Thanks guys, my pleasure. I love to experiment, love to share what I found and get everybodys thoughts.

50, I see your point, but I'm still leaning towards Hornady. Anybody know what the BC of the 180 accubond 30 cal is? They don't have it up on their website yet. For the Hornady IB it's .480 with a SD.271. The AB LOOKS like it's shorter and fatter than the IB. Different nose ogive for sure, less of a boat tail also. I bet it has a lower BC than the interbond. It would only ammount to fractions of an inch at reasonable ranges though.

My tests with the 7mm bullets will have to be spit out of my .280 Ruger. The kid came home from Iraq ,(82nd airborne), and took his 7-08 back to NC with him.

I finally had time and good weather at the same time today. The range road was open as well, so off I went to shoot some groups for load workup on the 180 accubond Nozler and 180 interbond Hornady. This was in my Browning 300 WSM, 23 inch BBL.

The powder I chose is Alliant reloader-19. I looked in the sierra manual for their 180 grainers, their top load is 70.5 grains. So I started at 68.5, went up 1.0 gr. At a time to 70.5. Mainly I wanted to test for pressure and see if any would group under an inch. AFTER loading this test run of 3 each, I looked at Speer and Hornady�s data. They�re extremely conservative, their top load is 68.5 R-19! So I loaded 2 each at 67.0 and 2 at 68.0.

Now for the pleasant surprise!
Accubond
interbond
67.0 2952 av 2973 av
68.0 3006 av 3044 av
68.5 3026 av 3059 av
69.5 3080 av 3103 av

I got chicken, did not fire the 70.5 loads. Hornady and Speer were telling me I was well over max. The appearance of the fired shells, no hard sticky bolt lift and steady climb of velocities said I was still safe. (These were brand new Norma cases.) Upon measuring the expansion ring I know I could-should have fired the 70.5 loads. I hate skatin on thin ice.

Here�s the best group, it was 68.5 R-19. win large rifle primers, new Norma brass. It measure .900.



These velocities are well above what they were supposed to be. I�m at a loss to explain how I got over 3100 fps with the 69.5 load with the Horn IB. The 69.5 load shot a 1.7 inch group. I will pick the 68.5 load for expansion testing at least for the IB

The accu bonds didn�t shoot much for groups, the best was at 69.5, 1.770. I will probably use that load for expansion testing as it�s real close to the same velocity as the 68.5 load for the IB.

Looks like a good start, I should be ready to do some expansion testing next week, weather permitting. I�m also going to include some .308 loads for both the AB and IB, to research lower velocities. If I have time and jugs, I�m also going to try some 139 gr IB�s in my boys 7-08.

I love the interbonds in my 270, right before deer season I was running low on time and hastly threw together some loads using the interbond for the first time. I first fired the ballistic tips that I had worked up a few months back to make sure the gun was still on the money. Then I proceeded to fire the interbonds first group ,75 second group .6 third 1.1 It was nice to have something finally work for me for once and I had my deer medicine. a few days later they nocked a small 2 point on its ass

Ye'up, water always gives more expansion than meat, or anything else, but it is a damn good predictor of actual performance without getting unreasonable with gel and stats. Those who are worried about the bullet being soft, you are only too excited by the waters ability to flatten anything out quicker than meat and hide.



.338 you say? Hornday makes em, midsouth shooters supply sells them. $25 per box of 100.



Grizz, You said the SSTs did good, or didn't shed the jacket. How do these SSTs compare to the interbond?

FUR, there's been a misnomer on the Hornady interbond and the sst. When I first got the 165 interbond from Cabellas, they were calling them the SST interbond. I just took that as the designation and repeated it. It has resulted in some confusion.

As far as the SST goes, I did a comparison a couple years ago between them and the Nozler BT. They held up considerably better than the BT. However in actual use they shed their jacket,(the SST), just like the BT. No actual failures, dead whitetails, just a lot of bloodshot meat.

This year I will also test some other bullets I have laying around. One is the Speer grand slam in 7mm 160 gr. Also I'm going to try the 139 in 7mm, both from my son's 7-08. Just for shits and grins I will toss a couple 180 gr. core-loct round noses into the jugs. Just to see how much better if at all the new bonded bullets are to the time honored core-loct.

Thanks Mike, yup you better believe it's good to have him back on US soil! He got out in a nick of time, he was relieved by the Marines that mixed it up in Fallujha recently.



I just took these pics of the nosler AB's. I noticed it looks like two different cores, or the surface of the front of the mushroom is made of different lead. It almost looks like the main core has debonded from the jacket. I would be real interested to see how these bullets are made. It looks like a thin shell of soft lead is bonded to the jacket, then a harder core is poured in hot to melt and bond to the thin outer shell!??

Quite a difference from the Hornady IB, where the core is clinging strongly to the jacket.



Some day I will have a real close up capable digital camera! I hope you can see what I'm seeing.

If the IB has the same shape as the SST, I would expect its actual BC to be slightly higher than the 180 Accubond's regardless of their advertised BC's.

Some of you may have seen this new test on another website, I have it on about 6 other sites. I've been unable to post because of deleting my cookies, but now I can get on here.

I should be doing some more testing in the next 2 weeks, I'll post the results here.


And the results are in------------well some of them anyway. I�ll call this my shake down cruise. LITERALLY! There is a bunch of energy being released when a bullet hits those jugs. The board I used to lay the jugs on started coming apart after the third hit. I ended up nearly breaking it in half! There went $30.00 worth of lumber and a couple hours and hardware to build. Back to the drawing board. Pics to follow.

As to the results, well here goes. I got to test 5 different bullets. 1. the 180 Hornady interbond. 2. the 180 Nozler accu-bond. 3.The 180 Hornady SST. 4.The 180 Remington core-loct round nose. 5. The 190 sierra match king.

Here�s the 3 Nozler accu-bonds



retained weight, 119.1, 121.7, 121.9 Expansion .875, .645, .665. Percentage of weight retention is around 67% The .875 is the one on the left with a piece of jacket sticking out, otherwise it would be like the other 2. Now for where a person has to choose one over the other,(AB over IB). All 3 AB�s went through 3 jugs and into the fourth. The interbond was found in the third jug, just like the 165�s I tested last summer.



Here�s the only interbond I could capture. Problems with the stand caused one other one to be lost in the grass. Retained weight 140.1, expansion .715, weight retention, 77%. Like I said it and the lost one only penetrated 3 jugs.



I had a partial box of 25 year old Rem core-locts sitting around. I thought, �I wonder how the dark ages technology compares with today�s newest?� Well it fits between the interbond and accubond. Ret. Weight. 131.0 expansion .625, 72% retention. Also the prettiest most uniform mushroom of all.

No pics for the MK! Couldn�t find enough of 2 bullets to weigh or take pics of. Total disintegration! Same for the SST. Blown to pieces, just shards of lead and copper jacket in the last,(third), jug.

All loads were 68.5 grains of R-19, except the MK was 66.0 R-19. Velocities were between 3000 and 3050 fps @ 15 feet/muzzle.

Oh here�s the set-up;



This WAS a 10 X 2 , 6 feet long. The legs were nailed, screwed and gorilla glued to the notched ends of the board. All I have left are the legs! The board was cracked and nearly broken in half right under where the first jug was sitting. I screwed and gorilla glued 1 X 4 pine under the board to keep it from splitting lengthwise. Oh well, next time I may just make it out of steel!

Grizz,

Well your test shows that the Hornady bullets provide good deer hunting performance at 30-06 velocities anyway.

If you think that a 165 gr .308" bullet that has expanded to 3/4" is a good elk bullet, I would have to respectfully disagree strongly!

Again, what happens when these bullets are loaded to top velocities in rounds like the 300 WBY, 300 RUM and even 30-378. Your then looking at velocities in the 3300-3500 fps range easily which I know for a fact will destroy the Hornady bullets.

On the other hand, take a well designed Accubond. I say well designed because there is enough bullet weight to:

A) Limit extreme velocity
B) provide much better B.C. numbers then the Hornady
C) penetrate much deeper then the Hornady
D) allow the use out of the large magnums with very good results.

The Hornady bullets are to light for anything larger then your 300 WSM and from the tests I have done concerning penetration and expansion, the accubonds penetrated up to 25% deeper. They expand to a frontal area of about .55" to .6" which is much better for big game and have a much longer bullet shank after full expansion which will help to penetrate in a straight line. The Hornady bullets which result in a ball would be unpredictable penetrators as far as depth and straightness.

If one of those lead balls hit a shoulder bone, it would stop it flat cold.

For my money, the Accubond is the best the this breed of hunting bullets, head and shoulders above the Hornady.

Good Shooting!!!

50

fiftydriver, I'm glad I finally could get back on AR, the level of expertise is much higher than other websites. It makes for better arguments!



I tend to lean toward Hornady, and the most recent test confirmed my bias. I will go with weight retention over frontal area anytime. I think that higher weight retention WITH a large frontal area will do a better job of penetrating.



As you said, the nozler accu-bond expanded much less than the interbond. It also retained much less weight. Smaller frontal area, less weight,,, larger frontal area, more weight.



Now we're comparing same weght bullets, at nearly the same velocity, same day, same expansion medium. So we can't say there's a difference there.



I don't have access to any of the big magnums. Nor do I want to even shoot one. I would predict that there MIGHT be a little more expansion with the IB and some more weight loss. I would also predict that the AB would not expand more,(probably less), but would loose a lot more weight.



I don't know about you, but I'd rather have weight retention AND expansion.



You know for a fact that higher velocities will destroy the IB? What tests have you run, could you post your results?

grizz that is interesting to me. This comming june I will be trying the Hornaday IB in a 270 winchester against some hogs I am going to cull. I will line them up to try to recover some in a few hogs. We shall see.

Thanks for the post.

Those are some good looking bullets! I'm firing SSTs for now. I'll go with the Interbonds for an actual hunt.

Thanks for posting the results of the test, grizz! That's good data for everybody.

Grizz, this has been a great read, thanks for going to all the hassle and sharing! I think you have convinced me enough to at least try out the IBs. I otherwise tend to be a "Nosler man" .
- mike

Grizz,

My results are quite similiar to you as far as percentages go. In the larger magnums the IB looses about 10% more weight then what you list, but the AB does as well.

Why I will use the AB over the IB is because one can load a 200 rg AB in a 300 Rum and get 3200 fps. The bullet will survive this velocity and penetrate much better then msot believe it will. With the 200 gr bullet, you get better penetrtion as you list with a smaller frontal area.

Is that make it better then the IB, depends on the game you are hunting, personally, even for whitetails, which here in Montana will easily top 300 lbs I would prefer a heavy bullet to knock out both shoulders on a rut charged heavy mature buck. For elk there is no comparision in my mind.

For pronghorns, I see no need for a bonded core bullet, the standard Ballsitic Tip is the best one made still in my mind.

Good Shooting!!!

50