.

Pulled out if a 8.5ft mtn grizz

165 AB 30-06 2900 start speed, bull elk pinned through front legs. Bullet found in the meat on the far side. 200 yards’ish

200 AB 300 Wby 3050’ish start speed, bull elk, rear of ribs and found in opposite front leg.