I was finally able to test the new Accubond on milk jugs today. Here are the results:

I fired the 30 caliber 200 grain bullet out of a 300 WBY. The battery in my chrony was dead, but I estimated the speed at 2900 fps. The bullet penetrated four jugs, but on the third jug in line, the bullet ripped along the entire bottom of the jug. It may have actually ricochet off the ground. The fired bullet weighed just over 129 grains (64.7% retained weight).
My gun didn't like these bullets much with the two groups I fired measuring 1.5 and 2 inches at 100 yards.

My opinion (Bullet Performance):
The Ballistic Tip people ought to love them. The Swift folks ought to fear them because they held together far better then the Scirocco I tested.
They still are not in the same class as the Failsage or the Partition.
I wouldn't hesitate to use them on Elk only because they weighed so much to begin with. I want to test the 7mm Accubond before I could recommend it for Elk (I want to see its final weight).
You can see how it compares to the others at:
http://users.sisna.com/darty/bulletcp2.jpg
Those bullets are from left to right, failsafe, partition, accubond, scirocco. (I didn't post the file because of its larger size).
Your Opinions?

forgot to mention. The far right bullet (a failsafe) I pulled out of a elk. It lost less than 1 grain bullet weight. That still amazes me.

Old Fart,
I posted this over at longrangehunting.com, forgot to post it here too.

Jon A. hosted the pix and vidio for me. Thanks again Jon. Heading out to shoot some groups with them tomarrow if I have time.

I shot these AB's into water filled jugs at 15' and also a combination of jugs backed by compressed dry magazines, and some just shot into the magazines themselves. I forgot to wright down the MV beside the bullet in the pix but I'll list it here.
These were tested in a 26" bbl 300 Ultra Mag. and were done while working up loads with 4 powders, each loads two grains apart.

1) 2961 fps Retumbo 86,88,90gr pressure was 57,60,64 kpsi respectively.
2) 3011
3) 3082

4) 3017 fps RL22 82,84,86gr pressure was 64,67,71 kpsi.
5) 3090
6) 3170

7) 3013 fps IMR4350 77,79,81gr pressure was 64,71,72 kpsi.
8) 3100
9) 3134

The following additional loads with RL25 were tested with two different powder lot #'s. They were both tested with 84,86,88gr.

10) 3076 fps RL25 lot 25180 pressure was 65, 67, 71 kpsi.
11) 3121
12) 3201

13) 3009 fps RL25 lot 25057 pressure was 62,65,67 kpsi.
14) 3108
15) 3150

OAL was 3.835" and pressure would likely be higher if seated at 3.660" to fit in the magazine. Start low and work up, your gun may be different.

Sorry about the picture size, Imagestation reduced the 500kb images size to 15kb... Good luck reading the wrighting on them.

Refer to the larger pix below that Jon posted for me.





I saw a article in the Shooting Times magazine I just recieved, it had some of the same type info on the new Accubonds too. I was surprised my test at just 15' vs. theirs at longer distances had fairly close to the same results.
I had some milk jugs and magazines pilling up for some sort of test like this and figured this bullet would handle the up close punishment well. Getting the load data was really all I was after on the outing.

Back to the original testing done above.

PSI signs:

I didn't mention it above but, all those loads were using Fed 215M primers too. It also bears repeating that the OAL is real long too!! Any reduction in OAL and pressure could climb, and in my experience it would climb substantially if reduced to merely 3.66", maybe by as much as 5 to 10 kpsi so be carefull with the data provided here. I'll test it at a shorter OAL of 3.66" as soon as I can and let you all know what happened.

Bolt lift was absolutely normal on all loads tested but, it usually is up to about 70-75 kpsi though. These were FL sized cases with minimal shoulder bump, NK sized cases may have shown stiffness signs a bit sooner, but not very much sooner... in my experience.

Slight primer cratering was all I could make out, that was only "felt" on the top load of each RL22, 4350 and RL25 (lot # 25180). By sliding (rubbing) the tip of your index finger across the caseheads, you can feel a snag if there is any "edge" to the crater in the primer. The sensitivety in your fingertip will pick the raised edge up instantly if it exists, and more often than not it shows up just before stiff bolt lift starts to occur, this is with the 210 and 215 primers in "most" of my rifles anyway.

I mark all the case heads and primers completely with a black marker before doing load work up. The amount of black wiped off after they're fired and extracted indicates how much bolt thrust is rising "relatively" and shows a clear ejector mark if present. Prior ejector marks or "protrusions" will show up "shiny" on a lower load and give a false indication if not indexed to the ejection port side before firing so a new one will be made over the ejector plunger.

I did get a slight "showing" of brass color under the ejector with the top load for RL22 and 4350, barely more so than the color showing on the rest of the casehead from the thrust itself. PSI was just starting to get high enough to exibit this but, it would have been unnoticable without first marking the casehead black.

Sorry for the long post guys.

Here's the vidio of the first shot testing here.

http://www.jonaadland.com/Accubond.avi

I had limited distance to shoot into the bank so my chrono screens took a good beating from the water blast/shock. Don't do that with your Chrony brand chrono, I doubt it'd survive that brutality.

Thanks for posting your results, Oldfart. However, as Brent and I discussed in the other thread, we reach a slightly different conclusion while looking at the same results as you do--we're glad it expands so far back in a water test at the muzzle.

It doesn't look at all like it's about to come appart like the Scirocco does (in fact, if you turned it over it would look very similar to the Partition in your test) so I think it's definately "tough enough." And yet it has done a lot of expanding indicating it will open up quickly even at lower velocities at longer ranges.

The Failsafe in your test actually disturbs me a bit. If that's all it opens at the muzzle in solid water, how much is it going to expand if you sneek it between two ribs of something at 400 yards? Especially since with its relatively low BC it will have lost a lot more velocity by then.

Of course that's just speculation on my part as I've never used or tested the Failsafes. Any chance you could do this same test at 400 yards? The results would be very interesting....

Jon, Brent
I appreciate the completeness of the test that you performed on the accubond. In fact, if I had seen your test, I wouldn't have bothered wasting my milk jugs doing my own test (the grandkids wonder why I keep trying to dump milk down their throats ).
I'm the first to admit that I'm sometimes full of it, and I actually appreciate it when people correct me. However, in this case, I think that we are in agreement. I believe the accubond is a far better bullet than the scirocco (I'm speaking of terminal performance). I'm interested in testing the 7mm bullet and see how it performs with higher velocities that I could get out of my 300 WBY. I believe that the partition is a surperior bullet than the accubond only because it usually retains more weight.
I thought it interesting that you mentioned 400 yard performance on the failsafe. The failsafe on the far right of the picture was taken from a big 6x6 Elk taken at about 400 yards with a 7mm Mag. It was a 140 grain bullet that weighed 139.5 grains after it was removed from the Elk.
The failsafe does expand fast, however, its petals will shear off at higher velocities. Even with the petals sheared off, it will still retain about 80% of its weight (I will weigh all of the bullets pictured and post their weight retention).
I like good discussions like this because I am no expert, but I feel too many people underestimate the importance of bullet performance. Let me know what you think.

Jon A,

Nice deer....Are they from Washington state?..How many did you shoot?.......Western whitetails impress me...nice going!......Big K

Interesting, OldFart. Since you recovered that Failsafe from the elk, I'm guessing it hit something substansial (like a shoulder or two)?

Thanks, Big K. Those are Montana deer (where I'm originally from). I only shot the one, the other ones are my Dad's and brothers'. Pretty good year for us.

Anyone tested the Hornady version yet?

Don't know about performance on anything but paper, But the 7mm Hornady SST 160 gr has better accuracy in my 700bdl than the Nosler AB 162gr. Both at about 3150 fps with 77 gr IMR 7828. The Hornady was about 1.1 inch at 100 yds and the Nosler was about 1.5 inch. Didn't really try to fine tune yet.

WPM, check out my post here, interbond milk jug test.

The Hornady Intrabond at Grizz's topic looks like a much better game bullet if the tests are similar.

I got to go out and test some 200gr Accubonds yesterday. The one I recovered from the "sand" that was shot at 600 yards is almost exactly like the one Old Fart posted a pic of. The other ones I shot at 300 yards and collected were comparable to the pix I took that were shot into water at 15 feet. These bullets averaged 3080 fps out of the Ultra using 84gr of RL22 at 3.835" OAL. After I cleaned the barrel and it settled in at about 20 rds, I fired 2 three shot groups, both were 2.0" and together were still 2.0" for 6 shots, that was at 300 yards. Mirage was so bad at 600 yards, my target was 4 times as large and just looked like bouncing blotches all over the backer. Still I managed to put rounds from cases numbered 22,23,24 and 25 in a pretty small 3.5" area. I had to hold on the top of the target frame with the 2 moa tick mark above the main crosshair for a round about elevation hold point. I had 10 MOA dialed in from my 100yd zero with the 178 A-Max. I don't think this bullet would have been close to zero at 100yds and I didn't even check, was more interested in group size at range than anything. Wind was 5 mph at 1 o'clock at 600, and 10 mph at 300 too. I had .75 MOA dialed in for wind at 600, and .50 MOA at 300 yds. I'll post a pic of the damage when I get it up.

[ 07-14-2003, 09:07: Message edited by: Brent Moffitt ]

If the pic don't show up large enough to read you can see it here. Click on the pix to enlarge them if you need to.

Targets

[ 07-14-2003, 09:06: Message edited by: Brent Moffitt ]

A lot of people here are missing the point of milk jug testing. The real use of them, is to place them at increasing yardage. Shoot them, and see if the jugs are exploding, or if the bullet is just sailing through.

When they start sailing through, that is the limit of the particular bullet to perform as an expanding projectile at that particular velocity. Shooting them at a hundred yards just proves a milk jug will blow up at that particular range.

What you want to know is when expansion starts to fail to the point so as not to disrupt liquid in a violent state. I don't care how many jugs you can shoot through at a hundred. If the bullet is still expanding at 400 yards, it will kill well, regardless of retained velocity. If it isn't expanding at that range, or you have a poor bullet profile, you probably shouldn't shoot that far.
Think about it. An expanding, or flat nosed bullet, still traveling at even 1600 fps, is going to make a good wound channel.
A revolver bullet is flying slower than that when they meet meat, and I've heard few complaints about .44's on deer or elk size game.

Ric,

If the bullet expands in water, it's going to expand that and more in game at the same distance. The other point I would make, is that a good comparison of bullets can be made in water if the bullets are recovered, you won't recover them just blowing up jugs. Blowing up jugs really shows a comparison of "effect" but, that's all it does too. I've not done extensive shooting of jugs to say but, one might get better "explosive" results on jugs with faster expanding bullets shot fast than one would really like for the likes of Moose and such. The penitration distance in water and what the bullet looks like will answer my questions a little better I think. Only one way to find out, test...