bigcountry

You know guys, before I started looking at the internet, I never heard much about bullet failures. I mean, you shot the animal, you looked for him, you either found him or you made a bad shot. This went for corelokts, gamekings, Bullistic tips, anything.

But in the past 5 years, I notice dozens and dozens of posts explaining bullet failures, or exploding bullets, or even on post on here where a guy thought his bullistic tips were exploding in midair and fragmenting on the target.

I either have been real lucky and never experienced these or some maybe a tad overstated. I would say , I need more experience killing more animals, but have knocked down maybe 50 deer or more or less, moose, pronghorn, turkey, etc. Now, I have never been known much in the luck department. Bad cars, bad women, bad marriages about killed me one time or another costing me two fortunes. Missed opportunities all over the place. So I can't say its good luck.

I would say a majority of my deer have been shot with Corelokts, another huge piece by gamekings and BT's, and misc few on bullet testing with X bullets, partitions, and now accubonds. Moose taken with A-frames, and partitions, and grandslams. I can't say, that I have seen a failure if I hit them where I was supposed to. Sure, they didn't drop on the spot. But none ran like impossible distances like 300 yards. I mean I have only had a few bow shots that ran that far and that was my fault for pushing them.

Does anyone see a bad trend on the sport? I was looking thru my handloader mag from 1995. And I couldn't find any mention of failures. This was a edition about STW's too.

Now, in all my magizines, I see it all over the place.

stubblejumper

I have harvested over 60 animals of ten different species and have yet to experience a single bullet failure.I have placed a few shots incorrectly but it was not the bullets fault.

Whitehorn

Well, I’ve shot 3 deer and one elk in their vitals I’ve only recovered two bullets, one was a Sierra Game King jacket with the lead missing and the other was a Nosler partition with the rear lead core missing. Those two bullets were from one shot kills which was the case on all my animals but one. Did those bullets fail? No, they did the job, but they didn’t look anything like the pretty mushrooms I see in glossy magazine advertisements. Did the other un-recovered bullets fall apart? I don’t know and neither do you.

Question for you. Before you started looking at the internet where did you get your information on bullet performance from? Let me make a bold assumption, the people in your immediate peer group and publications like reloading manuals and magazines. The difference between the internet and those publications is that the feedback and stories you hear on the internet are from hunters who ARE NOT SPONSORED. All other publications have a heavy influence by manufacturers. Maybe the stories about bullets and their potential modes of failure are true.

Do you believe everything Ford and Chevy tell you about their products? I certainly don’t unless of course it’s a recall letter!

There was a saying that I remember from a marketing class back in University. “People don’t drink beer they drink marketing”. And I believe there is a lot of truth to that and one could also say:

“Hunters don’t shoot bullets they shoot marketing”

James B

I have had the good fortune to hunt many places around the world and have taken hundreds of game animals of all shapes and sizes. Bullet failure is about as common as a free lunch. I have only seen a few and here again, the bullets did not fail as such but were of the wrong type for the job. Things like people using a 90 grain hollow point in their 270 for mule deer. With the proper choice of bullet and the proper shot placement, bullet failures in my opinion just don't happen. By far, choosing the wrong bullet is the cause of 99.9 percent of failures. Poor shot placement is usually the reason for animals that run away. The corlokt has been around way to long for it not to be a pretty good game taker. Either that or there are a lot of less than rocket science hunters because Remington has sold thousands of train loads of them.

broey1

It all depends on what one classifies as a "bullet failure". Odds are that if you are recovering the bullet from a dead deer, elk, moose, etc. that the bullet did not "fail". I've been hunting for 25 years and 99% of the time everything is fine. I have seen in two instances where something went wrong with the bullet, but both times it wan in whitetail deer that went down after only a few yards. One was this year with a handloaded 30-06 ballistic tip that was probably pushing the envelope a little too much. The result wasn't so much a failure as it was "explosive". The bullet was a 180 grainer so it exited the deer, but something obviously was "different". Since the deer dropped pretty much in its tracks, however, I wouldn't say it was a failure..... just different than usual. A few years back I was with a friend that shot a deer with a 25-06 ballistic tip (115 grains). It fragmented into about four pieces upon impact..... still the deer went about 70 yards and dropped dead as the fragmentation wasn't enough to keep the lead from getting to its lungs. Again, different, but not a failure. Other than those two instances, I haven't seen anything out of the ordinary. In both cases, these were ballistic tips pushing 3000fps. Now, I've seen 100 or so other ballistic tips work flawlessly, so I'm not saying it was the bullet design at all..... just maybe circumstances. I've heard about jacket seperation on gamekings, but never seen it. Somebody on here a while ago was trashing core-lokts. Imo, core-lokts and powerpoints are great... never a problem.

I just think as we push the bullets faster and faster, sometimes we'll see "freakish" things...... however, science will always catch up! Take the new bonded bullets. When you have millions of hunters shooting millions of rounds each year stuff will happen. With the internet, we'll hear about it.

James B

Good point.

BarnesX.308

Was this a broadside shot? If it was a quartering shot and the bullet had to penetrate shoulder muscle and bone, would those 4 fragments still made it to the lungs? If not - that would be bullet failure.

Charley

Guy I hunted with used a .300 Winchester for Texas whitetails. he shot a 100 pound doe at 125 yards, she was a DRT (dead right there) kill. He brought her in and butchered her, Bullet had shed its jacket, core pretty much disintegrated. Bullet failure, pure and simple, even if she was killed instantly. Why do I consider it a bullet failure? If his bullet came apart on a 100 pound animal, how would it have performed on an animal, like an elk, where the power of a .300 was justified? I never found out what load it was.

bigcountry

Whitehorn, I guess I got it from real situations unsponsored. Like I said, I maybe lucky. On my first moose hunt, a guy in the camp was using a 270 and shooting 150gr corelokts. Now its no secret I don't like those bullets. I was using 91gr of H1000, and 200gr swift a-frame in a 300RUM.

Well, he shot a caribou, and found the bullet. And looked at me and said, "see bigcountry, no need to go out and buy all those new fangled bullets and spend all that time worrying about it.". He had a dead Caribou, and next day got his moose. All died, all proper shots. I did too. Same outcome, big effort difference. Just got me thinking.

Just food for thought for you guys. I mean, we all know there is alot of BS and all that goes on in forums. Just the way it is. I take for mostly entertainment value, and like to help someone if I can.

bigcountry

I even think I in the last few years have bought into the idea of bullet failure. Cause, I was talking to my buddy at the range last year. And he got back from Africa. And he said he took all game with 300Win mag and 165gr and 180gr Bullistic tips cooking with RL22. I was shocked. I said did any of them fail? He said no, all animals died. I think he took 5 and I guess they treat the monkeys as varmits over there. Even took a Kudu, gemsbok, and Eland I think and other game.

I walked away thinking this guy was full of it. Bottom line, he went, I didn't, he had 5 animals at the taxidermist.