Has anyone compared the 338 Win 225 gr.

Interbond vs Accubond for weight retention?

Search over on 24HR as Allen Day got some bad 225 Accubonds it seems. He was going to take them back to Nosler soon.

You'll find the HIB will retain more weight but penetrate less due to greater expansion. I also can't seem to get them to shoot as well as the NAB.

I have had good success with the 165 gr IB in 300 WM on elk and deer. Complete pentration and 2" exit holes. They shoot really well in my rifles.

I have loaded and shot accubonds, but haven't killed any game with them yet. They shoot well in my rifle. A friend of mine shot an elk last year with the 200 gr AB (I think it was 200 maybe 180) he wasn't very impressed and went back to partitions. Another friend calimed they are the best bullet he's ever shot. Who knows?

All the articles i've read show the IB to retain more weight than the AB by 5-10%. In the real world they are vey similar. I'd shoot either bullet as long as it is accurate in your rifle.

It seems like there is no such thing as a "free lunch" in bullets. We all thought (or at least I did), that with the release of the new generation of bonded, plastic tipped bullets, we had finally found the perfect bullet for every occasion. Almost perfect weight retention for deep penetration, super ballistic coefficients and a plastic tip to allow rapid expansion on light game. The days of bullet failures were over, and we would live happily ever after.

It seems like reality was not as simple as we (I) might have thought. There is a raging debate about whether AccuBonds actually deliver their promise on game. It seems Nosler designed this bullet with a certain weight loss in mind, to ensure good penetration depth. In fact, it transpires that penetration is largely a function of expanded frontal area, as opposed to retained bullet weight.

Hornady's Interbond has got some glowing reports, so when a friend of mine looked for a new "do it all" load for his 7x64, we decided to give the Hornady Interbond 154 grs a go. We got reasonable - but not outstanding - accuracy out of his rifle, and the next step was to try the bullets on game. We expected to have a bullet which would do well for pretty much all Central European game from roe over chamois to red deer and wild boar. We needed both penetration for the heavier animals as well as good expansion on the lighter animals such as roe.

These are pictures from a recovered IB .284 cal 154 grs from a roe. The target distance was about 50 yds (if that), and the bullet was fired at about 2800 fps muzzle velocity out of a 7x64. A roe is just about the softest target one can imagine in a big game animal. They weigh maybe 50-60lbs on the hoof and have tiny bones and soft skin. This bullet was recovered after a broadside shot, and if it hit any bone at all only ribs come into question.






The result of the impact was a pretty immediate kill - the large expansion probably had something to do with this. But the hunter was somewhat worried about the missing exit wound. After all, he would like to use the same bullet on much heavier game, and an exit wound is a good thing if you need to look for game.

The jury is still out on this one, and I don't propose to have the answers to all bullet questions. But in this case, it does look as if the bias towards expansion of this bullet limited penetration depth. What is worrisome, is that this happened on a super light animal with a broadside shot at middle-of-the-road velocities - albeit at close distance.

I'm at a loss to explain this behaviour in the light of some of the other glowing reports about this bullet. JJHack and others seem to have achieved good results on much heavier game than our lowly roe.

- mike