Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Nosler Accubond performance

I love the partitions in most calibers over .277....I have not used the Accubonds but I do have some loaded up for my 7x57 and I have a cow elk tag for this year so we'll see...I don't see how it can fail its a bonded core bullet....

bwinters,

One of the recovered AB's was from my NT mulie buck, quartering away....shot behind LFS and travelled thru heart/lungs and thru RFS (bone/muscle) and found bullet in the hide (67 retained)...44metres shot. An hour later I shot my 8x7 Whitetail @ 554 metres - double lung pass thru. I let the buck finish his business with one doe and as he turned broadside to look at another doe...I shot him....fell over backwards dead. Both animals with my 300WM and 180gr AB's...83% retained

Another was from a bull moose @ about 150 metres-broadside at slight angle of quartering away. Same result as the mulie with same rifle (Sako m75ss 300WM)

The other recovered 140gr AB bullet was from a large cow elk couple years ago with my 270WSM. Bullet retained 85%

Small entrance wounds with huge exits with pass thru with major internal distruction to major organs (pulverized lungs).

The only 2 shot animal I know of was my wife with her Tikka T3 LS 270WSM and 140gr AB's... and the only reason was to stop the bull moose from getting into the timber. Her first shot was a double lung pass thru @ 325 metres. The bull turned and ran 20 metres, stopped and she nailed him again...almost in the same spot behind the LF shoulder...perfect bullet placements. The bull dropped. First shot did its job, I just didnt want to work hard with 3ft plus of snow. To say the least I was very proud of her with her first bull moose. And she put the meat on the table that year with the moose and the year before with a cow elk.


That 270WSM caliber with 140gr Accubond sure has impressed me... to the point I hunted with my rifle (identical to my wife's) mostly the last 2 seasons.

Retumbo is the powder with 215 Federal primers for my 270WSM's and RL-22 for the 300WM. Fatherinlaw shoots the factory Winchester Supreme 160gr Accubonds. Had the bullets to reload his but now he loves using one of the 270WSM's.

Hope this helps.

Thanks again. I'm trying them.

I've had very good luck with 140 AB's out of a .270 Win on over a dozen critters total, consisting of deer, elk, and one black bear. After using 150 Partitions for many years, I find the AB's very comparable in many ways and tend to shoot better in my rifle. I shot a fair amount of 140 AB's into dry newsprint and green pine logs before I ever sent an AB into an animal. I needed to feel confident the 140 AB could do it on an elk.

Here is a pic of the 3 I have recovered the rest existed. Sorry to bore all those who have seen this picture before as I have posted it a couple times.

Impressive I was wondering how a 165 grain A|B out of my 300wsm would hold up @3186fps on bone .It ought to do pretty good.

used the 110 AB on 4 pronghorn to date. Leaves the muzzle at 3100 and knocked them all down a little past 200 yards. They do leave a bigger exit hole than I'm used to with the Partition.

Will stick with the Partition on elk tho....

Well, if it sticks around until we have grandkids that hunt, it might be as accepted as the tried and true Partition.

I hate recovering bullets. Too many NPTs stik around for me and the Accubombs have done far worse.

Still looking for the first recoverable X or iteration thereof.

Should be good. I'm getting close to 3100 ft/s with 180s out of my 300WM and 300WSM. IMO 180gr bullets are the best suited for the 300WM / 300WSM caliber.

I only have one Accubond experience it was on an Alberta whitetail. I was using a 160 Accubond out of a 7 RM and frankly was unimpressed, the exit hole was about the size of a dime or smaller.
If I try them again it will be the faster 140 grain.

Why were you unimpressed?

I've only shot one critter with an AB(.270/140gr-whitetail) and got similiar results, small exit. Good IMHO.


FWIW, I've blasted a bunch of them into various test media and they all look pretty much the same. Nice mushrooms with good penetration.
They are definitely alot tougher than convential lead core bullets.

Sam,
Maybe I was unimpressed from years of seeing larger exits from shooting Speer hotcor and Hornady SP.
I am beginning to think I don't like the premiums in general on deer, it is the tiny exits, and with that particular deer I could see his tail flagging through the heavy cover for at least a full minute. However, he did leave a substantial blood trail.

Funny thing is I've only been around two animals shot with "X" bullets and in both cases bullets failed to exit. One buck deer that stopped an X bullet after losing two petals and and a bull elk that stopped 2 of 3 bullets. Both were shot with 180's from a 300 WBY and Win Mag Not a knock on the Barnes product in any way as both animals ended up dead without too much fuss, just and example of how experiences can be quite different.

Gotcha.
I mostly hunt open country so if a critter goes a little ways after being hit it's not a big deal. Really easy to find 'em if they go less than a hundred yards.

Lonny,
Some feel the TSX design is much better than the X.

That could well be as these bullets were of the X variety and I have no experience with the newer versions. Enough people speak highly of them that they must be a quality product.

I have the exact opposite with my deer hunting anyways, and so have put a premium of quick killin' and an exit. My biggest- horned buck, I shot him well with a 7mm-08 and he went a couple hundred yards in the rain... no blood trail I ever found... dusk coming on... not a good feeling. I got really lucky and found him- if he'd gone another 2 feet on his "death dive" into some small xmas trees, I'd have never found him.

So, as I've tried to explain before on this forum, for some types of hunting a bullet that spins off some fragments, does plenty of damage consistantly, and still penetrates trumps a bullet that ONLY penetrates. For me. Not trying to tell anyone else what to do.

How "well" did you shoot him?

GK

I've had great luck with .284 140's @3300fps on muleys

I'm very interested in how 180NAB's @ 3350fps via RUM will hold up on elk shoulders.....work good on paper

Diagonal through the chest, back of one lung, front of the other, 150 Partition.

That was the last time I used that bullet. I killed 6-7 bucks with that load, and a couple of them were fairly unimpressed at first (though they died). That rifle didn't shoot 140's to save it's life.

It's now a .358... and the deer are MOST impressed when hit by it <g>....