Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters AccuBonds vs. A-Frames in Africa............

Allen,
Great report on what sounds like a fantastic hunt. I would love to pictures of the Nyala, Bushbuck and Bushpig. Specifically hunting the Nyala by still-hunting through the reeds and mopani thickets was one of the toughest and most enjoyable hunts I've ever done. Absolutely love hunting the Nyala.

I've had good luck making them shoot, but haven't shot too much game with them yet, one mature WT doe and one calf moose.

What didn't you like about their terminal performance?

Mauser 96.
Don't get me wrong they kill.I just perfer the secondary descrution the partition makes.I feel it kills quickier.It's the only time i recovered a bullet from my STW.It didn't drive straight defected off bone and made a big nasty hole in the hide.
When my friend come's up with his digital camera i will show some photo's.It peeled to the heel and yes there is not much bullet left.I will clean it up and weigh it and post a photo when i can.
It reminded me of a Mule deer i shot several years back with a Nosler BT and my 270 win.And i didn't care how that performed also.

The problem with bonded bullets with no special expansion stop mechanism is that they hang together as a unit and at high speed they turn into a flat disk and so lack sectional density and penetrating power.

I have played with the interbond from Hornady I find that regular interlocks will often out penetrate them as the unsupported jacket will break limiting expansion diameter and stress on the bullet.

A recent bullet test with my wifes bolt action 30-30 had the 150 Interbonds at 2300 expanding to 75 caliber and penetrating only as well as 125 Sierra Spitzers. The 130 Speer FN outpenetrated the 150 Interbond by a fair margin and the 170 Interlock left it in the dust..

In my 308 and faster I am sold on partitions. Accubonds need not apply.

So after all these posts since last winter about the new bullets we're right back where we started with old reliables like NP and Swift.

I'm shocked.

Sorry it happened to you, Allen, as it must have left a bad taste in your mouth, but at least it happened to someone with enough experience to deal with it.

Thanks for the report on what was obviously a great hunt in spite of things. I'm also forced to observe that such failures might have been worse in something less than a .338.

T

Allen,

Thank you for sharing your experience with the Accubonds. I am sorry to hear failed, as they were showing great accuracy potential in my .338 Win Mag. Time to start again, I suppose.

Thought I had that book somewhere.

What cal, grain, impact velocities are we talking?

Yes, thanks, Allen. Great info.

It reminds me of my old signature file I used to use on forums:

"Real bullets don't wear plastic tips!!!"

I dropped it, not wanting to come off too curmudgeonly to folks that get jazzed about such things. But, InterLocks, Partitions, A-Frames, etc. have never let me down.

scott

Mauser96
1.....7mmSTW
2......154 Hornady IB
3......Who the hell knows?

Allen--

As somebody else on thirs thread suggested, I am sure Nosler would like to hear of your results. So far I have seen nothing like that with several weights and calibers of AccuBonds.

MD

Interesting results Allen. I too have an incredibly accurate load with the 225 Nosler AB. I might just shoot them up and not use them on game.

I'm planning a Grizzly hunt next year with my brother and was considering the Nosler Accubond as the bullet of choice. Looks like it's time to start working with the Barnes 210gr. TSX. Or just use the old standby 210 Nosler.

Thanks for the excellent field report.

AD-

Thanks for the interesting report. It's interesting that for my planned PG hunt for next year, among others, I selected the AB to try in my .375 but discarded them when I found my H&H just didn't care for them. Gladly, I found a 270-gr TSX load that shoots lights out.

Also, what a "bit" of interesting family history you found yourself involved with. Amazing!

Are any pic's coming?
Regards,
George

I can't think of one single, solitary reason to go with AccuBonds for ANY big game hunting, and I'd no more it consider for a serious bear hunt than I would a Sierra Match King. In the 338 Win. Mag., life begins with 210 Nosler Partitions, and improves with 225s, becoming totally optimal with premium 250s. That's my opinion, anyway!

There are simply too many better-built premium bullets to choose from these days, rather than ABs, such as those superb Swift A-Frames, Nosler's own fine Partition, North Fork, Barnes TSX, Trophy Bonded, etc. If you can't find at lease ONE of these to produce satisfactory accuracy (1 MOA or less), there's likely something wrong with your rifle. Heck, I've had better performance over the years from regular old Hornady Interlocks than I have ABs, although I've had those come apart on occasion as well.

You can quote me on this any time you want to, but as far as I'm concerned, accuracy for its own sake can become a very, very bitter bargain if the structural integrity of the bullet itself is such that reliable, bet-your-life-on-it terminal performance is compromised to the point of failure. That's a no-win deal any way you'd care to cut it, and from any logical standpoint of consideration. Quite honestly, I think a lot of guys have varmint hunting requirements and statistical gratification confused with optimum hunting performance.

African professional hunters are, to a man, vitally concerned with bullet performance, and their list of acceptable hunting bullets is comparatively short. They are a totally no-nonsense collection of players who literally see and shoot hundreds of big game animals every year under just about every conceivable set of circumstances, and they don't have time for tin-foil bullet performance, nor do they care if a bullet will "ONLY" produce 1" groups rather than 1/2" groups off the bench at 100 yds. They've been around way too much to be hoodwinked by that sort of theoretical nonsense. In a nutshell, I've found that whatever works optimally over there, for the full gamut of plainsgame plus cats, will work optimally over here for everything you'll ever hunt. It's all pretty simple, really, and only becomes as complex as you care to make it.

MD, I am going to be in Bend around the 1st. of Sept, and I intend to visit Nosler when I'm over there. I'll take bullet and ammunition samples, and they can take my testimony for whatever they think it's worth. I'll also furnish the names of every PH we had in camp, including William Finaughty, Peter Wood, Collin Vanderlinden, and Richard Tabera, as well as my local hunting partner who, in a very big way, helped me out of the mess I created for myself by trusting in ABs to begin with, and who witnessed the results of some of these abysmal blowups first-hand. In fact, I'll glady introduce them to some of these PHs at SCI, as well as my hunting partner, and they can judge for themselves if I'm making up stories or not.

I love Nosler as a company, and I respect the Nosler family greatly and especially consider the Partition to be one of the world's greatest hunting bullets.

But I don't owe 'em feel good testimony on some good ol' boy basis, that's for darned sure.............

AD

That is one of the BEST posts I have ever read on any gun forum and I, for what it's worth,totally agree. I have found that a 250 NP from a .338 Mag. works so well for ANY game here in western Canada that I seldom use any other cartridge and I have quite a few. The very real chance of an aggressive Grizzly encounter while solo, backpack hunting has brought me to the use of the .338, the 9.3-286 NP and I doubt that, ecept in late season deer hunting, I will ever change, a famous gunwriter once said something about "cocktail time cartridges" and that made a lot of sense to me.

A very enjoyable report and very well written posts, glad to have the chance to learn from a guy who does NOT BS or boast, just goes out and does it.

Allen;

Sorry to hear of your troubles in Africa, but I'm very glad that your trip was a success nonetheless.

Likewise, I'll second Kutenay's sentiments to the "T". Truly one of the best posts on a forum I've yet to see.

The old standards are there for a reason and very damned hard to beat. The X variations on bullets have done so, and as such have become standards themselves. Between the A-frames, the NPs, and the X/TSX routes, there's very little need for much else, and very little reason to deviate.

I wish you luck on your trip to Nosler, and hopefully they will listen and learn.

Until then, it's back to basics for most of us.

The question arises: Why did was the Accubond so unsatisfactory on this hunt, and so wonderful on other hunts? What was different?

True enough Allen. I've been chasin around up there looking for a book bear and have yet to have the opportunity to put a bullet in one. I'm surely not going to take a chance with a bullet that won't completely pulverize the shoulder of a 7 and half foot, to 8 foot Grizzly.

My last Grizzly was taken with my 300 Weatherby and 200 grain Partitions. Performance was perfect with complete penetration.

I have a 338 210 Nosler load that has worked fantastic on a few Elk and I'm confident that it will do fine on Bear.

I just got a 300 Win Mag barrel for my other 338. I've wanted a 300 Win Mag for awhile, and now will have one shortly. Not sure which will go with me, but they won't be shooting Accubonds!

And I agree with the others, an outstanding field report. That's what makes this forum and others like it so unique. Plus it's free!

Take care,
Joel

I'm scratching my head wondering how the Accubond could compete with the A-Frame, anyways. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

2 Phenominal posts in a row AD!!

I am curious as to what Nosler might also say. Seems to me for a bullet to consistantly be bad while being used as designed, like your expirence - there must have been something weird with your particular lot? Perhaps like another poster remarked - BT's accidentaly mixed into a AB box? Or the bonding process was not completed correctly. Either way I hope Nosler looks at your situation and tries to figgure it out. Seems the right thing to do from a company standpoint.