My experience with Ballistic tips is that if you exceed about 3000 fps or so you may well get blow up on the surface of the deer and not penetration. I have taken several mule deer buck with the 140 B Tip at maximum velocity in the 280 Rem -- no problem at 30 yards or 150. However, in using a 130 B Tip in a 270 Wby Mag at about 3300 fps I have had two bad experiences back to back two separate years.

In the first instance I shot at a broadside standing buck at no more than 60 yards. The buck was with 8 or more other deer and at the shot deer went in just about every direction simultaneously. With the recoil of the rifle I had lost sight of the buck but expected to find him on the ground. No luck, I could not find him anywhere. Neither could I find blood anywhere. Two of us searched an hour in wide open thin sage. No sign of a hit anywhere. I could not believe that I'd missed him, but decided that I must have.

Next year in similar open country, I had a buck about the same distance away broadside. I was sitting on the ground well supported when I fired. Down he went. As I recovered from the recoil (he was on an open side hill) he appeared to be simply laying down looking at me, head up and apparently allert. I fired again. Nothing appeared to happen. I fired again. This time he got up and started quartering away from me. I fired again just behind the near shoulder. Down he went, rolling over down the hill toward me into a small depression. As I lost sight of him the last thing I saw were all four legs straight up in the air still kicking.

There was a small wire fence between where he went down and where I was. I walked quickly to a low spot in the fence to cross it, crossed it and just when I got to where I thought he was he suddenly gut up and ran around the side of the hill so quickly that I never got the rifle to my shoulder. I ran around that hill, about 30-40 yards and he was nowhere to be seen. He did not go into the wide open draw where I could see perhaps 500 yards. I never saw him again and two of us searched an hour or more. No blood trail to follow. There was a moderate amount of blood where he first went down and more where he rolled down the hill at the last shot. What happened when I shot twice at him laying down, I have no idea.

I have re-lived these two incidents in my mind time after time and can only conclude that I had bullet failure with both deer. I now do not believe that I missed that first deer and I know I hit the second one at least twice.

The same year in another state I shot a whitetail buck at maybe ten yards with a 30-06 and the 150gr Hornady SST at very close to 3000 fps. There was about 4 inches of snow on the ground. The buck dropped at the broadside shot. His back was to me on the ground with his four legs pointing straight away. A trickle of blood came out his nose. He never twitched and there was no blood on the ground under him and no exit wound whatsoever.

I am now leary of both of these bullets at least at high speeds. The Hornady didn't fail. I never had a deader deer. But now I am looking forward to using either Accubond or Interbond or probably Partitions for use at high velocities (greater than 2900 fps).

let me ask all of you something. sst or ballistic tip? let me explain where im going. i have shot a 7mm ultra mag out west in wyoming and texas using the 139 grain sst over the last several years. both mule deer at 400 plus yards and both down on the first shot. one in the ribs and one in the neck. no hard bone hit on either. the texas buck was 6 steps thru mesquite tree limbs. dime size hole going in and a 50 cent hole coming out just low behind the shoulder. ran 40 yards and fell dead. i have great confidence in this rifle and it shoots 1/5" groups at 200 yards with 139 sst's and 154 sst's. the interbonds won't shoot the same. i want to take the ackley because it shoots so darn good and the 140 bal tips group at .45" at 200 yards. in otherwords try something new and rely on your shooting skill instead of the screamer ultra mag thats so flat and takes some of the hold over out of it. im sure the 139's can be reloaded to the same level in the 280 ackley. what would you guys suggest or do based on your experience and not opinions?

Here a post to some other 280 AI loads:

http://www.benchrest.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16846