Tell me about those you've had, with details.

I saw a 180gr Remington Core-Lokt bounce off a black bear at 20 feet. I even picked up the bullet and loaded it for plinking.

How many places/times you gonna ask the same question?

I'd guess a few more since he's still confused why someone would use a premium bullet on deer...

I shot a deer with my 300 savage 99 at about 100 yds with a round nosed speer 150 gr. the darn thing hit exactly where I was aiming and turned the liver to jello and exited in front the r shoulder leaving a fist size hole and the deer kicked around for a couple minutes before it expired. it totally ruined a perfectly good liver but the heart was ok as it only clipped it and tore it loose.I hate when that happens.

I had a 150gr NBT "fail", it only went through 1 3/4 deer (stopped in the far shoulder of #2) at a paltry 285yd. Both were DRT, so it wasn't to bad of a failure. Now had I been using a better bullet, I might have gotten 3 deer with that shot, so perhaps I should "upgrade".

Was the cor-lok loaded to about 100 fps or thrown?

A lot of alleged bullet failures are most likely hunter failures. No bullet will work properly if it does not strike the proper place on the target.

Thrown from a pard's deck to the garbage eating bear.

I've had bullets fail to perform the way I wanted them to, but I'm not sure who's responsible - the bullet or me. The bullets had a reputation for being too frangible for reliable penetration when impacting bone or heavy muscle, but that is where I placed them. In my defense, I was not aware of this reputation at the time, but I learned darn quick. Hey, everything we know we had to learn at some time. Those failures were my education. I don't use those bullets for hunting any more.

-

I once had a 180 grain hornady sp fail to make it through a juniper bush. I think it should have passed through and killed the deer I was shooting at.

I felt like a 150-gn Partition did less damage than I wanted, from a 7mm-08, on two different bucks that ran a ways.

That's about as close to failure as I can report. Been around 16 dead deer and 4 or 5 elk, and never yet seen a bullet recovered from any of them. These are the good old days, as far as bullets.

(Of course, since the above "body count" is paltry, maybe i just haven't seen enough to see a failure yet)

-jeff

I think the majority of hunters would be lucky to see failures. The game usually runs off and it isn`t known if the bullet was bad, the hit poor, not enough gun, or what exactly was the cause of our loss.
Thankfully, I`ve never had to speculate on one of my bullets yet. I have yet to recover one except for a old Power Point from a whitetail tossed by a 32 Win Spcl. Obviously that one worked. The few remaining kills have been pass throughs.

I have had a couple of cup-and-core bullets lose their jackets at the entrance hole when they hit deer. But both killed the deer, pretty much right there, so any "failure" is obviously debtable.

I have dozens of bullets recovered from animals, but probably only one out of every 4-5 stays inside, even on really big game. The fact that I recoverd them generally means the animal is dead. My general experience is that living animals object to having somebody try to pull a bullet out of them.

MD: Good post and point well-taken.....animals that get away tell you little about how the bullet did.....

Jeff: 150 gr 7mm partitions are actually pretty tough slugs...lighten up in that 7/08 and get some more speed....

My worst bullet failure occurred with a ballistic tip bullet in a 270 on an antelope hunt.
I was trying to fill out the block management form, and since I didn't have a pen or pencil in the truck, I was trying to use a bullet tip to write with. The Ballistic Tip, not being lead like the traditional cup and core bullets I used to use simply would not write. I was forced to spend 20 minutes scrounging to find swomething to write with.
Since this dismal failure, I have always been skeptical of those that raved about Ballistic Tip bullets.

I had two ballistic tips from 1995 (approximate date of manufacture) fail on the same piggy, 150gr from a .308 at less than 50 yards. Both penetrated 4" and stopped on a shoulder. Pig went down to a 3rd through the ear, in all fairness the pig went about 300pounds but under similiar conditions I have seen alot of other bullets give plenty of penetration.

Im sure this was one of the ealier BT, long before they were beefed up but I went to the failsafe until switching to the TSX a few years ago and have not seen anything approaching that kind of failure since then.

Royce-

What you needed was a bullet like this one (Patent No. 20030089264), with the cavity filled with ball-point ink.

--Bob

Bullshooter
Thanks for the information. I would be very interested in trying some of those bullets if they met the following criteria-

1. Contained a special ink the would write down to minus 30 degrees

2. Were available in both fine and medium point in blue and black ink

3. Had a ballistic coefficient of more than .6

4. Would explode violently on a marmot at velocities down to 900 fps

5 Could be counted on the break both shoulders of a Cape Buffalo at impact velocities of 3800 fps

6. Won't damage any meat on a 70 lb white tail shot repeatedly in the rump

7. Able to shoot less than 1/4 MOA out to 960 yards in my Ruger Deerstalker carbine.

8 Are available for the 29 caliber wildcat that Mule Deer designed


10 And are sold in packages of 10 or less at a cost of not more that 3.5 cents each.

Any additional information you could provide me would be greatly appreciated

Royce

I've killed a few big game animals, between a lifetime spent whacking stuff in the USA, Canada and a few trips to Africa. Honestly, I have never had what I would call a bullet failure; not a single one.

Prolly 98% of the critters died, or at least fell, within fifty feet and fully 75+% of them were dead upon impact .. Bang-Flop. Maybe a dozen animals (out of several hundred) staggered to fifty yards. I cannot remember one that went further. And I've never lost a big game animal.

Nope, I've never had a single bullet failure.

BUT, if I'm reading right, a lot of "experts" would think that a more than a few of my bullets experienced what they so knowingly call "failure." The experts are soooo wise.

Frankly, I'm awfully simple-minded. If a bullet impacts precisely the intended spot and kills the big game animal dead-right-there, I believe that the bullet did not fail. It's as simple as that.

If the bullet will not shoot with acceptable accuracy, or if it is not capable of both penetrating to and destroying the vitals, then the shooter is likely to experience what I would think of as a "bullet failure." I've never been in this situation, mostly because I pick my bullets awfully carefully.

Personally, given today's choices, I believe the shooter is in as much danger of selecting a bullet that is too tough as one that is unacceptably soft.

Just my thoughts......

Steve

Snuck up to 30 feet from a spike bull elk, the shot was nearly perfectly placed behind the front shoulder but the snow ball broke up on the hide and didn't get any penetration. The shot taken was an over hand right, open sights, at maximum velocity, without a rest.

Uh-oh! There appears to be a goodly amount of mission creep taking place here. Original specs called only for a bullet that could write.


Perhaps you would be interested in a bullet patented by gun writer and ballistician Art Pejsa:



Right!

--Bob

Thanks for the replies.

It was asked for conversation's sake mostly.

The only one who offered useless info was the useless pr*ck seal head.

I find a bullet that commonly results in a lot of bloodshot meat and bone chips fits more in my defintion of a failure.

I shoot such little deer that I would rather have them trot off a few yards and fall over than be DRT if it saves ten poounds of meat.

I had a doe tag last year to fill just before elk season. I used my .338 as I have a few times before.

This time I used my practice load with a 225 Hornady FB which I had never shot anything but a few varmints with. Usually I use a Bearclaw or Partition.

I don't plan on using that load on a 150 lb mule deer doe again.
It killed it dead but I lost the near side shoulder. I shot her 6 inches or so behind the shoulder crease as well.

Correction:

You forgot to include yourself; but then again, somethings are a dead given anyway.

DZ,

You are well aware of the 40grBT failure I had on the bobcat. I did not go 'yote hunting this past winter but will be following up this winter. I still have the same batch of bullets.

MtnHtr

My experience is: most bullet 'failures' are failures of the shooter to use the right bullet at the right time on the right thing.

I believe that most (99.9999...%) bullet failures are in fact hunter errors. If you put ANY bullet THROUGH an ungulates ribs it will die perhaps not instantly but it will die usually with in a few yards. I read somewhere that in Alaska the Inuits often use a 22 caliber rifle and shoot caribou or moose through the ribs and then trail them. Yes this is subsistence hunting not sport but the lesson is clear these animals die. I think the enough gun argument may be valid in Africa or any other place where large dangerous game exist and needs to be put down before great harm comes to the shooter but for hunting deer it is immaterial. Deer can practically be killed with rocks if you hit them RIGHT. Hunters look to almost any excuse for their lousy often irresponsible shooting - long range, bad angles, hail marys etc.. Any modern sporting bullet in a center fire firearm is down right deadly. But the same cannot be said of your average hunter. Heck myself included.

When Ballistic Tips first came out we had troubles with them not getting enough penetration, especially if the animal was shot in the shoulder. We guided several pronghorn and deer hunters that lost animals because of this, one of which we saw the deer a couple of weeks later with just a scar on the shoulder. However my father-in-law shoots them now in a 300 win mag at pigs and loves them and has great luck. I think that may have been a flaw in the beginning that they corrected. I am still skeptical and will only shoot them at varmints though.

Prw..,

Yep. With whitetails it's more about where you hit'em, not with what.

tre..,

Yeah. It's pretty well established early Bal Tips blew up. Handloaded some for a friend when they first came out. He claimed to have put an otherwise killing shot on a small whitetail buck which ran off. In thirty years of hunting with the guy it was the only deer he ever lost and he was generally a better field shot than me. According to gunwriters on this forum, the problem is corrected.

Still have that box of bullets but use them for siters and such. Have used other Bal tips for vermin as they are wicked accurate. Bought some 250gr Bal Tips for my 9.3X62 and plan to use them on deer, just haven't got to it yet.

O

I shot an average sized 5 point whitetail buck with a 6.5X55 and a handloaded 140gr Speer hot-cor. Shot was right behind the shoulder and the deer didnt go far but the bullet "failed" to do what i wanted of it. It didnt fully penetrate the buck so when he jumped back into the mountain laurels it was a little hard trackin without a blood trail until around 35yds or so. a 140gr bullet @ 2,700 fps aint exactly traveling at light speed and the deer was probably around 150lbs on the hoof. I have had every bullet, 120,129,130, and 140grs always go right through em and thats the way i like it, suffice it to say i dont use that bullet any more.

Fixed it for you.
I've personaly seen more deer "wounded & lost" by guys shooting at ranges under 50yd (while eating off a bait pile) than I have at ranges over 300yd. Go to a public range during hunter "sight in" sometime, and you'll see what I mean.

Bullets don't fail- The shotter fails to do his job.