accubonds

[Short Track]

Not thrilled, but got it done. 6.5CM 140gr accubonds just blow right through an Antelope.
225 yards,
1st shot was a gut shot. Too far back. 4 of the 5 goats sped off.
My goat still standing in shock, but not walking anywhere..

2nd shot, just behind the lungs. Still standing, not walking anywhere.
Now I'm wondering if I'm missing, or what's going on. This thing is still standing still, like nothing is happening. Not even off balance.

3rd shot, finally caught both lungs, and he finally falls over.

Upon inspection, 3 exit wounds, not too big. Cleary accubonds don't expand in a speed goat. They just blow right through like target shooting. Better off using soft lead, but accubonds perform better in the wind. Chalk it up to experience.. My 1st goat, so I was rushing to get one, but a nice 13" buck.

 

[Corvus Corax]

Yeah those tough bonded bullets probably have a hard time expanding in such a slightly built narrow animal, especially if they don’t have the benefit of hitting heavy muscle or bone. Nosler Ballistic Tips or other high BC cup and core bullets would have more dramatic expansion. Congratulations on being successful on your hunt! Save those Accubonds for big mulies and elk.

 

[Ratbeetle]

My experience was quite a bit different. Just under 300 yards, high lung hit...bang, flop.

Yes, it exited but I want two holes. I know the ultra high bc bullets are the rage, but I don't want fragmenting bullets used on anything I plan to feed to my toddler. And she loves pronghorn!

 

[Spiral Horn]

Wow. I’ve taken a few critters with that exact cartridge, 6.5CM 140gr AB, and couldn’t be happier with the results. 2x Chamois at ~350 & 390 yards, both DRT; and a Mouflon at 165 yards who went 15 yards. In my experience it’s a great Sheep / Goat round. Here’s a pic of a perfectly mushroomed bullet from one of the Chamois - hit front shoulder (quartered toward) traveled full length and found it on the opposite hip. Others were pass through.

 

[Dioni A]

I'm sorry but you can't draw much conclusion from an animal you made a bad first shot on then don't follow up with opening it up and inspecting internal damage. I've killed a metric pile of critters with accubonds and they're nothing if not consistent.

 

[Downeaster]

For antelope i like the ABLR. Opens down to 1300fps supposedly. 2.5-3" exit out of pistol at 138yds. Test subject convinced in less than 10yds. Regular ABs are a beast when you place them remotely well. Stuff dies...quickly.

 

[Short Track]

Having said what I said above, I've taken Moose with accubonds. But it may be too much for Antelope.

 

[6mm Remington]

Accubonds are great for antelope and I doubt that they just blew right through the antelope without expanding. Antelope are a lot tougher than many folks give them credit for and it would not surprise me in the least that you had to shoot this one three times although from the sounds of it the antelope should have been dead on it's feet after the second shot. I've shot a lot of critters with the Accubond and the performance has been just perfect. Nice expansion and usually exit holes.

I have shot them into water jugs as another way to test and evaluate them for expansion, penetration, and weight retention and from 25 - 500 yards they just work and work very well. I had a buddy shoot an antelope with his 45-70 at about 200 yards. Hit it perfectly behind the shoulder in the lungs and it never even acted like it was hit after absorbing that big old bullet. The buck ran about 100 yards before it dropped. My father shot an antelope with his 7mm Remington and 160 gr. Nosler Partition in the neck. This was a medium size doe. He missed the spine and got the main artery. This little doe ran about 400 yards before she fell!

I would continue to use the Accubond with confidence.

 

[Short Track]

There's an FAQ on the Nosler website. Accubonds vs Ballistic tip. Seems the BT is better suited for Antelope. I'll keep my Accubonds for Elk & Moose...

 

[agardner00]

Odd, I had exactly the opposite experience on whitetails. No exit wound, just lead powdered meat. I ended up switching to the E-tips. Although, those were the ABLRs.


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[agardner00]

My experience was quite a bit different. Just under 300 yards, high lung hit...bang, flop.

Yes, it exited but I want two holes. I know the ultra high bc bullets are the rage, but I don't want fragmenting bullets used on anything I plan to feed to my toddler. And she loves pronghorn!

Yep. Same here.


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[mulecreek]

Your writeup makes is sound like the bullet did everything it was suppose to , but you did not. First shot, gut shot, no dead pronghorn. Second shot, just behind the lungs, that area is called the guts, no dead pronghorn. Third shot lungs, dead pronghorn. Bullet worked fine, your shooting was lacking.

My family and I shoot exclusively AB's in everything from 7mm08, 308 Win, 7mm RM, to 300 RUM. On everything from antelope, WT, MD, elk, Moose, sheep and bear and have never had an issue at any range provided we did our part shooting well. My 13 yr old shot his first pronghorn buck last weekend with 140 gr AB's in a 7mm RM at 200 yds. Good shot = dead pronghorn.

 

[rileybassman]

I shot 2 antelope last year with 130 grain accubonds out of a 6.5 CM - both 1 shot kills. Buck was 330 yards and went 20 yards and dropped.... doe was 200 yards and didn't move.

Yea they both passed through, but they are supposed to... if you put them in the vitals, they will die.

If you want higher chance of bang/flop look into a fast expanding bullet (Berger VLD hunter has been good for me)... still need to get it in the vitals tho.

 

[theleo91386]

I'm not surprised. That's a tough bullet, not ton of velocity, and not much resistance from the target. Unless I hit bone the 140's out of my 280ai will zip through pretty much anything smaller than an elk without causing a ton of damage. They still do enough to get the job done when I hit an animal in the lungs, but the animal almost always runs for a few seconds. My 243 produces more bang flops on deer and antelope than my 280ai, at least with the bullets I hunt big game with.

 

[Sled]

Then accubond wouldn't be my first choice for such a thin underbuilt animal. I've had an AB pencil through elk before. Still killed the elk within 25 yd. They are a great bullet when matched to the appropriate game.

I took an antelope with a berger classic hunter in 6.5cm this year. That sure seems to be an explosive round. I did not lose any meat since I shot lungs but I sure wouldn't want to hit any bone with it.

 

[Studd muffin]

I agree with mulecreek. Sounds like you are expecting perfect performance out of the bullet with poor shooting. I have shot pigs, white tails, and elk with 160gr accubonds. They work perfect when you make decent shots. Gut shots aren't decent shots.

 

[Tmac]

I suspect had your first shot went where it belonged, or even the second shot a bit further forward, you‘d have seen a different result. Just a guess as I was not there. But I’d bet it was not the tools used that led to your dissatisfaction with the bullets performance, rather it was bullet placement. An accubond that goes through that much animal almost certainly expanded well and created a lethal internal wound, in a not immediately lethal area (gut/liver) while shedding some weight like it is designed to do, and then exited without blowing a big hole. Near perfect performance to it’s design specs. On larger game they will often not exit, on smaller stuff they often do.

 

[William Sublette]

Also,


Antelope seem to have some kind of prehistoric will to survive. I would like to say a turbo charged, redundant, blood and air distribution system. But that's not quite right.


I've watched a lot of them... hit perfectly, with 06's and similar, take way longer than they should to succumb.



So I imagine a gut shot, that allows the adrenaline to surge, would take longer than expected.

 

[WCB]

What does "not too big" mean. My wife has shot a Chamois, roughly same size as an Antelope, coyotes and a Arapawa Ram in New Zealand with a 7-08 using Federal Trophy Bonded Tips (a lot tougher than Accubonds.

Exits on all of them were about the size of a nickle. Which means the bullet expanded it just didn't blow a giant hole in the skin. Insides were soup. An Accubond IMO is a perfect goat bullet because it doesn't blow up like a Ballistic Tip.

 

[Short Track]

They say, you want all the energy to expel inside the animal. Which means it doesn't exit, it stops on the aft side skin. Once it exits, yes there is a bleeding hole, but no more energy is used to put the game down.

That happened with accubonds on my Moose. I'm not a ballistic expert, but it seems to make sense.

I will tell you, since my shot wasn't perfect, and it was a gut shot, I was scooping out handfuls of grass. It probably wasn't the bullet expansion, but hydraulic shock that exploded the stomach.