Petersen's Hunting has a brief description and photo of each of the primary premium bullets after testing. There's no "damage medium" photos, but a pic of the resulting bullet after varying-velocity impacts is pretty good. Surprisingly, there's also a pic core-jacket separation, something we don't expect to see in a magazine devoted to obtaining advertisinb revenue.

Jaywalker

I remember the article & thought it funny they didn't test the original "premium", the Nosler partition.

the North Forks and woodleighs are missing as well

The Noslers, North Forks, and Woodleighs didn't hang aroung in the medium to get their pictures taken.

Jaywalker and Quarteround ----- I really get pissed when I read all the articles about Premium bullets and they never mention North Fork bullets. I have never shot a Woodleigh but hear they are good and this damn article even left out Nosler Partition that I have shot for years with great accuracy. If the writer did his job properly he would shoot all of the available bullets and then report. I guess the large in country bullet makers grease a few palms and get the reviews that way. I have even told a couple that very thing and I still have not seen anything. Good shooting.

I have switched to the tsx for all of my moose and elk hunting.They offere exceptional penetration,high B.C. and are very accurate in my rifles.By the way,the petals seem much more resistant to breaking off at high velocity than they were in the original x bullet.Even at 300ultramag velocity they have stayed intact with great expansion.

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d128/stubblejumper11/PA050015.jpg

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d128/stubblejumper11/PA050019.jpg

The premium bullet articles are just payola hype. Stick with Nosler, Swift, or Woodleigh, maybe Barnes, and you will never be dissatisfied.

LLS

I NEVER assume that some magazine writer is qualified to do any objective testing of a physical phenomena. It is funny that some lab like Underwriters has not been commissioned to do some testing. It is probably because there
are so many variables in the real world of hunting that the tests would be only useful as rough guidlines.

Think of SOME of the variables.

VELOCITY ON IMPACT
GAME ANIMAL STRUCTURE, SIZE, AGE, ETC.
ANGLE OF SHOT
PLACEMENT OF SHOT
ADRENALINE LEVEL IN ANIMAL
ANIMAL STATIONARY OR MOVING

Now add to this all the various types of bullet contruction, effective velocity ranges, temperature, and
undoubtedly other factors.
And remember that a bullet is just an arrow, without blades, that changes shape on impact, and can impart
hydrostatic shock with all its components.

I don't know about you, but I think it is a difficult task to select a premium hunting bullet with any degree
of assured performance on whatever I am going to shoot. And then add the fact that we only gather one or two
real world experiences with our choosen bullet a year. It starts to look like some VooDoo magic process.

Varmint bullets are easy. Are they accurate, and do the thousands of animals I shoot each year die quickly?
I'd much rather recommend a varmint bullet than a big game bullet. I have shot Nosler partitions since 1960
and haven't lost a game animal yet. But each year before deer and elk season I shoot upwards of 5000 varmint
bullets and connect about 70 to 80 per cent of the time. Shooting something as large as a deer seems very
easy after a season of varmint hunting.

I'd much rather read the stories here than what is in a magazine. I can benefit from hundreds of stories
about bullet performance on game. I can then sift out the likely performance of a new bullet and more important
learn about bullets showing poor performance in the field.

There is nothing complicated of a projectile of varying hardness,just commonsense man.Ask me I'll tell ya.

I used to wonder why so many truck comparisons left out obvious candidates and included models that made no real sense for that particular test. I finally realized that it wasn't in the magazines' best interest to present a conclusive, definitive report. If they did that, there'd be no room for further discussions, i.e., magazine sales.

With partial coverage of the field, there's room for further coverage. In the case of bullets, the editors might choose a follow-up of "super premiums" (Northfork and Woodleigh) along with the "reference standard," the Nosler Partition. That way the whole world's covered (roughly), but there's no common denominator, and thus room left to argue. I'm not saying this was their reasoning, but it could be.

I was impressed with this particular test, as its results contradicted nothing I have observed, and I'm usually a "glass is half empty" kind of guy. Except for the missing candiates, does anyone see anything amiss here?

Jaywalker

I think they did a very good job on this story. There sure is nothing in there I would argue with.

No I liked the article, just thought it funny that the bullet that everyone wants to duplicate or beat isn't shown for comparison.
Elk you are right, testing doesn't tell the whole story but I test new hunting bullets so I get an idea what may happen. If it blows up in wetpack it probably fails to penetrate from any angle. If it fails to expand well, it probably pencils through on a broadside shot, JMO.

quote:

Originally posted by fredj338:
No I liked the article, just thought it funny that the bullet that everyone wants to duplicate or beat isn't shown for comparison. .

Yes, it was, everybody is a "Bear Claw wana-be".

Old Elk Hunter mentioned a testing lab. This site and others does some pretty good testing if a man has enough sense to weed out the BS. The results prove we have many good bullets out there to meet our needs.