Ballistic Tip penetration & experience

[fjlee]

I thought I’d post my recent Nosler Ballistic Tip hunting experience.
I used a 150 grain Nosler BT in my 30-06 to shoot a Colorado mule deer doe at about 70 yards. Classic broadside heart/lung shot, a few inches behind the shoulder. Exit also behind the shoulder. MV is about 2975 fps. I did not recover the bullet. I did find 4-6 very, very small bullet fragments as I gutted and skinned the doe.
Entrance hole was just over bullet diameter, exit was a ragged 1 inch hole. Bullet hit a rib on entrance, and another on exit. Shredded the lower half of the heart. The doe ran about 25-30 yards and toppled dead.

There was a small amount of meat loss on the entrance side, but on the exit side, there was a lot of ruined meat. Blood-shot area was very large, with a lot of thick congealed blood throughout the tissues….down onto lower leg, forward into the shoulder, etc.

While in camp, I did an experiment. I fired the above load, from a measured 70 yards, into a green aspen log that was 11 ½ inch in diameter. To my surprise, it totally penetrated the green log. Exit hole was max. of 1 inch. After penetrating this log, the bullet traveled maybe 3 inches, then hit the edge of another green log, leaving a 3 inch gash on the side. It then went another 15-20 feet, and made a 4 inch gash in the side of another green log. That bullet may still be sailing along, in orbit somewhere!!

Based upon close inspection of all the surrounding logs, I could detect no sign of bullet disintegration. No little bits or pieces imbedded in the logs. I examined the 2 “gashes” closely…..it looked to me like that Ballistic Tip had hung together very well after totally penetrating 11 ½ inches of green log. I am surprised it went thru the log, and I’m surprised that it didn’t seem to be coming apart.

I’d like to hear comments, and/or similar experiences.

Lee Carkenord Denver CO

 

[JD338]

I have taken WT Deer and 2 Bull Caribou with the 140 gr BT from my 280 Rem at a MV of 3000 fps. The dozen plus WT deer were shot from 10-300 yds and all except one had exit wounds the size of a quarter. I only recovered one bullet from a WT that was shot at about 150 yds. The deer was quarting towards me, hit in front of the shoulder and was recovered under the hide at the back of the rib cage on the off side. The bullet seperated but the jacket and two pcs of lead core were all together. The hole under the hide on the enterence wound was the size of a softball. Had one heart shot buck make two jumps and pile up, every other one dropped in its tracks.
The caribou were 250 yds quarting towards me, both were shot bihind the shoulder and left quarter size exit wounds on the off side. They both ran 20-30 yds and piled up.

JD338

 

[Bruce Mc]

The most dramatic performance from a Ballistic Tip I've experienced was a 350 lb wild hog that my son took with a 100 gr B.T. from my .257 Roberts at around 3150 fps. The shot was right at 100 yds and the hit was middle of the shoulder. The bullet penetrated the shoulder bone, destroyed everything inside the chest cavity and exited in many, many, many little holes on the off side. I found a few little fragments of lead in the off shoulder meat. The hog hit the ground quick and never even twitched. Thats a lot of performance from a bullet not intended for that purpose.

 

[skeeter]

I have taken 25 plus deer sized game with the BT out of several cartridges from 50-400 yards. All but one of those deer exited the animals, the majority were rib shots where the exits were 1-2". I have in recent years taken several bucks with 150bt out of 7mm rem mag through the opposite shoulder with exits on all occasions. In most cases damage to the opposite shoulder was intense!!

The one case I did not get an exit was with 130/270win. I swung on buck sneaking in on my calling and pulled the bullet flush into the shoulder at well under 100 yards. The bullet came unglued but busted the shoulder in turn taking out the near lung, while streaking the opposite lung with frags (bone and bullet). I found the jacket in the meat at the entrance point of the scapula. Knowing I screwed up, I waited and collected my deer with no troubles. All but this case, I haven't had an animal cover 50 yards after being hit with the BT.


Still my favorite deer bullet. However I plan to stick with the AccuBond this fall and see how it fairs in comparison.

 

[remingtonman_25_06]

Like skeeter, I have shot many many deer with btips ranging from 50-600 yards, in calibers from 25-06 to 300 RUM. I load for a good majority of family and friends, and I can say that I recomend btips for about 90% of the application. All btips I have ever shot into a deer have fully exited. I always wanted to find a bullet cuz I thought it would be cool to find, but now I look back and know that the bullet did what it was suppose to, break bones, expand, and penetrate. Now heres the funny part, most my deer were shot with the 115g btip at 3200fps MV. I am a shoulder shooter, I still never found any bullets by punching through shoulders. I think btips are the best deer bullet out there. In my opinion you dont need any bonded or partitioned or "X" bullet to take deer.

 

[Desert Fox]

fjlee'

Comparing the performance of your load using two different medium won't gave you the same result. A green log is a poor substitute for a live and breathing animal. A ballistic gelatin is more appropriate or a stack of saturated old news papers or phone books.
Ballistic Tips are proven performer with benchrest accuracy. I myself use them on three of my rifles with deadly result. I load 200 grain for my 338 and 150 grain for my 280 Remington and 55 grain for my 223. For longrange hunting, the Ballistic Tip is in a class by itself.

 

[Guy Miner]

Nosler's little 95 grain Ballistic Tip has proven to be the most accurate bullet I've ever used from my 6mm Remington. When my youngest son started hunting at 13, I handloaded a bunch of 95 grain Ballistic Tips for him. He stalked a mulie doe, shot her at 275 yards. She dropped like a rock!

The little bullet slipped in between the ribs, took out her heart and lungs, then exited through the off-side leg. The bullet shattered the leg bone and exited into the hillside. There was a bit of ruined meat on the off-side leg/shoulder, but I think any bullet smashing into the leg bone would have done so. Exit wound was about an inch, maybe a little bigger. Important to me was that the bullet was accurate, and produced an instant one-shot kill on a real nice size mulie. Pretty typical Ballistic Tip performance from what I've seen.

I like the 165's in .30 caliber cartridges and the 150's in the 7mm Rem mag. Both have proven to be very accurate and drop game Right Now.

Regards, Guy

 

[FOTIS]

Nosler reported that they have been beefed up quite a bit from the initial runs. :wink:

 

[Powerstroke]

I've used only the B-tips up to this year for hunting. Mostly all elk from a .260 / 7-08 & .280 I have yet to recover a bullet from an animal out to close to 400yrds. My wife took the last elk in the mid 300yrd range with 120gr B-tip from a .260. That bullet hit the back-bone just aft the shoulders. Massive damage as should be with that large amount of bone hit, but still exited with no sign to be found.
I recently shot a yote with a 150grn B-tip out of my .280 @ aprox 80yrds or so. That one I did NOT see an exit wound on. ( I'm not diggin around on a nasty mangy yote looking for a bullet it was the end result that mattered )
I have found inconsistant issues with the lighter varmit weights though. Also has been years ago, so not sure if that has changed as well ?? POP ??
I have seen, and recovered several out of my 22-250 that still have a portion of the orange tip.
All in all......excellent bullets for large game !!
Accubonds this year however.

 

[WPH]

I have two experiences personally with balistic tips. Last season a young guy that I took hunting with me shot a medium sized mature doe at 50 yards with a 270 130gr. He hit it slightly quartering to in the shoulder bone not puting it down. The doe ran and stopped broadside at about 225 yards and I put it down with my 06 and 180 horn boattail. The 130 balistic tip never penetrated to the vitals.
Other time was me at a small doe at 15 yards 270 win 140 bt. I hit it where the shoulder meets the spine. Dropped it immediately and did massive damage, but no pass through.
My opinion on the balistic tips is that you have to match them to the right purpose: lower velocity impacts(longer range or calibers like those based on the 308 case), smaller medium game or varmints, and avoid heavier bone structure. They also have not been that accurate for me. Over all I think they are a good bullet for the proper task with a great balistic coeficient.

 

[JDMAG]

I have killed a few whitetails with a 95 grain BT from my .243 Remington Classic, and the results were great ! most blood trails were about a foot in diameter, by the time I reached the deer.My son will be using the same in his model 7 youth this year and I hope to see him get his first deer.
I also plan on trying some 165 grainers in .30-06 this year.

 

[FOTIS]

My wife took the last elk in the mid 300yrd range with 120gr B-tip from a .260. That bullet hit the back-bone just aft the shoulders. Massive damage as should be with that large amount of bone hit, but still exited with no sign to be found.
.

Man! That combo would probably be the last on my list to use on elk but I will be damned if it did not work great! Hard to believe!!!! Impressive :shock:

 

[remingtonman_25_06]

Surprising to say the least huh POP?? Kinda like using 115g btips on black bear out of a 25-06 at 300+ yards?? Ballistic tips are wonderful. 99% of the failures I'm sure are due to either poor bullet weight selection for the caliber or range, and bad shot placement. Btips are not meant to shoot stuff under 100 yards. If you want a bullet to crush through bones and all that other crap at 50 yards, use a barnes x, a swift a frame, or a trophy bonded bear claw, otherwise dont use a btip for its unintended purpose. And if the shot is 100 yards or less, you should be able to make a neck shot or wait for a better shot. There not meant to shoot end to end through game at 50 yards, period!!! It just really really aggrivates me when people have all these bad things to say about btips when there probly the ones at fault for the failure. These are usually the people that load up the lighter btips for caliber and wack something in the shoulder at 40 yards and wonder why it ran off, then blame the bullet for not "penetrating" enough. I dont know if anyone here ever uses corelokts, but I can tell you that there is not a btip in the world that wont out penetrate the corelokt for the same caliber/weight. Core lokts just plain suck you know what. They should be meant for shooting pdogs and coyotes. I shot the 120g factory CL's out of 25-06 and 180g Cl's out of a 300 WM. I shot them into wet newspaper at 100 yards and both those bullets were flattened like a pancake and if memory serves me right, somewhere in the neighborhood of 25-40% weight retention. Now I"m sure thousands of people use the 180g core lokt for elk, but do you think your ever going to get a recomendation to use the 180g btip on elk, heck no. Even though that btip held a lot more weight, and penetrated a heck of a lot farther then that core lokt, btips still have that "bad rap" for not penetrating.

 

[FOTIS]

You said it. Intended bullet for the intended game from the intended caliber at the intended range. :grin:

 

[JD338]

I've said it for years, most bullet "failures" are operator error.
Operator error consist of either:
-wrong bullet for the application
-poor shot placement.

And of course, the famous "failed bullet" that was "recovered" form their DEAD ANIMAL.

Here is a pic of the only 140 gr BT I recovered from a 150 lb WT doe shot at 150 yds. with my 280 Rem. The bullet entered in the shoulder meat and was recovered under the hide at the back of the off side rib cage. The bullet did its job and the doe dropped in her tracks.

JD338[/img]

 

[Powerstroke]

I've never been a huge fan of large caliber rounds for hunting here in CO. I'm all for stacking the odds in my favor. The .300RUM that I am now playign with is an awesome round, but was not purchased due to me thinking I needed more power for the end result, rather for the conditions.
I am not a shoulder shooter, nor have I expressed for my best half to do so. I don't recall the article a few years ago, but I believe it was in the American Rifleman ?? Large caliber compared to small caliber of which kills elk better ...... They both did the same job.
On paper / theory it's always perfect........reality, when the trigger is pulled, we have no idea what bullet performance is about to be.
Shot Placement !!
On the flip side...... can't wait to use the .300RUM during mule deer season!

 

[remingtonman_25_06]

I went out tonight and did a bit of bullet testing into wet newspaper. I had 5 bullets on hand to try out of my 7 RM, 140g Btip, 150g core lokt (factory), 162g SST, 168g VLD, 175g grand slam. Now my testing isn't the best, but it sure gives me an idea to say the least of what to expect. I soaked newspaper and put them into a cardboard box and shoot into at 100 yards. Theres my glorified bullet testing. Well I had a bit of a problem. The idea was to shoot the 162, 168, and 175 at one box, and the 140g and 150g into the other box. I wanted to see how they penetrated each other. Well after the first shot, the box split open and all my papers fell out. Great I thought. I rigged it up to where I could still shoot into, but it wasn't compressed as good so I thought maybe I would lose a couple bullets out the backside. The 1st bullet I shot was the 168g VLD. It lost the core, shed most of its jacket and weighed 47.5g out of 168. Thats good for only 28% weight retention, about average for what I am use to seeing with target bullets. 2nd bullet was 162g sst. It held 76.5g for 47% weight retention. It mushroomed quite nicely and the lead core was still intact. The 3rd bullet I shot was the 175g grand slam. Well remember how I said the 1st shot messed up my whole process, well this bullet must still be sailing somehwere because the newspaper didn't catch it. The 4th bullet was the 140g btip at 3250fps. It retained 63g which is good for 45% weight retention, about normal for btips. It lost its core, but was nicely uniformed mushroomed. The last bullet was the 150g core lokt at 3100fps (crono'ed). This bullet actually surprised me. It held 91.5g which is good for 61% weight retention. It expanded more then any other bullet except for the 168g vld, but held its core surprisingly. In my other core lokt testing with 120g 25-06, and 180g 300 WM, they did not fare to well, but if memory serves me right, back then I tested bullets at 50 yards, thats a lot more stress on any bullet. Here is a pic of the 4 bullets recovered, from left to right, 140g BT, 150g CL, 162g SST, 168g VLD.

 

[JD338]

Good report Remingtonman.

You might also try the water test. Line up 7-8 gallon milk jugs filled with water. Water is actually a hard test media.

JD338

 

[Mark]

I am a huge fan of Nosler Ballistic Tips for my 7mm rifles. I have downed many deer and hogs with my Sako 7mm Mag with 28 inch Shilen barrel with muzzle brake. Nosler Ball. Tips in the 140 and 150 grn weight and performed flawlessly and have almost the same point of impact. Velocity at the muzzle is a mild 3050 fps and bullets have pentrated every animal I have shot out to 642 yards. It is a very accurate round and chose this bullets over my Partitions, Gamekings, Barnes, Grand Slams unless I am shooting mule or elk/moose sized game.
Once I had a bad experience with the 140 grn. Nosler Ball. Tip shot out of a 7mm STW 28 inch Shilen barrel at a screaming 3524 feet per second under RL22. I had three Noslers partitions in my pocket and one Ballistic Tip in the chamber. Partitions have almost the same point of impact as the Ball. Tips for extremely close range to avoid bullet breakup. I shot at a impala on an exotic hunt in S Texas and it just came out of no where and horns were beatuiful and massivly long curled horns and it was 75 yards away and standing where I can only get a quarterly shot from behind the last rib on the left ribcage and let bullet travel straight toward the vitals and out through the right front shoulder. I had no time to switch bullets to partitions because it was open country to use the Ballistic Tips and there was a sagebrush where it crawled out of when the guide's truck passed by and stopped. Impala was next to the fenceline where there was a hole under it and if it crosses the fence, i have to kiss it goodbye and that is when I had the opportunity to shoot right away without switching to partitions and when I fired the STW, the bullet hit behind the last rib and blew out a huge gapping hole and it took off under the hole and into the adjacent property and the guide called up the landowner and asked him permission to retreive the impala. He gave me the OK and off I went to check for a sign of blood or meat to start the tracking. There were no blood and a tiny piece of meat was found where the fence was so I crossed the fence and tacked where he disappeared and so no blood at all and roamed about 300-400 square yards and nothing but many old and fresh tracks. So I came out to an open field and there were some trees about a half mile away in the open. I was sure I could not find any blood but funny looking tracks like dragging towards the open country so I whipped out my binos and scanned the open fields and checked under the trees about a half mile away and saw about 20 impalas sheltering themselves from the blistering sun and I had a feeling that the wounded impala may have wandered back to the herd. Off I walked, in the distance I could see the impalas getting up and start to walk away and scanned each one of them and check for the gaping wound from about 500 yards away, there were none and grass was short and grazed but I could see something under one of the trees but could not make it out. I kept on walking and I was about two hundred yards from the tree and the object and it was the wounded impala and it died right there under the tree. I observed the wound and the intestines and part of the stomach was hanging out to the ground while it walked that half a mile to the tree! I was so devastated and I have never let an animal go wounded in any of my hunts. It was always a one shot kill in the shoulder area.
So don't use the Ballistic Tips in close range when shooting 3500 fps, I feel comfotable shooting close range at 3000 fps or less. I have bagged huge numbers of deer and hogs with the STW and Ballistic Tips only at ranges at 300 yards or more with devastating exit wounds. Of course there are tiny bullet fragments and copper jackets in the animal being shot but does perform superior shock and knockdown power. I have shot does in the neck at 200 yards easy and it nearly makes a exit hole the same size of its neck on the opposite side and a tiny hole where it entranced. :shock:

 

[Desert Fox]

Ballistic Tips are excellent deer bullet period. For long range work it stand alone in my opinion. I don't feel outgun hunting deer with my 280 Argentine 1909 Mauser irregardless of any hunting situations. I've taken deer from a spitting distance of 70 yards up to 600+ yards using the excellent Nosler BT 150 grain 7MM bullet at a modest velocity of 2984 fps. I have yet to recover any bullet.