Favorite Bullet Manufacturer for Non-Dangerous Game Poll

[steve white]

What is your experience with copper fouling in your barrels?

In a word, TERRIBLE. I don't know why it is so much worse than guilded metal, but it is. It deposits more rapidly, giving a shorter window between just enough for accuracy and too much buildup requiring stripping it out with harsh chemicals.
For that reason, I am investigating HBN coating. It came in the mail the other day. Will hollar if it works or if it doesn't.
Very relevant question.

 

[akrifleman]

In a word, TERRIBLE. I don't know why it is so much worse than guilded metal, but it is. It deposits more rapidly, giving a shorter window between just enough for accuracy and too much buildup requiring stripping it out with harsh chemicals.
For that reason, I am investigating HBN coating. It came in the mail the other day. Will hollar if it works or if it doesn't.
Very relevant question.

For best results with HBN, you sometimes have to tumble the bullets in media to get the factory sheen off, before applying HBN. Also, there is a lot of different sizes of HBN out there, and the fine stuff is toxic. Be careful. I've had superb results with it.

 

[Corey0372]

Lately it's been Hornady ELDX, big fan of Nosler Partition and Accubond as well, been eying the new TMK lineup from Sierra.

 

[odonata]

After three days and 44 additional votes, the numbers have settled down. Nothing on the list has moved by over 1% from the previous day. I would guess that this is a good "final" representation of what the members of this site favor. I appreciate all of the feedback everyone provided:

I have ammo loaded from six of the top 7. I currently don't have any Swift bullets. My Federal ammo is commercial Power-Shok rounds that came with some used rifles I bought in 270gr 375 H&H and 150gr 303 British that I use for practice. While I do have some handloaded Barnes TSX rounds for my 9.3x74r and one of my 375 H&H's, I've had such good results hunting with Partitions the past couple of seasons (especially in my Swede), I'll probably start out by testing Nosler's line of bullets on my smaller standard chamberings. Some manufacturers I'll continue to stick with (e.g. Woodleigh & Hornady for my 405 Win) simply because few other companies produce the bullet I need. From the lower 13 on the list, the only one I'm currently shooting is 130gr Speer Hot-Cor's out of my Wilson Combat in 300 HAM'R (aka the hog rifle...I need to make it back to Texas soon!).

 

[WyoBull]

What is your experience with copper fouling in your barrels?

You hear about all the copper fouling when using all copper bullets but that has not been my experience from a negative perspective. I do keep my rifles clean but do not go overboard as you do want some copper in the barrel to fill in any imperfections. Out of all my rifles that I load the Barnes bullets for, my Tikka T3X Super Lite in 243 Win is the rifle I shoot the most rounds through and I have not had any issues with copper fouling that has affected the accuracy of that rifle.
So, despite all I have read and what is all over the internet, it has been a non issue for me.

 

[Muskox]

On game I have only used Sierras, Hornady, Nosler, Barnes, RWS, PMP and Norma.

I prefer more internal damage and while an exit wound is wonderful, I prefer massive hemorrhaging blood loss of expansion bullets.

The way the Hornady ELD-x and ELD_Match com apart but keep on trucking to me is wonderful.

 

[WyoBull]

In a word, TERRIBLE. I don't know why it is so much worse than guilded metal, but it is. It deposits more rapidly, giving a shorter window between just enough for accuracy and too much buildup requiring stripping it out with harsh chemicals.
For that reason, I am investigating HBN coating. It came in the mail the other day. Will hollar if it works or if it doesn't.
Very relevant question.

Steve, my experience has been very different as you can see in my response to MS 9x56 above. I don't sit down at prairie dog towns with these rifles and shoot hundreds of rounds at a time but they are not safe queens either.
I keep my rifles clean and when I think one needs it, I will use some copper cleaner but that is not every cleaning and I definitely not seen degradation of accuracy in any of my rifles I load for using Barnes bullets.

 

[dchum]

Steve, my experience has been very different as you can see in my response to MS 9x56 above. I don't sit down at prairie dog towns with these rifles and shoot hundreds of rounds at a time but they are not safe queens either.
I keep my rifles clean and when I think one needs it, I will use some copper cleaner but that is not every cleaning and I definitely not seen degradation of accuracy in any of my rifles I load for using Barnes bullets.

I agree, I guess I just don’t shot that much? Just a bore snake when I’ve been in the elements on my hunting rifle.

maybe If I spent lots of range time and used Barnes for target shooting. But I don’t.

Just my experience. More of a hunter than a shooter. Especially the rifles that I use Barnes in. (I think I shoot should more and practice with my hunting rifles more! )

Cheers

 

[dlmac]

Don’t worry I’m still using the good old 180gr core lokts in my grandfathers .30-06 I inherited. Probably the only type of ammo that thing has ever shot. I think I even have an “antiquated” box of the round nose 220gr core lokts for that gun as well.

Plenty of whitetails and even my first elk have ended up in the freezer thanks to core lokts.

Never felt under gunned with a 30-06 and a 220 grain bullet.

 

[dlmac]

You hear about all the copper fouling when using all copper bullets but that has not been my experience from a negative perspective. I do keep my rifles clean but do not go overboard as you do want some copper in the barrel to fill in any imperfections. Out of all my rifles that I load the Barnes bullets for, my Tikka T3X Super Lite in 243 Win is the rifle I shoot the most rounds through and I have not had any issues with copper fouling that has affected the accuracy of that rifle.
So, despite all I have read and what is all over the internet, it has been a non issue for me.

do you think it might be the final finish of the barrel? Rougher finished barrels will foul more quickly with anything?

 

[sgt_zim]

I really like A Frame, but I'm guessing over time I'll replace what I have left with North Fork.

 

[WyoBull]

do you think it might be the final finish of the barrel? Rougher finished barrels will foul more quickly with anything?

You know, I cannot answer that but what you are saying makes sense. What I do know is that I have always, with new rifles, put rounds down the pipe and then only cleaned initially with a bore snake and a little Hoppes #9 rather than deep cleaning with copper fouling remover.
The reason I do that is the copper will fill in any small imperfections in the barrel to actually make it smoother. I have always done this and only use copper fouling remover if I start to see groups opening up. But that is pretty rare for me as I don't sit and shoot paper 30, 40 plus rounds at a time. Once I get a load dialed in and on paper I leave it alone. I am a hunter more than a silhouette shooter so I don't put hundreds of rounds down range each year in any given rifle these days.

 

[coreydb]

Lead is dead as the saying goes, too bad Barnes and Nosler don't rhyme with dead.

 

[mauser98]

Most heavy for Cal Cup and core bullets have worked well for me but my favorite is the hornady interlock 195sp for my 8mm's. Good expansion and penetration. No issues on small game or big game. Perfect all around bullet.

 

[Field28]

To me the Nosler Partition is like the 30-06 or 6.5x55 Swede, it may be old but it keeps working and does the job after all these years!

When it comes ammo manufacturers, I've never owned a rifle that didn't like Federal or Federal Premium. I shot Hornady Custom for years but dropped it for various issues.

I also put in a vote for Swift, I've always had good luck with Swift and the Swift line is tried and true.

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

I've enjoyed hunting for years but in all of that time I've spent in the woods, my hunting has actually been pretty limited: Mostly it's been southeastern whitetail deer & hogs at moderate ranges. Because of this, a wide range of projectiles work pretty well for my hunting simply because I'm not putting excessive demands or expectations on my bullets. In the last few years, most of the deer I've put in the freezer arrived there via 140~150gr Hornady Interlocks and Nosler Partitions at less than 200 meters. But over the last five years, I've had various rifles setup to shoot bullets from eleven different manufacturers. Recently, I've been hunting with Nosler, Hornady, Norma, RWS & Woodleigh depending on the rifle & caliber.

After years of lurking on the periphery reading about other hunter's trips to Africa, I joined this site 15 months ago mainly because I had some questions I wanted to ask & this group seemed to have a lot of experience & opinions worth evaluating. One of the goals I've set for myself is to focus less on the hunting I'm doing now & think more about the hunting I hope to do in the future. I decided to do a poll just to see (hopefully somewhat definitively) what the favorite bullet manufacturers were that work well on African plains game (which includes many species larger than my current hunting encounters). I excluded dangerous game from this question because that topic seemed to be better addressed as a separate poll maybe focused on specific bullets or solids instead of manufacturers. I sent Jerome a request to expand the poll choices & he was kind enough to double it to 20. I based the poll mainly on the bullets I could find available on American & European reloading sites.

Assuming that most people are like me and might shoot different bullets for various caliber & bullet weight combinations, I gave everyone five choices since "Plains Game" is a pretty wide topic. Any information you would like to share about specific bullet model, caliber & game taken would of course be appreciated. While some shooters may have a wide variety of ammo at home (like me), it is my guess that this gets narrowed down to a smaller selection of favorites when you actually go on a hunting trip. I hope that this poll reflects what that preferred choice usually is.

@odonata
My person preference for hunting Australia has been the good old Hornady SST. It has never let my son or me down.
As much as I love the 100gn TTSX in my 25 they are to expensive for general hunting ( read $110 AUD / 50). Only thing is ice recovered a couple of SSTs but no TTSX.
For hunting Namibia I used accubonds and Woodleigh as well as the old 250gn Hornady Round nose.
Results one of each recovered but the Hornady was thru and thru.
My son used accubonds and outer edge, zero projectiles recovered.
Excellent performance from all projectiles used.
225gn 35 cal accubond after going from front to back ham of a kudu bull

225gn 35 cal Woodleigh PPSP off side of zebra stallion

Both retained around 75% of their weight and did massive damage on the way they.
Bob

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

No Remington Core Lokts ? I feel so antiquated…View attachment 740194
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The game animals below (shot with my 7x57mm Mauser) were taken with the old Winchester Super- X 175Gr soft point (last produced in 1988). Today, I use the Sellier & Bellot 173Gr SPCE soft point.
View attachment 740206

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My other three choices would have to be:

Winchester Super- X Power Point (particularly for the .243 Winchester and the .270 Winchester)
Nosler AccuBond (particularly their 250Gr factory load for the .338 Winchester Magnum)
Norma Oryx (particularly their 286Gr factory load for the 9.3x62mm Mauser).

@Hunter-Habib
Old still works and works well in my book.
I have used monos and yes they kill BUT they just don't seem to be as an emphatic killer of the game I've shot with the old fashioned cup and core be they bonded or not. The big ol round noses expand well, penetrate well and seem to dump a lot of energy quickly resulting in very emphatic kills. May not penetrate as deep as monos but in reality how much do you need. A good lead core bullet that penetrates 13-24" will kill any thin skinned game that walks
That's just my observation plus they are cheaper. There's those that say price shouldn't come into it but if the old still works I'll still use it.
Bob

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

@odonata
Had the same results with the Whelen
Five animals, 5 shots but 10 days because I lhunted with my son and watched him have fun and the wife go sick for a couple of days.
One day kudu 120yds then impala at 275 yds with the Whelen. Both with 225gn accubonds. A plus was I didn't tear a big hole out the other side of the impala.
Bob

It's hard to argue with quantifiable results like that! Thanks for the feedback & info.

 

[Pheroze]

I used 180 gr CEB Maximus in a 308 Norma Magnum on Vaal Reebok up to Zebra and Eland. Little holes in and out. But none went far at all. All but the zebra basically dropped. The Zebra ran with an impressive blood trail. The internal damage on all was striking. So I am a fan.

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

Since you asked, and since I find these types of threads helpful, here we go…

Mule deer buck #1: Too long ago to remember bullet used.

Mule deer buck #2: 168 Barnes TTSX / Factory Vor Tx / 30-06 - Shot at 85 yards. Deer bucked a few times in a circle and went down hard 2-3 seconds later. Wound was a 2-3 inch permanent wound track through liver to left lung with ping pong ball sized exit hole. Devastating blood loss. Excellent meat preservation.

Antlerless elk #1: 180 grain Federal Trophy Bonded Tip / Factory Load/ 300 WSM- Shot at 50 yards. Intentional neck shot. Dropped in tracks, lights out. Any bullet would have probably done the same.

Antlerless elk #2: 180 grain Federal Trophy Bonded Tip / Factory Load/ 300 WSM- Shot at 300 yards. Shot went too far forward, making an unintentional soft tissue neck shot. Blood trail was like a crime scene in the snow. Elk was down in ~50 yards with tough to find 1” permanent wound track through the soft tissue of the neck and jugular. I appreciated that the TBT was soft enough to open up this much, but take it for what it’s worth on a genuinely bad shot.

Red Stag #1: 150 grain hornady SST / Handload provided to my outfitter by a 3rd party / 30-06 rented rifle- shot at 200 yards. Stag made a 15-20 yard run annd went down hard. Obvious entry wound. Don’t remember exit wound, but I think there was one. Devastating double lung and major vessel damage.

Roe deer #1: 150 grain hornady SST / Handload provided to my outfitter by a 3rd party / 30-06 rented rifle- shot at 180 yards. Double lung, dropped to the shot. I wasn’t involved in cleaning this deer so no comment on internal damage.

Red Stag #2: 150 grain hornady SST / Handload provided to my outfitter by a 3rd party / 30-06 rented rifle. First shot 300 yards. Stag ran forward hunchbacked for 30 yards and froze. Closed distance to 200 and stag took two steps and went down hard at double lung second shot. First shot had grazed along the belly and caused significant abdominal wall damage and small intestine damage. Second shot was similar to the performance on stag #1 above. I was on an extremely solid rest for the first shot, so I’m inclined to blame inconsistent handloads for the accuracy change (we had another round fail to ignite on stag #1 above, despite a dimple in the primer!) but you be the judge, I could have pulled the shot.

Antlerless Elk #3: 180 Grain Hornady CX / Personal handload at 2940 FPS/ 300 WSM. Shot at 170 yards. Elk was quartering away and stepped forward into the shot, so impact was right hip in the direction of the left shoulder. Elk went 50 yards and was found down, stone dead. Bullet fractured the pelvis and destroyed the ball joint, and continued on through the abdomen and into the chest cavity. This was a time I was very glad I was using a tough bullet. Interestingly the elk didn’t travel much further than the elk below.

Antlerless elk #4: 155 Gr Browning BXR “Rapid Expansion Matrix Tip (I suspect this is very similar to the Winchester Deer Season XP)”/ Factory Load / 300 WSM. 170 yards. Shot by my brother within 30 seconds of the elk above, at the same range. Elk ran directly away from us 30 yards and was found stone dead. Perfect behind the shoulder double lung shot. Massive baseball sized exit hole. Lots of bloodshot meat and bone fragments, with meat loss on exit side ribs and a near total loss of the right front quarter. Devastating damage to lung tissue, massive internal bleeding.

Antlerless Elk #5: 180 Grain Hornady CX / Personal handload at 2940 FPS/ 300 WSM. Shot at 210 yards. Slightly quartering away. Elk crow hopped a couple times, made a 10 yard run at most, and went down. Got its head up for 10 seconds then went flat for good. Bullet nearly split the liver in half, bursting the liver capsule with shock, with 2” in diameter bore-hole like permanent wound track. Damage to major vessels of the lungs and collapsed the right lung with obvious entry and exit wound. Massive blood loss. Photo of liver below. Photo of recovered bullet below. Every CX I have recovered looks like this.

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Mule deer buck #3: 175 Barnes LRX / Personal Handload at 2712 FPs/ 30-06. Shot at 260 yards. Running/ bounding and dropped to the shot. Kept its head up for a few seconds before going flat. Despite my lead, bullet was a mid-spine shot. Obvious entry wound, broke the spine, and exit hole ping pong ball sized. Destroyed major vessels and offside kidney, which was somehow protruding from the exit wound.

Antlerless Elk #6: 175 Barnes LRX / Personal Handload at 2712 FPs/ 30-06. Shot at 205 yards. Very slightly angled away but overall broadside. Dropped to the shot, but was trying to get herself pushed up on front feet, so shot again, and she collapsed. Both shots formed a single baseball sized entry wound and two quarter sized exit holes. Both were double lung shots that caused the expected massive amount of bleeding into the chest cavity. No bullet recovered but did find two petals trapped against the skin on the off side. See lungs below.

View attachment 740465

Antlerless Elk #7 & #8: 180 Sierra Tipped Gameking/ Factory Barnes Harvest Collection/ 30-06. My brother was the shooter for these and I was guiding him. First elk was a careful stalk to 50 yards. Off hand shot, dropped to the shot, lights out. This was a spine shot that transected the spinal cord. One third of both back straps was blood shot and lost. Second elk was ~150 yards. Double lung shot that broke the exit side elbow joint. Elk trotted for 20 yards, walked for 20 yards, and went down hard. Large 1” in diameter wound tracks through both lungs and major vessels that i could easily trace. Large exit wound. Near total meat loss of the offside shoulder.

With regards to accuracy:

• Hornady SST has shot good to great groups in normal velocity and Superformance factory loads I have tried in 270 win and multiple bullets weights in 30-06. I have never handloaded it.
• Hornady CX has the widest variation in accuracy of any bullet I have tested. In my 270 and three 300 WSMs and one 30-06, it has been easy to get ~ MOA handloads. One 30-06 shot the worst groups of my shooting life with factory outfitter ammo / Superformance ammo in two different CX bullet weights. Other times it has been middle of the road.
• Barnes TSX (416 REM), TTSX (30-06, 270), and LRX (270,30-06x3, 300 WSM) have shot great to spectacular in everything I have tried them in- in both factory loads and handloads. In my current 30-06, the LRX shot sub MOA at something like 9 different powder charges with two different powders. My brother’s weatherby was picky on ammo and promptly shot Barnes 168 TTSX into a 2/3” group at 100 yards.
• Federal Trophy Bonded Tip and Terminal ascent have had ok to good but not great accuracy in factory load form in everything I’ve tried it in (300 WSM x 3, 30-06 x2, 270)

With regards to bullet construction, the experiences above have led me to the following conclusions. I fully realize this opens me up for criticism. I fully realize I don’t have vast experience. But here it goes:

• Monolithic bullets cause enough shock and tissue damage for my purposes, at my hunting ranges, with my rifles, while at the same time giving fantastic penetration for less than perfect shot angles.
• The Hornady CX and Barnes TTSX / LRX don’t need too much body mass or travel to start opening up. Short of a complete bullet failure, I don’t think they behave like FMJs in small animals. They certainly don’t behave like FMJs in a 100 lb mule deer or in 7-12 pound rock chucks.
• More frangible bullets definitely cause more visible tissue damage, but the meat loss that is a direct result of their frangible nature has been a major drawback. Also, I would have lost at least one elk had I been using these instead of monolithic bullets because I don’t believe I would have had adequate penetration.
• The toughness and alertness of the individual animal might have as much to do with whether it drops to the shot as the choice in bullet construction.
• I shoot a 30-06 better than a 300 WSM. At the range and at animals. It’s not a coincidence that every animal I have shot with a 30-06 has died within my line of sight. Not so with the 300, despite the increased power factor. This is due to shot placement.
• I have 12 hunting days planned for my trip to RSA/ Namibia this year. I’m taking my 30-06 with 175 grain LRX hand loads and my 270 with 150 grain partitions in Nosler trophy grade factory ammo that it shoots super well. I hope this means I can share similar data on plains game.
• Nathan Foster of terminal ballistics research has awesome writeups with extensive real world experience. He addresses the terminal ballistics of almost any cartridge and bullet you would want to use.

@Cooposo
I do like how the SST perform. I use them in my son's 308 and my 25.
If they made them for the Whelen I would use them in that as well
Bob