Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Recovered Accubond pics......

Looks like a twin of the two 7mm 140's I recovered out of elk over the past several years. Couldn't really ask for more in a bullet imo, high % weight retention is overated.

LOL, I guess you don't care a whole lot about exit holes...

Wasn't expecting it w/ stem to stern shots on elk where the 2 bullets were recovered, dead is dead...

I'm just saying that since you think high weight retention is overrated, and high weight retention leads to deeper penetration, you must not be one of those guys that insists on having an exit hole...

That makes no sense... A Partition looses just as much weight as the Accubond, yet is known for penetration, and an accubond will penetrate 95% what a Partition will. Penetration is also directly related to frontal diameter and velocity.

IMO exit wounds and tracking usually go hand in hand.

It makes perfect sense. Penetration is determined by a few different factors, weight of the bullet, speed of the bullet, and drag (frontal surface area). The partition is known for penetration because after it loses all that weight, the expanded front portion of the jacket is pressed flat against the shank of the bullet, effectively decreasing the frontal area. That is why it penetrates so well. The accubond's frontal area, on the other hand, just gets bigger and bigger and the weight gets less and less. This leads to less penetration.

Small wound channels, exit wounds, and tracking may go hand in hand, with "SMALL WOUND CHANNELS" being the key ingredient there, not exit wounds. I've shot about 20 big game animals with X/TSX bullets, had an exit on 98% of the shots, and have NEVER had to track an animal.

Did you even bother to notice the pictures in this tread? "bigger and bigger"... The Accubonds perform virtually identically to a Partition, penetration, weight retention, frontal diameter, etc. The the only bullets I recovered where.

1. a 160gr out of a 280rem MV 2800fps tested on a blue wildebeest, range was 125 yards quatering away, entered behind the last rib broke off side shoulder and was found lodged under the hide. Didn't measure exact penetration, but probably close to 30-32"

2. a 160gr .284 shot into a large bodied bull elk at about 75-80 yards. Bullet entered the sternum, was found about 3 months later when I cut up some round steaks to make stew. Penetration was about 40-42" or so... I was fairly impressed.

3. a 200gr .338 shot into a mature cow elk at about 150-175 yards, hard quartering, entered gut, broke off side shoulder and was found under the hide in the neck/shoulder. Pentration was 30-32" or so

For crappy bullets that don't penetrate very well, I'd hate to see what a 'real' bullet would do.

If those TSX are such awesome bullets and are rarely recovered, how come there are so many pictures of them floating around? I'll bet I've seen more pictures of them than all others put together in the last couple years.

First of all, I think you're blowing this way out of proportion. The point I was making by my original comment was that the statement "high % weight retention is overated" indicated to me why he uses Accubonds instead of something like a TBBC, Swift A-frame, TSX, E-tip, or something of the like. It's simply because an exit hole isn't the #1 priority on the list of bullet attributes for him.

Secondly, I never said that Accubonds are crappy bullets that don't penetrate very well. They just penetrate "less well" than a partition or TSX does. Of the animals I've shot and seen shot with TSX's, which is a decent number, probably 50 (I see quite a few of my clients carrying them for caribou when I guide up in the NWT) only about 1 or 2% of the bullets shot into game have been recovered. Anybody who disputes their penetrating ability knows next to nothing about them.

Lastly, if you think that an accubond performs nearly identically to the partition in penetration, weight retention, and frontal diameter through the entire length of the wound channel, then you haven't compared the two side-by-side very much at all.

BTW, yes I saw the pics. It's only natural that as a bullet continues to expand, it either loses the expanded material or else that material is displaced laterally and adds to the frontal area.

Exit wounds are nice, ime, you put the boolit where it belongs they are un-needed. If I was searching for more penetration then I'm currently getting, I would simply step up to a 160 ab, since the 140's have suited me just fine, I'll stick with what works, I personally like the low recoil and the 3300+fps I've been getting out of this current load, over the past 4 years or so it has performed flawlessly over a wide range of critters, ranges and circumstance. It's hard to find 'one' that's perfect for everything, but for me, it's been really close.

I'm glad you found your "holy grail" of bullets!
In case you didn't notice, mine is the TSX

I believe there are now a number of wonderful bullet options on the market that would fulfill the needs of most hunters. When a person finds one that suits their needs, the search stops there.

Different strokes for different folks.

Glad you like your TSX, they're great bullets, but there are lots of great bullets out there. Here's a pretty good article on comparison between some. Intersting how the Accubond and Partition stack up to the TSX considering how much weight they lost.

Take the spaces out of the link and paste it in the address line

http://www. guns and hunting. com/bulletshootout.html

I've found them to penetrate the same. Actually alot of them look just like recovered NABs. Nosler's intention was match type accuracy, high BCs, and partition type game performance; They did it successfully I'd say.

I don't care what anyone uses to be honest, but for me, the NAB is the perfect bullet as it gives me everything I want in a bullet. I've tinkered with TSX, but the BCs are sub par and I feel they are too tough for smaller game. If you like em, I'm happy for you same as I would be for a fella that likes MKs or Bergers for hunting

Ya'll have a good one,

Reloader7RM

+1

I killed the biggest deer of my life with a 150 coreloc out of an 18 inch barreled Rem model 7 at 35 yards. Shot thru the chest we poured the lungs and heart out of him. It did exist with a nice 50 cent hole but the damage was amaizing. Just about the same shot last year on an 8 point with a 180 AB out of a 300WSM at 20 yards, killed the deer but my overall impression was that it was not as explosive. I have shot a lot of deer with Remington corelocs, they are all eaten now but there is no doubt that it is a softer bullet than an accubond and I think a WW powerpoint as well.

I've got a recovered 7mm 140 NAB that I pulled from the largest-bodied mule deer I've ever killed.It weighs less than the one pictured at the begining of this thread, but was started faster and the deer was closer (150-175 yards).He was slightly quartering on and the bullet went through the shoulder bones and was recovered against the off-side ribs,weighing about 60 grains or so.

In reading the various results with the NAB it seems that it performs about like a standard,toughened-up cup/core, in that if you push a lightweight NAB fast,distances are short etc, it will lose more weight.If distances are long, impact velocity less, it will retain more weight. And,as you go up in weight in any caliber, it displays the same characteristics, but there is more bullet to start with and you don't drive it as fast, so it seems to penetrate pretty well for many people in elk-sized stuff,etc..This seems to be why opinions vary so much on it.

But I understand where Jordan Smith is coming from because 60% weight retention is not what a bonded bullet is supposed to be all about,at least the bonded bullets I'm accustomed to do not do that,and usually weigh about as much as a TSX on recovery but with a larger frontal area.AND they will do this regardless of distance, impact velocity,angle of shot,medium impacted, etc,and still weigh within 95% of what they did when they started out the muzzle.Not speaking for him but,what Jordan may be saying is that a "true" bonded bullet weighing 140 gr will do anything a 160 NAB will do,due to the fact that it is tougher,and will retain more weight.

If you start with a 140 that retains 95%(133),vs. a 160 that retains 60%(96),which would you think is likely to perform better through a lot of meat and bone, or withstand high impact velocity in tough going through a game animal? It's tendency to lose weight is why I could not get too excited about the NAB as a bonded core bullet, mostly because it really isn't.To me it's a slightly tougher BT and if that is what you are looking for in bullet performance, you should use it.It clearly does a pretty good job of killing stuff.

Here's a 140 gr Accubond recovered from a big-bodied 8 point Missouri white tail buck. Bullet traveled through about 30" of deer before it was recovered outside the off-side rib. Weighed 98 gr, for 70% wt. retention. I'm sold on 'em, from my own experience, not from what others have seen. [img]URL=http://community.webshots.com/photo/2505781700103535658EoNplg][IMG]http://thumb18.webshots.net/t/66/666/7/81/70/2505781700103535658EoNplg_th.jpg[/img][/URL][/img]

PS - this is the only one we've recovered in the last four seasons deer hunting, killing 9 deer. All others have been complete pass-throughs with very little meat damage and all but two being DRT kills. One of those went about 40 feet, one went about 50 feet - using either a hot loaded 7-08 or a 7wsm. Great bullet in my experience, would not hesitate to use it on elk.

everyone knows I don't care for plastic tips...and that hands down I feel the best bullet out is made by barnes.

That being said the tsx bullets are like my spare. Like my fire extinguisher. Rarely if ever needed, but when needed the FE and Spare are there, just like the performance of the tsx.

Just that different folks like different performance. Extra penetration is nice to have if needed, kinda like HP...

I have taken 3 deer with the 110grain NAB in the 257 Roberts and never managed to recover one. All exited after doing a drop dead job on the deer. Oops. One did manage a somersault. All hit low behind the shoulder.

IMHO the NAB is over kill for the 120-160lb deer (field dressed) I hunt, again just my opinion. I bought a box of 7mm 140's a few years ago and have killed a few deer since. No suprises, at 3000fps muzzle velocity all did their job. Not much different then the BT's I have used in the past. Wow, would never even consider a TSX for deer use. Kind of like running premium gas in your car, why waste the money?