Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Recoverd my first bullet

No, he was not lucky that the 200 Partition expanded on a doe, from any angle. I have probably killed two dozen animals with that bullet, from pronghorn to elk, and it has always expanded. There is no difference in the front jacket construction or the lead alloy on any of the .30 caliber Partitions. The only difference, in fact, in any of the spitzer .30 Partitions (150, 165, 180 and 200) aside from weight is where the Partition is placed. It is farther forward on the 200, the reason that bullets tends to penetrate deeper.

He was lucky--to recover one. The only 200-grain Nosler Partition that has stayed in any animal I've shot was one from a .300 Weatherby that hit a raghorn elk in the butt (finishing shot; the bull had already been hit through the bottom of the heart) at 375 yards. The bullet went up into the chest cavity, where we could not find it. All the rest have been pass-throughs, including shots that hit the shoulder joint on 6-point elk, and lengthwise shots on Montana deer from 125-pound whitetails to 250-pound mulie bucks.

As for TSX's always passing through, I have shot a 200-pound mulie buck in the left hip with a 168 TSX from a .300 Winchester and found the bullet in the front of the chest. There is no guarantee that any expanding bullet will always completely penetrate any animal, though the TSX does penetrate deeper than most.

The question I always have when somebody starts nattering about complete pass-throughs is why is that so important? I hear about blood trails, but I have seen a lot of complete pass-throughs that didn't leave a blood trail, with a wide variety of bullets. A lot depends on the individual animal and the individual circumstances.

Since I have killed ariound 2 dozen animals with the 200 .30 Nosler Partition, and only one stay in the animal, my bet is that it will leave an exit most of the time. It will also seriously screw up in the insides of an animal, even a pronghorn doe. I know this because, unlike some people who judge a bullet by the size of the entrance and exit holes, I always do an autopsy on the stuff in between.

This is not to say anything against the TSX. I have used it (and similar bullets such as the original X, Fail Safe and now the Nosler E-Tip) on sevceral dozen animals. But there is no secret about how to get extreme penetration: Just have the bullet open up to a narrower "mushroom." If you want an exit EVERY time on deer and elk, use a 300-grain solid from a .375.

I have also shot a pile of animals from forkhorn mule deer to eland with the 250-grain Nosler Partition from the .338 Winchester. When tghe animals were hit correctly (almost all were), the animal never went over 50 yards, and usually a lot less. The forkhorn mule deer mentioned went al of 15 yards before keeling over, so I somewhat doubt that the bullet was to blame for a deer going a mile with two chest hits from a 250 Partition. But that's just my opinion, based on a few dozen animals shot with the 250 Partition.

To get back to the origin of this thread: Congratulations on finding a a great all-around load. And even more congratulations on actually finding one of those darn bullets!

Your probably lucky that the doe was facing you. That 200 gr Nosler was designed for much bigger game.

When I got my first 338WM I took it deer hunting with the 250 gr partions that I was planning to use on an Alaskan moose hunt. A big old muley buck run across in front of me and I popped him twice with it. It took two days to find that dead buck about a mile away. Both shots had passed completely through him side to side with little transfer of energy. I would have been much better served with a 30-06 with 150 or 165 gr bullets. The .338 did a great job on a big moose though. Knock him off his feet with one shot. Recovered the perfectly mushroom bullet just under the hide on the far side.

One perfectly horrifying line in your post though, is the 30-06 is all the gun you will ever NEED!! What has NEED got to do with it! Have you been talking to my wife? She keeps throwing that NEED word around.