Bullet Selection

Hey all. 'Tis the season for bullet discussions.

I was perusing the local Scheels last night and thinking about which brand of bullets I'd like to try out next. As of right now, I've only reloaded Hornady bullets because they're so reasonably priced and they've all shot very well out of the rifles I've put them through. Out of just my '06 I've tried SSTs, ELD-X, FMJ-BT, and Interlocks. This to me is really easy to swallow since the bullets cost between 25-35 dollars for a box of 100.

This brings me to the reason I'm posting: Every other reputable bullet brand that I saw on the shelves were at a minimum of $50/100 bullets (Berger VLD) and $60+/100 for others (Nosler, etc.). I have noticed that many of you will suggest loads to other people on here that are purely more expensive bullets and I'm curious about your reasons. I don't doubt that they may perform better, have higher quality control, or are maybe a better company. I'm just interested in hearing your opinions.

In this case I'm not really interested in hearing the "it's the smallest amount of money that is possibly the most important money you'll spend on your hunt" argument. I do realize that, but also realize that most of the cheaper bullets will get the job done just as well.

As with anything in life, you get what you pay for. If I was only a deer hunter I would probably shoot the cheap stuff. Elk is always my primary focus, though and therefore I spend the extra on a premium bullet.

Probably the only premium bullet worth buying is a to light for cal monolithic bullet! Shouldn't blow up when you shoot your brown bear at 600yds from your 30-338! With cup and core bullet's you do have to give some though to what your shooting. But they are also cup and core bullet's that will work fine for most everything you hunt. I would not use a cup and core bullet hear shooting an elephant! The list of different bullet's style's has got huge, don't know how anyone can work their way through it! I have used Hornady spire point/interlock' for a lot of years and have never had even one failure! I have used Speer hot core's from a 7mm mag and now my 6.5x55 and never had a failure! Bear in mind I choose the weight I use carefully. Light for caliber bullet's you can drive really fast are not normally the best choice. Speer ht core's work about the same as any premium bullet but God forbid you tell someone that like's to spend extra money on bonded bullet's that!

The bullets I feel are best happen to cost more. That's it. I hunt in 500 dollar boots. I don't leave anything to chance. mtmuley

mtmuley said:

The bullets I feel are best happen to cost more. That's it. I hunt in 500 dollar boots. I don't leave anything to chance. mtmuley

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+1

I do shoot some Hornadys from time to time though.

I also like Nosler Ballistic Tips, which is a pretty reasonably priced bullet.

mtmuley said:

The bullets I feel are best happen to cost more. That's it. I hunt in 500 dollar boots. I don't leave anything to chance. mtmuley

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+2

My rifle really likes Swift A-frames, although I'm switching to non-lead E-Tips... both are way more expensive than the lower end offerings. You can always buy a bunch of cheap bullets for target shooting and more expensive ones for hunting and just re-sight before the season...

As I moved to western hunting and started hand-loading recently I had a chance to start fresh. At first look, accubond seemed highest regarded with partition a close second. Consistent penetration and expansion on big bodied game, decent but not leading BCs (accubond) and relatively easy "load-ability" and accuracy were commonly cited strengths. I played around with accubond and like them, but coincidently, I decided if I was starting fresh I was going to go non-lead.

So my attention switched to Barnes TTSX and the Nosler and Hornady equivalents. After looking at calibers, weights, reviews, load info, etc. I ended up choosing TTSX as my go to choice. The deciders for me were higher number of reviews, load info, and users professing positive user experience with TTSX (as the originator of monos, it has a certainty lead-time advantage) and more importantly, I liked the use of softer copper vs. gilding metal used by the other two (in my view an expansion pro, and the fouling con had been address with the grooves). I am sure all of them would have been fine, and if I find a gun that won't shoot TTSX I will be quick to try them, but for now TTSX is the choice. It was a choice driven by commitment to non-lead. Price was never really part of my evaluation.

I only shoot Nosler BTs, Partitions, and Accubonds. I don't think I've ever paid more than $20/50 and that was for the Partitions. The Accubonds and BTs are cheaper.

I like Nosler bullet because they perform well at all speeds and are cheaper priced.

N2TRKYS said:

I only shoot Nosler BTs, Partitions, and Accubonds. I don't think I've ever paid more than $20/50 and that was for the Partitions. The Accubonds and BTs are cheaper.

I like Nosler bullet because they perform well at all speeds and are cheaper priced.

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Where are you finding your Accubonds?! I think I need to get hooked up with your supplier.

OhHeyThereBen said:

Where are you finding your Accubonds?! I think I need to get hooked up with your supplier.

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Shootersproshop.com

I’ve shot Hornady, Sierra, Speer, Nosler, Lapua, Berger, and various custom handmade bullets. For paper punching I settled on Hornady and Berger. Hornaday flat based match bullets generally gave me accuracy as good as Bergers with very rare “flyers”. Sierra was about equal but at a much higher prices. In matches I shot Bergers because they didn’t have occasional(1-2/100) shots that didn’t go in the group. I F-Class I couldn’t quite get the accuracy from any brand other than Lapua and Berger. Other shooters had found sorting by bearing length and base to ogive as the key, but I didn’t have to do that with Berger and Lapua.For p-dogs I found Hornady to be highly accurate, considerably more so that Balistic Tips and V-Max bullets were far cheaper. For fur bearing varmints I found Nosler Balistic tips to be superior to Hornadys in terms of getting under the hide before blowing up, and then blowing up before coming out, particularly the 50gr balistic tip at 2900-3100fps. It’s just a tough combo to beat, and a .222 or .223 will do it perfectly. Moving to deer and hogs, Berger was not yet making a hunting bullet that they were aware of and I would not be one to shoot a deer with a target bullet. I had come to be very satisfied with Nosler in terms of well thought out and implemented hunting bullets when I used them on varmints and my dad had killed quite a few deer and antelope with various Nosler bullets over the years. I started shooting deer and hogs with various weight of Balistic Tip Hunting bullets with the occasional Nosler Solid Base, Barnes X, and Lapua soft point. After frustration with watching all the deer I shot through the lungs with a 30-06 run 100+ yards, while my friends shooting a .270 and .243 were dropping them within 15-20yds, and not wanting to shoot shoulder bone and ruin meat, I switched to a .243. It seemed to kill a bit quicker, but I wanted more consistent exists while maintaining the high velocity I was getting with the .243, so I loaded up some 125gr Blaistic Tips in the 30-06 at screaming velocities. The results were fairly good, but the bullet still wasn’t getting much penetration at all and didn’t give me much confidence. On top of that, the load wasn’t very accurate at all. I got busy, the next hunting season rolled around. I was shooting F-TR with 190gr VLDs in a 9lb .308 and Berger has declared them hunting bullets. The ogive on the 168’s was similar or the same. I loaded them up, they shot 5 shot groups under .5” at 200yds. I shot two deer with them. There was very little damage. Like an FMJ. I e-mailed Berger. They said they were aware of the issue, and that it was occurring with about 1% of boxes. They thought that they had figured it out and asked for my box for testing purposes . They sent me a replacement box of whatever I wanted in return and assured me that I would not be dissapointed. They were correct. In the three years since then, I have never had an animal fail to die very near where he stood when he was it. I’ve had near instant kills with lung only hits. I’ve had a gut shot hog die within seconds without taking a step. At muzzle velocities ranging from 2560fps to 3400fps nothing has blown up on the surface and every animal has died extremely quickly. Most have had exit wounds. The exits have been deceptively small. They tend to penetrate 2-6” before blowing up. None seems not to be a problem. After the initial penetration, there is a liquified mass the size of a basketball. I have never seen performance similar to them. I have never shot a bullet more accurate. As someone who shot Berger flat bases in HBR and VLDs in F-TR for years, I had built confidence in their accuracy level. As soon I discovered they were effective hunting bullets I became a user for both purposes. If I have failures in the future I may rethink that, but currently I’m of the opinion that they worked the kinks out of the issue.

Excellent writeup Bill! Thank you.

We're living in an era with outstanding bullet selection! Something for everyone.

No doubt that the standard bullets at standard velocity do a fine job on most game.

Some folks want or need something special! Why not?

Mostly I hunt with Noslers of one kind or another, usually the Ballistic Tips, though I've also happily used Accubonds and Partitions as well as the older "solid base" designs.

Along the way I used some Bergers, and some Barnes bullets. Sierra. Hornady. Speer. Remington. Yup, I've tried a lot of different bullets.

Hard cast, wide-meplat bullets can be very impressive as well.

Mostly though, the Nosler Ballistic Tips from my 25-06 & 30-06, 'cause they've worked so well for me on antelope, whitetail & mule deer, black bear and even elk.

Every now and again I look at JY Young's book in which he describes hunting all or most of the North American big game animals over a period of 20+ years with one rifle (a Rem 700 in 30-06) and mostly with one bullet, the 165 gr Nosler Partition. He also used the 200 gr Nosler Partition on some of the heavier/more dangerous animals like the big Alaskan brown bear.

When a guy can use one pretty common rifle & bullet for almost everything... I think he found a good combo.

Regards, Guy

I have a lot of faith in Nosler Partitions. We use them in .223's and .243's. My dad started using them in his .243 in the early 1980's at the recommendation of someone with more experience than him. I can't remember how many grains of 4350 and a 100 grain nosler partition, but it has been fantastic on whitetails and a few mule deer (probably 20-25 deer). There are 4 .243's in the family using this same load and all have killed multiple deer. I tried 60 grain nosler partitions in my .223 about 10 years ago on a whitetail doe hunt, since then it has put lots of venison on our table too. Usually with the .223 and .243 we have recovered the bullets just under the hide on the exit side, there is usually a little bump there with the bullet just under it. I can literally count the tracking jobs from these on one hand, they usually drop pretty quick. On these lighter cartridges Partitions do a really nice job on deer. We use a lot of Hornady Interlocks in our other rifles when deer hunting as penetration is not an issue on deer. Using 130's in the .270, and 150's in the .280, 308, 300sav, and 3006 the family has all killed lots of whitetails and muledeer with many many pass throughs.

We set my wife's 7mm08 up on Nosler Partitions with the intent that she can basically hunt about anything walking North America with it.

For me from 12 years old until now it's always been Nosler Nosler Nosler. Patitions, Accubonds, and E-tips. I love their bullets and have had nothing but excellent results from them in 6mm Remingtons, 25-06, 280 Remington, 280 AI, and 30-06. I find one bullet for each rifle that it really likes and then I stick with it.

David

I switched to Sierra HPBT last year. Shooting a 165 gr with H4350 at around 2900 fps. I have been hunting goats and axis deer. So far the bullet has performance has been terrific. Better penetration than the BTSP and the bullet tips don't get damaged.

Love Accubonds, but really like the price point of the HPBT.

Bullet choice is pretty much just personal preference. I have always like the standard Interlocks-both for accuracy and terminal effect. However, I did switch to Partition seconds for my 7 mag, to use on elk. I don't hunt elk much anymore, but if I did, it is the Partition that gets the nod. I use my Creed and .260s more than anything now, and I use the 147 ELDM in the Creed and 129 Interlocks in the .260s. All of the Interlocks that I have bought, I have gotten for less than $20/box, when someone was switching to fancy bullets. They are exceptionally accurate in my rifles and smack deer at any range that I have shot them. I have shot Interlocks for years in 06, 308, 6mm, 7mm and now the 6.5s. They are still my preferred, overall, considering price, accuracy and terminal performance.

I have shot Barnes X, Partitions, Accubonds, ELDMs, and standard Interlocks over the years and do not have a gripe with any of them, but for cartridges at moderate velocity I will always prefer the standard c&c bullets-with Hornady leading the pack.

OhHeyThereBen said:

Excellent writeup Bill! Thank you.

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Thanks. There are lots of bullets that work, but that’s why I shoot what I shoot. I must say, I haven’t used a Berger under 130gr and being in a 6.5 they had a high sectional density. The 185s I used the next year in the .308 did too. I don’t know how they small ones would do. The 105’s have great reviews, and are also very long bullets. I haven’t seen much about the 87’s on large game, and personally I would’nt try them on anything bigger than a WT. I personally believe that exit wounds become much more important when you’re using smaller bullets. I intend to try some partitions in my .223AI and 6BR for deer and hogs.

Many bullets will get the job done especially on light skinned game. Choose a bullet that shoots well in your rifle and become proficient with your rifle.
I’m a fan of heavy for caliber bullets.

Bill
The 105VLD is a wicked little bullet in 6mm. Devastating on game for sure.

cahunter805 said:

Many bullets will get the job done especially on light skinned game. Choose a bullet that shoots well in your rifle and become proficient with your rifle.
I’m a fan of heavy for caliber bullets.

Bill
The 105VLD is a wicked little bullet in 6mm. Devastating on game for sure.

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Yeah...can’t do it in my 6BR. I’ll probably get some running in the .243 at some point. My 6BR is a 13” twist converted from a benchrest rifle so it’ll only stabilize short bullets. My current .223AI is in the same boat. Shooting shorter, lighter bullets I do want a tougher construction and will accept s little less tissue damage in favor of an exit wound.