POLL: Favorite Nosler Bullet For Hunting

[BeeMaa]

Didn't vote. Too many better options available for me to be using anything from Nosler.

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

View attachment 494113
35cal 250gr Nosler partition from the off side front shoulder under the skin of a cow moose. Retained weight 179grs. Rifle was a 358 Norma mag.

225gn accubond taken from a kudu. Bullet entered the front chest and lodged in the ham after almost 5 foot of penetration. Retained weight 174grains.
Bob

 

[Doug Hamilton]

@gajie270
I have used the Accubonds in 35 cal 225gn at close to 2,900fps in both Namibia and Australia and found they are an excellent bullet that gives great accuracy, expansion and penetration with around 74% weight retention. They perform very similarly to the Woodleigh PPSP.
I have currently got some 115gn nosler balistic tips in 25 cal loaded that I'm looking forward to trying on game. They are supremely accurate but don't know how they will go on game yet.
In my son's 25 I am loading some 100gn balistic tips to see how they go. They were very fast in my 25 at 3,600 fps and at 100 yards 3 shots didn't even put a hole in the target. The parameter says 3,200 max velocity so who knows the may have been coming apart before they got to the target.
Bob

Hi Bob,
The Ballistic Tips have a tendency to be fragile at very high velocity, especially in the smaller bores. I think that pushing the 100 grain 25s at 3600 fps may be spreading the thin jacket before it gets out of the barrel.
I used to use the 140 grain at about 3200 fps out of my 7 RM. They were extremely accurate and performed great at around 200 yards, but at under 100 yards they were explosive. I shot one small buck through the ribs at about 35 yard. Killed him dead as hell but when I dressed him and poured the liquefied lungs out, I found not so much as a bruise on the opposite side of the rib cage. The bullet had completely come apart. I was a little suspicious, but hey, the deer died right there, how could I claim bullet failure?
A year or two later, I shot a very large blacktail in the shoulder and knocked him down. He got up running through the chaos rep without giving me another shot. I could only see his horns over the brush. I found his tracks, but no sign of blood. I only had to track him for about a hundred yards back in under some trees and spotted him just as he stepped behind a big oak and stopped, leaving me a shot at ribs. He did die then after crashing into the bottom of a very steep canyon. When I rolled him over, I found a crater on the shoulder where I first shot him. The bullet had blown a big shallow hole, but did not penetrate into the chest. I do not know why it didn't bleed.
After that I tried different bullets but didn't find any that satisfied me. Then I found Accubonds. They are the best I've ever used, both for accuracy and terminal performance.
I think if I was going to use 100 grain 25s, I would try to keep the speed below 3200 and restrict my shots to smaller animals.
Cheers mate,
Doug

 

[Doug Hamilton]

View attachment 494300
225gn accubond taken from a kudu. Bullet entered the front chest and lodged in the ham after almost 5 foot of penetration. Retained weight 174grains.
Bob

Gee Bob, now aren't you sorry you didn't usr a .243 with Ballistic Tips?

 

[Wyatt Smith]

@Wyatt Smith
What speeds and accuracy are you getting out of those 85 grainers. They would almost cut a coyote in half.
Bob

I don’t know on the speed Bob, but they are about one inch at 100 yards. It knocks a pretty good hole in them. The fur doesn’t pay enough to bother skinning them so no harm done.

 

[Tra3]

ABLR!!! Isn’t it just the accubond in a better BC mold? That is my understanding. I’ve had good results with them out of a 7 mag.

 

[deewayne2003]

After trying every bullet(factory & hand loaded) that I can get my hands on for the .270win; I came to the conclusion the the 140gr Accubond is the best all around projectile for my hunting.

Used Balistic tips for a couple years- inconsistent/explosive penetration and then ended up with Accubond.

 

[Doug Hamilton]

After trying every bullet(factory & hand loaded) that I can get my hands on for the .270win; I came to the conclusion the the 140gr Accubond is the best all around projectile for my hunting.

Used Balistic tips for a couple years- inconsistent/explosive penetration and then ended up with Accubond.

The absolutely lines used with what I found with my 7 mag.

 

[Firebird]

Have had excellent success with Accubonds (deer and elk) and have had no complaints with the ablr either. Ballistic tips only for varmints and targets. Never saw the greatness of the partition and I don’t use them at all. . .

 

[DHH45]

What's your favorite Nosler bullet to use for hunting?

Partition 120gr 257 weatherby
Accubond for 270,7mm,300
Over 375,416,458 lott I use another brand

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

Gee Bob, now aren't you sorry you didn't usr a .243 with Ballistic Tips?

@Doug Hamilton
I've seen that combination used on pigs. The bullet was a 6mm 95gn balistic tip. Out of the 3 shot the 25 had to finish off 2 of them. He went back to 87gn V Max. I only had to finish off 2 out of the 5 more he shot.
The 243 is a POS end of story

 

[Luvthunt]

225 gr 338cal in a 340 for African PG and cats also for black tails on many trips to Kodiak. Backed up by 250 gr NP. Never failed me and retained 60 to 70 % of wt.

 

[Philip Glass]

Accubond is the only one on the list for African game. It will perform just like a Swift A Frame. Leave all the others for deer and coyotes at home.

 

[mark-hunter]

I voted for ballistic tip, but need to offer explanation. It is not universal bullet.

I use this exclusively for roe deer, light animal, 60 pounds.
I dont use it for boar, red deer, or anything tough or heavy.

But fast expansion, accuracy, and terminal effect in this use is absolutely fantastic.
(30-06, 180 grain, btw)

 

[gajie270]

for me, it has to be the Partition because you get fragmentation of the front core for added internal damage while also getting penetration at or better than the Accubond in the same weight and caliber. all in one bullet.

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

Accubond is the only one on the list for African game. It will perform just like a Swift A Frame. Leave all the others for deer and coyotes at home.

@Philip Glass
If you can't get accubonds Woodleigh works just as well if not better in my humble opinion.
Bob

 

[Doug Hamilton]

Didn't vote. Too many better options available for me to be using anything from Nosler.

If you know of a better "bullet for hunting" than an Accubond or Patrician, if your rifle shoots them well, I for one would be curious to know what it is. "Too many better options than anything from Nosler?" Really? I've n tried many bullets that weren't as good but none that were obviously better.

 

[BeeMaa]

If you know of a better "bullet for hunting" than an Accubond or Patrician, if your rifle shoots them well, I for one would be curious to know what it is. "Too many better options than anything from Nosler?" Really? I've n tried many bullets that weren't as good but none that were obviously better.

All of my rifles shoot Barnes TSX to sub-MOA with the Swift A-Frame a close second. Other options I'd consider for softs are the Norma Oryx and Federal TBBC.

For solids I use the Woodleigh Hydroshock and it shoots to the same POA/POI as the Barnes TSX out to 100 yards. If I reloaded, I'd take a closer look at the Norma Solids, CEB Safari Solids and Swift Break-Away Solids.

It's your rifle and your hunt. I don't expect to change your mind any more than a bumper sticker would. But I will say that the bullets taken on a trip are about the least expensive part of it. We spend thousands of dollars on a safari, more money to fly thousands of miles...take rifles that would count as a down payment on a house...but want to pinch pennies on the only piece of kit that actually touches the game. Seeing the performance of these bullets in the field has made my decisions easy, cost be dammed.

 

[BeeMaa]

@Doug Hamilton - Here is another resource for you to go over with 35 pages of results. The first post of @Alchemist says it all. A more practical evaluation of recovered bullets from the field.

https://www.africahunting.com/threads/bullet-performance-database.37971/

 

[CJW]

@Doug Hamilton - Here is another resource for you to go over with 35 pages of results. The first post of @Alchemist says it all. A more practical evaluation of recovered bullets from the field.

https://www.africahunting.com/threads/bullet-performance-database.37971/

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say. You say in one breath that the Accubond and Partition are inferior, yet you seemingly site a post where an A-Frame failed to do what it should which is retain nearly 100% of its weight. That bullet behaved like an AB or Part. in that it shed 1/3 of its weight. Please clarify and correct me if I'm wrong.

Regardless, you seem to be of the school of thought that a bullet must retain close to 100% of its original weight in order to be considered successful. That does seem to be the popular modern way of thinking but I believe in most cases it's a misguided belief and driven by pictures of pretty mushroomed bullets. Many of us don't mind and actually believe it beneficial if a bullet loses some weight and throws some shrapnel on the way through. IMO it saved my rearend on at least one animal. I would be hard pressed to use anything but an AB on future PG trips. I had 100% bullet performance satisfaction on 13 head of game from Jackal through large Oryx bulls.

I can say in all honesty that I have read more TSX penciling through stories than I have AB failing to produce satisfactory results stories. The post by @IdaRam with his lioness proves it is a great bullet. IMO a TSX has its place, but that place isn't necessarily centered on PG in a standard velocity rifle.

That being said, I think the OP should use it, the TSX, if he has confidence in it. He'll probably find that his shots will be well inside 200 yds, and if velocity is kept up with the 165's they'll open up well.

What I really like about the solid copper bullets is that they keep lead away from scavenging wildlife. No animal should die a painful death from lead poisoning.