Hunting bullet performance - prefer through or a grenade inside?

[35WhelenAI]

195 yds. I’ve killed a bunch of deer and a few antelope with that bullet and get an exit about half the time on deer. It’s super accurate out of my rifle.

For what it's worth, I get exits on anything but hard quartering shots out to 355 yards with the TTSX from the Whelen AI (.358 200 TTSX) on elk and more than adequate destruction of the vitals to cause certain death. 270 Win and 30-06 shooting a 110 TTSX and 130 TTSX respectively exit on deer sized animals out to 400 yds. Never shot at an animal beyond 400 yds, so no experience past that.

 

[TradLife406]

I switched to Bergers this year in my 6.5 PRC and Creed. They worked amazing. Before I was using the ELDX and it worked. But the 140 and 156 elite hunters seemed to work better. Shooting whitetails from 2-750 yards they'd go in as advertised then blow a huge out on the way out.
Shot eight deer. Seven with the PRC and one with the Creed.

I've played with most of the other popular bullets and they work. But that full energy dump seems to work better. I really like the Accubonds in some cals. But in like my 270 Wby it seemed to just slip through and I had one mulie doe run several hundred yards with a hole in both lungs. But the same bullet in the 243 or 308 worked great. So there maybe be something to a bullet working better in certain cals than others.

 

[hereinaz]

I switched to Bergers this year in my 6.5 PRC and Creed. They worked amazing. Before I was using the ELDX and it worked. But the 140 and 156 elite hunters seemed to work better. Shooting whitetails from 2-750 yards they'd go in as advertised then blow a huge out on the way out.
Shot eight deer. Seven with the PRC and one with the Creed.

I've played with most of the other popular bullets and they work. But that full energy dump seems to work better. I really like the Accubonds in some cals. But in like my 270 Wby it seemed to just slip through and I had one mulie doe run several hundred yards with a hole in both lungs. But the same bullet in the 243 or 308 worked great. So there maybe be something to a bullet working better in certain cals than others.

That’s my experience with Berger as well.

 

[35WhelenAI]

The same bullet in different calibers to me is always gonna be subject to some difference in construction. Would be impossible to make them on the same scale to each other (jacket thickness relative to bullet diameter to dictate expansion characteristics, core hardness in different diameters, etc) and thus performance. Like I've shared, vitals out out of commission and a hole going in and out. Monos do it for me reliably and many other bullets of different construction do what others ask of them so we're all after the same thing with a dead animal.

 

[WhoGarrDen]

100% !!
It depends on where you’re hunting and what you’re hunting.
My daughter shot a deer this year that was little far back.
After the shot he ran about 50 yards and stood right at the edge of 6ft tall crp for about 2 minutes before going down in sight. Shooting 6creed 103eldx suppressed.
I think if not shooting suppressed he probably would of been running through that crp for those two minutes with zero blood. That would of been very difficult to find.

For my son's hunt this year we were in thick woods with some steeper angles, but got a nice shot opportunity at 80 yards. The deer all but disappeared after the first 30 yards of running but we could hear it hit the ground. Took out the heart, and blood everywhere all the way to the scene of the crash 60 yards away. Although we could have found it with a bit of work without the blood, we were glad to have easy trail. There's almost never snow on the ground during our deer rifle seasons.

For my hunt, it was wide open rolling hills. I had ELD-X's loaded in my 7mm-08 and was able to watch the deer run and fall without leaving the scope. I think we both had great bullets for the application and plan to stick with this formula going forward - frangible for open with potentially longer shots, and bonded or similar for those <150yd shots where the deer can be gone in the blink of an eye and a blood trail helps immensely.

 

[doc holiday13]

As polar opposite as this discussion might seem, I think there are some issues we don't always factor in this discussion.

Rewind 15 years ago. I was using sierra match kings for hunting.. Everyone online said "you're dumb" "they won't work" "they're not a hunting bullet"

I put 15 deer on the ground with that bullet. Never had to track. Everything dropped on the spot or only ran 20 yards. I stopped using the bullet though. Why? Well the last 2 deer I shot ended up with lead and copper in super random spots that were nowhere near wound channel. I found it with my teeth...while eating dinner. I went to monos knowing I'd need high speed impacts to get results... Then I stopped shooting in the chest and migrated to low neck or head shot(when possible). Last year I neck shot a few deer with a lead varminter bullet and that was fairly effective and didn't give me lead on my dinner plate. I've shot roughly 15 deer this way in the last 4 years

Right now... i'm considering moving to ELDX because they create a big wound channel, but kinda stay together with the thicker jacket and crimp ring
@Formidilosus have you found any bullets on the spectrum that create a devastating wound channel but don't throw lead and copper all over the place? I know thats kind of asking for a unicorn bullet. The ELD X from your description of carnage and how it constructed seem to be what I'm looking for but there could be something I'm missing. Maybe I could just full on use ELDM's or Bergers and do the low neck shot which seems to possibly be most effective at dropping them on the spot regardless of bullet.

 

[Formidilosus]

Right now... i'm considering moving to ELDXbecause they create a big wound channel, but kinda stay together with the thicker jacket and crimp ring

@Formidilosus have you found any bullets on the spectrum that create a devastating wound channel but don't throw lead and copper all over the place? I know thats kind of asking for a unicorn bullet.

It is asking for a unicorn. The only real way to get a very large wound channel without a fragmenting bullet is yawing (tumbling). The problem is consistency of yawing.

If you are using a 6mm, the 115gr DTAC with Nosering with often create large wounds with chest shots due to yawing, and often doesn’t fragment heavily.

 

[rrbailey]

Tried and true 147gr ELDM put a Gatorade bottle sized entry wound into my elk this year from 285 yds. Nothing left of the internal organs. Saw massive amount of bloodshot on the fascia but meat was perfectly good. Bullet was caught inside the cape on the other side. It’s damn near as close as you can get to that unicorn bullet @Formidilosus talks about.

 

[stevevan]

Tried and true 147gr ELDM put a Gatorade bottle sized entry wound into my elk this year from 285 yds. Nothing left of the internal organs. Saw massive amount of bloodshot on the fascia but meat was perfectly good. Bullet was caught inside the cape on the other side. It’s damn near as close as you can get to that unicorn bullet @Formidilosus talks about.

I've tried most of the premium bullets on everything from Coues to Elk and in the long run I've always have gotten best overall performance from simple cup and core bullets with an interlocking ring such as Hornady, Rem Corelokt. Given the premium bullets it's hard to better the ole Nosler Partition.

 

[Article 4]

I've tried most of the premium bullets on everything from Coues to Elk and in the long run I've always have gotten best overall performance from simple cup and core bullets with an interlocking ring such as Hornady, Rem Corelokt. Given the premium bullets it's hard to better the ole Nosler Partition.

Yeah, one of my favorite old school bullets was the Hornady SST - felt like with the fragmenting front, the interlocking ring and cannelure with the solid like base, it was the best of both worlds.
Don't use it anymore due to improvements along the way in other bullets but I did like it back in the day.

 

[Article 4]

Tried and true 147gr ELDM put a Gatorade bottle sized entry wound into my elk this year from 285 yds. Nothing left of the internal organs. Saw massive amount of bloodshot on the fascia but meat was perfectly good. Bullet was caught inside the cape on the other side. It’s damn near as close as you can get to that unicorn bullet @Formidilosus talks about.

I starting using the eldx when it first came out - kills animals dead. I liked it but found so many variables in the quality control during reloading that required more steps, categorizing bullets based on weight and base to ogive length, that I switched that rifle over to Berger 180s.

Shot a big body muley in Colorado at 380 yards slightly quartering away and was able to recover both bullets in the off shoulder. Shot once, hit mid body behind shoulder and he stood there not moving for maybe 10 seconds. When that happens I always shoot again, same area of impact maybe 3 or 4 inches further back - same outcome....insides were toast.

Weighed the 175s after the shot. Two bullets retained about 40% of their mass.

 

[S-3 ranch]

I always love talking to my friends about latest trends, and in our conversations
We have been in general consensus that if you like a exploding match bullet,
It’s best to keep it 6mm or smaller, on deer and pronghorn,
Anything with mass and speed + thin jacket will be making a big mess , inside and outside on a thin skin game

 

[Johnwell]

I want both. A Partition is the closest to ideal bulls that I’ve seen for this. I don’t understand why Nosler hasn’t modernized the Partition to have a better BC.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

I think this is my answer as well. Not that Partitions are perfect; but they represent a pretty good compromise. Good energy dump, but have enough mass left to push the mushroom the rest of the way through.

I haven’t been impressed with solid copper bullets. The heavy for caliber match bullets seem alright as long as the shot is not at some weird angle, but I don’t trust them as much.

Now if they could just make the partition with a boattail, I would be happy. The wind drift and drop they have is pretty abysmal as-is.

 

[JGRaider]

I think this is my answer as well. Not that Partitions are perfect; but they represent a pretty good compromise. Good energy dump, but have enough mass left to push the mushroom the rest of the way through.

I haven’t been impressed with solid copper bullets. The heavy for caliber match bullets seem alright as long as the shot is not at some weird angle, but I don’t trust them as much.

Now if they could just make the partition with a boattail, I would be happy. The wind drift and drop they have is pretty abysmal as-is.

If you love the on game performance of partitions ( I do), you'll love the same thing about the accubond, as I've found little difference. The partition may expand a bit more, but the AB's may penetrate a bit more at the same time. You'll be hard pressed to ever tell the difference.