Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 180gr Nosler BT for elk?

Yeah, but they are so cheap when I find them and they usually always shoot good...

Bsa, you shoot any meat with them? I said they were accurate in my post.you can have my share of them at any gun show I go to..mb

There are a lot of Accubonds out there with bad plastic. I have 3 boxes of 200 grainers. Been waiting amongst 18 months for Nosler to replace them. Tips turned into powder in the box. When i asked around, i found this was not at all uncommon.

This. I have a bunch of 250 grainers in .338" that the tips disintegrated on. What's up with that?


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You're stressing over New-Old-Stock? I suppose that could happen. I have a few vintage 125 gr .308's I am going to reserve for my Blackout.

Thats funny I used the original BT's for years on deer with good results.

I had a box of 200gr AB's that lost some tips way back when they were first released. Never have had a BT lose a tip.

Your going to trust me then. I can say for certain that the 180gr BT and AB look identical when sectioned.
The 165 and 168gr BT/AB have an even thicker jacket than the 180gr variety.

BWalker,

I addressed this a few posts ago:

After the introduction of Ballistic Tips, hunters kept bugging Nosler to make a "tipped" Partition, and some also bugged them about making a "bonded" Partition. Instead Nosler decided to bond Ballistic Tips, and when they did tested the bonded version to see how it penetrated. In some of the bullets the bonding made a difference, and in others it didn't--so they dropped some of the Ballistic Tips in favor of the AccuBond model, usually larger-caliber bullets. The 260-grain .375 Ballistic Tips, for example, only existed for a year or so before being turned into AccuBonds.

So yes, if you section Ballistic Tips and AccuBonds of the same caliber and weight, they'll usually appear identical.

I think a lot of us saw that when they first came out. I first tried the 200gr accubond in 2006, and it suffered from tips breaking off. Never saw that with the BT either. I have seen some BT's with chipped and bent tips though. If we are going to talk elk and bullet, my vote goes to the 200gr Partition. No guess work there.

No sir. I've shot plenty of 30 cal 165gr solid base bullets into deer though. Those always seemed to work well. I've seen the results of some of the very first BT's and it was not pretty. I always thought it was weird because people always said the BT was just a solid base with a plastic tip. Must have been more to them than that.. The bullets shown above in the pic were bought recently. $10.00 for one box and a buddy gave me the other. I would not put them in a deer. I've always been impressed by their accuracy though.. My old 300WBY loved the 180gr ballistic tips.

BSA,

I also addressed this in an earlier post on this thread:

"The reason the early Ballistic Tips 'over-expanded' was Nosler simply put plastic tips in their Solid Base soft-points--which were pretty tough bullets. In fact the first animal I killed with a Solid Base was a Montana whitetail buck, with the 100-grain 6mm started at 3000 fps from a .243 Winchester. The range was around 125 yards, and the buck was angling away. At the shot he went maybe 10-15 feet and fell dead. The bullet entered at the rear of the left ribs and ended up in the right shoulder, retaining 61.5% of its weight.

But Nosler didn't realize adding the plastic tip would would cause problems, due to the BIG hollow-point required for rear end of the tip. That was in the mid-to-late 1980s."

I still used them without the tips on several deer. Didn't seem to notice much differance.

I missed your comment, John.
In regards to a bonded partition. The swift A-frame is bonded and honestly I can't say it's a real improvement. I don't believe the penetrate as well as a partition. I also don't believe the cause as much carnage on the entrance side.
What Nosler really needs is a bonded, tipped partition in a VLD profile. They would have all the marketing bases covered!

I am one of the people who had one unsatisfactory experience with a 100 grain BT in a .257 Roberts on an antelope. It stopped the animal but didn't kill it. After that I switched to Partitions (in hunting loads of all calibers). From then on I had no unsatis- factory results. Eventually I came to the opinion that I probably had a box of the early Ballistic Tips. Even so I never again used BT's.

Remember the old saying "happy wife, happy life." Now I say Partitions equal happy life.

Jim

Run them at 2300-2500 fps and the old 165/180 gr .30 cal bt worked great on WI white tail at mostly less than 100 yds. Not much meat damage and usually two holes. Dad still has a couple hundred 180s loaded to those specs from back in the late '80s for his 30-06. They are also rather enjoyable to shoot compared to full snort '06 ammo in any rifle so chambered.

A-Frames are great bullets, but yes, they don't usually penetrate as deeply as Partitions of the same weight and diameter. This is primarily due to their "mushroom" being much wider, and also sometimes due to the rear core also expanding somewhat.

Many hunters, even some with long experience, don't know that only the front core of A-Frames is bonded, but not the rear core. Since the jacket is pure copper, softer than the gilding-metal jacket of Partitions, A-Frames tend to expand more, both in the front and rear ends. This tends to make a bigger hole, which is what kills game--and also often results in the bullet not exiting. This is considered by many African PHs a good thing when hunting buffalo in herds, where a bullet that exits can wound another buffalo beyond it.

Had great results on a cow elk with the 165 gr Nosler Ballistic Tip at 2940 fps from my 30-06. It broke both scapula and damaged both lungs significantly. Quick kill. I think that the sturdy Ballistic Tip did well, aided probably by the lessened velocity out at 340 yards. Either way it worked great. That's been a great general purpose hunting load for me: bear, mule deer, pronghorn and cow elk have all expired quite quickly.

Ballistic Tips in general have worked really well for me, though yes, the early ones were pretty frangible.

Regards, Guy

It’s always interesting to see what conclusions can be made from samples of 1,2 or 3…

Describes my hunting partner and best friend of 40+ years.

He won't make it to 3 though.