vangunsmith

Granted bullet designs have come up some,and its nice to have a bullet that one is comfortable with. Just one question,just how was all this game killed with inferior bullets? Years ago? Some new ones,aren,t any better like baLLISSTIC TIPS. THERE WERE AROUND in the 1960,s and they didn,t sell or go over then. Cil and dominon was there brand name. I,ve used sierra,speer,hornady on game plus factory at times. Heard of your problems with 7rem mag not killing until one went to reloads a lot. vangunsmith

Roskoe

I have an interesting bullet over at my shop that came out of the shoulder of a bull elk from last season. We heard some shooting below us and several elk appeared a few seconds later. One of the members of my party dropped the 5 X 5 bull with a neck shot. Upon examination, the bull appeared to have some sort of wound in his shoulder. Later, another hunter arrived and said he had shot at that bull shortly before we did (7 Rem Mag) and was sure he had hit it. We examined the hole in the shoulder at determined it must be his shot. Later, when skinning the elk, we found the 7MM hollow point boat-tail bullet - with the nose a little crumpled and no core inside the jacket. It had only penetrated a couple of inches, stopping against the shoulder bone - and had obviously never had a lead core inside the jacket. The nose just sort of crumpled and collapsed on itself. Sure would hate to have had the round up the pipe on a charging grizzly bear! It did about as much damage as a .38 wadcutter.

James B

I lika Premium bullets but I have also never seen a good old Hornady Interolck fail on any beast. That is if the proper bullet was used.

Slamfire

Federal did have problems with a bullet, they recalled some, I think the name was Deep Shock. I don't know the reason why they did that. Folks need to quit shootin' little animals in their biggest bones.

DM

Was the elk shared with this "other" hunter or what happened???



Anyway,

I guess what one person calls a failure another may call sucess, as long as the animial expires!!!

I've had what "i" consider to be failures with Hornandy, Sierra, Winchester, Rem., Nosler balistic tips, and many others so i pretty much stay with Nosler Partitions.

To me, any bullet that looses it's core or blows up inside any big game animial i shoot has failed, and if it doesn't exit that "really bugs me too!!!" A bullet that goes on through without "expanding fairly fast" is no good either!!

When i pull the trigger i expect my bullet to expand fairly fast, but stay together and penetrate AT LEAST to the hide, but i much prefer it to exit!! This "has to happen" even on quartering shots or straight away shots, as once an animial is "presumed wounded", i consider a straight away shot a "good" shot!!

Most guys in the bush are "over gunned" and "under bulleted".

Drilling Man

HighDesertWolf

" The reason I dont hunt with premium bullets" because Sierra gamekings and pro hunters, nosler ballistic tips, speer mag tips and grand slams are already expensive enough as it is. And all the bullets I listed I have had just as good game getting experiences with core lokts and power points. I shoot what my rifles like and at the same point doesnt put me in the poor house.

I dont even know why someone would post all they use is premium bullets?? OK money bags share the wealth, I dont know to many people who can afford to just use premium bullets.

Wolf killer

The last box of Nosler Partition bullets I bought were 7mm 140-grain. They cost $20.49 for a box of 50-bullets. That is less than 50-cents a bullet. Last year I killed 5-deer, 3-antelope & 1-elk. That is a grand total of 9-animals or $4.50 however you want to look at it. I fired 9-shots last year to kill 8-animals. I missed one time last year. I killed one animal with my bow. I even used a premium broadhead on that 1-animal.

If I only hunted the "dog size" deer of southern arizona? I would never use a premium bullet.

445 supermag

I can't blame anyone for using premiums as they are relatively cheap in the overall cost of a hunt. I feel that shouldn't even be a consideration for the price a a quality bullet. To ME I feel premiums are a small price to pay for the performance they give. I mean look at it this way. If you pay for a hunt you have that cost then traveling to and from said place then all the equipment for the hunt the rifles scopes etc. they all add up. Even if you are hunting in your home town just think of everything involved gas for truck licenses permits and things so I feel the bullet is just a small part of the price and its the only thing that comes in contact with the animal and will hopefully bring it down humanely.

I use all types of bullets for many different guns. when I am just shooting I use mostly hornady sp extremely accurate in every gun I have ever owned. But when the time comes for hunting I use something different to match the game. I do use partitions a lot in my 270 weatherby mag or TSX. But you have to remember that the plain old hornady sp do a wonderful just in most non mag calibers. So a regular 270 or 30-06 shooting a hornady will do the job just fine. Its when you increase the speed of the bullet that makes you have to use a premium bullet. A 130 gr bullet going 3000 fps in a regulaer 270 compared to a 270 weatherby 130 grainer going 3500 fps is a big difference and the bullet can't be expected to hold up to those velosities. Or a 308 win compared to a 300 rum the bullets just need to be premiums to stand up to the increase velosity..

I also feel that they just give me the warm fuzzies when I know the bullet is premium and I am looking through the scope at a bull elk or a bull moose.. I know inside that I will give my best to that animal in harvesting him as quickly as possible.

Just my thoughts.

Brian

Roskoe

You make some really good points, Brian. I would like to add that, in many instances, the premium bullets don't kill as well as regular old Hornadys and Sierras on the broadside lung shots. This is particularly true of the Barnes X, Failsafe, and Lost River bullets when loaded in standard calibers - designed for lots of penetration - breaking big bones, but do so at the expense of a smaller wound channel. But, as Brian pointed out, these magnum calibers can turn a good controlled expansion non-premium bullet into a varmint bullet.

This became painfully obvious when I helped a customer do some loading for the .30-378 Weatherby - back when this caliber first came out. He was leaving for Africa in less than a week. We put together loads with 180 Sierras, 180 Hornadys, and 180 Partitions. The only bullet of three that could even make it through the ribs of African plains game without blowing up was the Partition. The other two bullets had worked fine for him previously, but at 400 fps lower muzzle velocity.

HighDesertWolf

ive never hunted arizona deer atleast not yet, Ive killed all of my deer in Kansas, missouri, Iowa and illinois. the majority of my kills 3 bucks, 7 doe were with a 308 and 150 grain core lokts and after i began reloading I killed several more with sierra 165 grain BTHP gamekings 1 buck and 3 doe and with 150 grain prohunters in my 30-30 I killed 1 buck, 2 doe and two more 1 doe, 1 button buck with 168 grain nosler ballistic tips in my 308 and 1 buck and 2 doe with 150 grain speer grand slams in my 30-06.

Out of all those non premium bullets I have never experienced any kind of bullet failure that would cause me to go premium.

Wolf killer Im sorry for your poor experience with non premium bullets, Another reason I dont use premium bullets is I shoot alot atleast 50 rounds a month per rifle during the off season. Of the premium bullets nosler partitions arent priced that badly Ive considered loading them for my 30-06, but when i think of premium Im thinking of lost river ballistics 30 cal bullets are roughly a $1.50 a pill or bonded bear claws that are right at a dollar a pill. I'm sorry but its just not worth blowing a $1.50 to $2.00 a shot even at deer or antelope and for that matter paper, like I said inluding myself I dont know many people who can spend 25 to 40 dollars for a box of 25 bullets to shoot casually. Now if the only time i shot my rifles was 5 shots 2 weeks before season to make sure its still zeroed and the 1 or 2 shots per game animal I killed, then it would be a totally different story and yea Im sure I could afford even lost river ballistics at $1.50 a bullet

Oh by the way mule deer here in northern arizona are 160 lbs to 200 lbs for a mature buck and 100 to 150 lbs for a mature doe. You may be thinking of the whitetail breed here known as cou deer yeah a mature buck is about the size of a german shepard and the does dont get any bigger then about 60 lbs.