Bullet failures, who has had one?

[FOTIS]

I have used the same bullet in the 6mm rem in a #1 Ruger 1976 Liberty with 48 gr RL22. It generated 3248 fps and 1.5" groups at 300 yards all day long. I have killed goats with them and never recovered one. Never used the flat base.

 

[mcseal2]

I've had a few that didn't perform as expected, but still worked. One was from a box of .277 140gr BT's I loaded in 1994. I shot two broadside coyotes with these bullets between 150 & 200yds and neither exited. They worked on yotes, but I didn't use them for deer. About the same time I loaded a box of 180gr BT's for my 300WM that had a 30" barrel at the time. My velocity was 3200fps and they didn't exit on a couple broadside lung shots on large deer. I think Nosler may have improved the BT later, I've had better penetration with them since then.

I've played with 6mm Berger VLD hunting bullets a little also and they have given quick kills on deer. They haven't exited and have left small entry wounds doing extreme damage inside. I have only used them on broadside shots to take does. They work great for this because they kill quickly and leave little or no blood on the ground to contaminate a stand location. In my experience they also penetrate to deep before opening to drop coyotes quickly and exit with a small wound channel. I'm still waiting to try accubonds for the 243 and 6mm.

I've used some Sierra Gamekings in the past and have only had one instance one didn't work. It was my fault. I took a severe quartering shot on a large whitetail buck and the bullet hit at the last rib and didn't penetrate far enough to reach lungs. We recovered the deer but he had covered a quarter mile and my hunting partner had to put him down. That one was my fault, I expected to much penetration from that bullet design.

I took a similar shot on a muley this fall with an AccuBond in the same weight at similar range and the bullet penetrated the length of the deer and ended up under the hide in the throat. The bullet retained 60.5% of it's original weight. I've shot another hunters crippled buck, and a wounded elk at bad angles over the last couple years and recovered bullets with nearly identical results. At good shot angles I rarely recover them. Since the AccuBond came out I switched to it in almost everything (still waiting for 6mm ones). I've recovered several and they have all been between 50 & 65% of their original weight. I've never seen one fail and really don't expect to. They open quick enough to flatten coyotes which tells me there is a great deal of shock on impact, and still penetrate very deep. They are the most consistent and forgiving bullet I've tried, giving the same performance at different angles, game, and ranges. I haven't used partitions much, but from everything I read the AccuBond was designed to perform the same so I'm sure I'd like them also.

 

[Gm weatherby man]

Quit using the 243, who has a fever, my daughter just shot her first whitetail doe weighing in at a good 225 lbs, quartering away with a ttsx 80 grn bullet. It took out four ribs on far side before exiting far shoulder. How's that for 243 bullet performance. Next will be moose in November with 90 eTip. :wink:

 

[Gm weatherby man]

I also truly think that though a bullet might not perform as we intend , it still lies with the shooter to make the shot count, seen, heard of lots of animals lost to poor bullet selection in relation to poor shot placement. :?

 

[Oldtrader3]

That is all true, what several have said about killing despite full bullet fragmentation, but I just do not like living on the edge of mechanical failure, especially when shooting game. That is why I have always used the Partition, or now the AccuBond bullet, in order to give me the best outcome that is reasonably possible. I also prefer to have the bullet exit and in almost all cases, in deer, this has been the case with Partition bullets. I just want to have the added insurance of bullet expansion integrity and terminal performance with high residual bullet weight.

 

[onesonek]

I've hesitated to contribute to this thread. As Fotis indicated, this is a can of worms. However, I wonder if the term "bullet failure" isn't misleading. Bullets don't generally fail; they do what they were designed to do, which is transmit kinetic energy to game. If there is failure, it can almost always (essentially without fail) due to poor bullet placement and/or poor bullet choice for the game intended. By poor bullet placement, I recognise that sometimes matters are out of control of the hunter. Shooting at long range, it is possible that game will step forward and cause the bullet to strike farther back than the aim point. There is interstitial space between the lungs and the spine of many quadrupeds; should a bullet pass through this area, it is possible that it fails to generate sufficient hydrostatic shock to disrupt a major system of the animal. Wind gusts, especially at distance, can deflect a bullet's trajectory. All these can (and do) occur in the field. However, it is an unfortunate choice of words to attribute these to bullet failure. Choosing to shoot a thin-jacketed bullet on tough game is a choice the shooter makes. If a frangible bullet breaks up prematurely, it is not failure of the bullet, but failure to consider the game that was to be stalked. Often shooters don't want to damage meat, so they attempt a neck shot or attempt to avoid hitting the shoulder. Certainly a bullet hitting the spine will instantly drop an animal, but should the bullet pass through the esophagus, the animal may or may not show signs of injury as it runs off. An animal shot in the lungs will almost inevitably run, but it will die. However, an alarmed deer, elk or moose running at full speed can cover a lot of territory before hypoxia renders the animal unconscious. This is not a sign of bullet failure, but a physiological reaction to injury. No shooter should ever attribute such an instance to bullet failure. Again, bullet failure would indicate that a bullet that should expand fails to do so. However, unless we recover the projectile, we cannot say with certainty that there was no expansion. Perhaps bullet failure would indicate that a bullet that should hold together proved frangible and "exploded" on bone. Such instances are so rare as to be virtually unheard of. The laws of physics dictate that bullet design dictates maximum impact velocities at which the bullet will perform as intended. To push a bullet beyond that upper velocity limit is not a case of bullet failure, but failure of the shooter to consider the bullet selected. Fascinating subject.

Yep,,,,,

Beyond that personally, I play a lot with the less costly non premiums of various mfg's.. Always just to keep my fundementals sharp. I could care less what they do on the range,,, it's contact time with the trigger I want. So if I was given some, they would get used, or I buy the less cost for practice. But when it comes to the hunting bullet, I look to premiums much the same way I look at buying insurance. Not because I need or have to have it, but because I might. Hunting isn't cheap with all the cost involved, and I hear very often how "Nosler is proud of the Partition". Well, even if at double or 4X the cost of some others, they are still only bullet I know what to expect. Far too often I have seen where other's using some non premium, more often than not, shooting 2 and 3 times, where's the cost effectiveness now? Not to mention, a bunch more wasted blood shot meat.
When I have chosen the caliber and weight to match the game, I have not had any issues with NP's in over 35 yrs. They simply do what I expect each and every time, no doubts whats so ever.
With the AB being relatively new, and given some more field time, it may prove to be an excellent performer, at less cost. More time will tell in that aspect however. But as far as I'm concerned, the NP is still King, and how others are compared.
Beyond that again, caliber choice is pretty much in that,,, "each to their own" zone. So, I really won't go there, other to say,,,, Personally I tend to go one caliber heavier that what I feel is adequate for the task. My thoughts are, life has enough risk, why compound it when it can be avoided or at least lessened. Hunting is for the most part is a game of chance, why not increase the odds where one can. But whatever the caliber used, a few extra dollars for reliable bullets seems a small cost to me.

Now I have also avoided the "failure" part, as for the most part, as dead is dead. But if the bullet didn't do as you wanted, is it the bullets fault? Personally I think all the bullet mfg's. have done wonders, to appease such a lot as us hunters and shooters. Not an enviable task in my mind, and sometimes we expect perfection in everything, when seldom perfection is possible with most anything. And specially more so, when dealing with a wild animal !

 

[Guy Miner]

Hopped back on here this morning to see where the thread has gone. It's obvious that there are some well written posts here from very experienced hunters. Also impressed that it didn't degenerate into the name-calling that seems to happen on some other forums discussing bullet performance. Great stuff guys. No surprise to me that a bunch of guys on a Nosler forum tend to favor bullets that hang together and penetrate well.

McSeal - ".277 140gr BT's I loaded in 1994. I shot two broadside coyotes with these bullets between 150 & 200yds and neither exited."

Wow! A coyote is what, 6" thick? Almost amazing that they didn't exit. I had some .30 cal Ballistic Tips of similar vintage, loaded to 3200 fps for a friend's .300 Win mag. We had some interesting experiences with that load on mule deer... Deer died, but it wasn't long before we'd switched to stouter 180 & 200 gr bullets for our .300 maggies.

Guy

 

[mcseal2]

I was shocked too on the bullets not exiting the coyotes. I'm guessing I had a bad batch or something, but I sure didn't trust them for deer. I shot Federal premium 150gr Partition loads through that gun for big game after that, but never shot to much with it before trading it off.

My 300 was a very finicky rifle, it shot great with a max load of RL22 and the 180gr BT but that was the only bullet I ever found that it liked until the AccuBond. I honestly would have switched to a different bullet if I'd have found one that shot. My gunsmith left the barrel at 30" for the speed gain, but I never liked it and eventually got him to cut it down to 24" and it slowed to 3050fps. I eventually shot out the barrel on that rifle and had it re-barrelled to a 264WM. It was to heavy to be my elk rifle anyway, and I get the same BC and speed from a 140gr AccuBond as I did from my 180's for deer. I really like it better now.

 

[Ridge_Runner]

failures, in my eyes yes, not once but 3 out of 3 shooting the berger 140 gr. .264 hunting bullet
Now berger claims they are designed to penetrate 4" then rapidly expand. they shoot very, very well in my 6.5 gibbs loaded with retumbo running 3160 fps lit up with fed. 210's
first deer I shot with the 140 gr hunting bullet was a smallish 8 pt at 567 yds. impact was just about the diaphram between the liver and lungs about midway up the chest cavity. 1/2 into the tracking job I found the buck. you could tell from the entrance wound that the bullet came apart before making the chest cavity. I wrote this off as possibly the bullet hit something in flight and decided to try them again.
second buck was lazered at 593 yards, an older mature buck, standing slightly quartering away saw the bullet impact through the scope, 1/2 way back on the ribs, 1/2 way up. The buck kicked up, took off, tracked this deer over 1 mile, and if he headed uphill there was no blood to track, so finaly found him completely bled out inside, only fragments in the chest cavity
third deer shot by my nephew at 230 yards, typical behind the shoulder broadside shot on a pretty large doe. she ran 70 yards or so before piling up, here is the entrance wound

You can see the bullet just came apart on the outside of the ribcage.
Now I have taken one deer with the match bergers and they definately do better than what I've saw from the hunting version. What I can't figure out is all the guys who post of excellant results using them, in basicly the same class of calibers which I shoot. to me this kind of performance is totaly unacceptable.
RR

 

[Oldtrader3]

I think that I would switch to the AccuBond after seeing this.

 

[super-7]

WOW! That is unacceptable performence no doubt. Not only is that a waste of good meat, but the animal deserves better. I have yet to try bergers, and will be in no rush to do so.