Nosler Partition performance question

ReloadKy

Handloader
May 13, 2020
319
234
My son got lucky this youth weekend in KY. He had a young doe stand 15 yds from our blind. Doe was slightly quartering to so my boy put a shot on the deer's shoulder and drilled it. The deer ran about 50 yds and piled up. He was shooting a 243 with a 100 gr Partition pushed by 43 gr of IMR 4831 and his velocity is about 2850.

My question is; what should the Partition do at that distance and that velocity? When skinning the deer out the shoulder was blown all to you know what but we did not find the bullet at all and there was no exit wound. Only thing I could figure is that the bullet blew up. There was a ton of bloodshot meat. Granted the deer was really close and small, just seeing what I should have expected. Glad the deer was dead, my son was pumped!!
 
That's why I switched to Etips. I don't like eating lead.

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They don’t usually blow up, usually theres about 30% or so that does and the rest passes throughout close to it. No bullet is fool proof, but that seems abnormal.

I was turned into them by a 243 100gr from a buddies son, same shot as you, through the shoulder, passed through the interior, ended up almost all the way through the right rear quarter. I haven’t used anything since.


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The bullet did exactly what it was designed to do . The front is designed for rapid expansion and the rear is going to penetrate deep . You just didn't find the back portion . I have taken quite a few deer with them in 30 cal. and all were pass thru . The only one recovered was a 7.08 round shot way out there .





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My experience with partitions in .224-.338 caliber is that the front core causes a lot of trauma to internal organs
I'm thinking about the angle and the bullet. That bullet should have gone through unless it stopped in the off side shoulder joint.

JD338
 
RK,
Not to discount what you said, but the Partition is THE godfather of bullet performance. They typically expand rapidly and penetrate like no other. That said, bullets do wonky things at the velocities they experience in modern rifles and perhaps it glanced off of the shoulder due to the quartering to shot?
V/R,
Joe
 
I bet the rear of the bullet was in there somewhere. Lots of times it’ll drop to the ground during skinning and not be noticed.

Congrats on the deer! Glad he was able to connect.
 
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