Curious of your own personal results with Accubonds on larger plains game like eland , zebra and North American game such as elk, moose, grizzly.

Anyone shoot these larger animals at 50 yards or closer with the Accubond?

How about longer shot results say around 500 yards?

Playing with a new 300 H&H and the 200 grain Accubond looks impressive.

I've successfully used Nosler Custom's .300 H&H 200 grain AccuBond ammo on various plains game including several zebra and an eland.

Experienced excellent expansion and penetration.

The shots varied from 50 to 150 yards.

I haven't had an opportunity to hunt elk, moose, or grizzly with the .300 H&H 200 grain AccuBond.

For moose and bear hunts, I prefer a .375 H&H.

Cajun,
Thanks I sent you a pm.

I have shot a butt load of African Plains game with Accubonds in both my 300 WSM and my 325 WSM. I've also shot Mexican Coues deer and Desert Mule Deer with Accubonds. A couple of years ago I shot a grizzly in Alaska with my 325 WSM using Accubonds. Dead first shot. Took a second shot as insurance. I would have no hesitation using them on elk or moose.

I haven't shot anything but targets yet with mine but worry that they may be a little delicate, since the box I bought had half the tips broken off.

I shot a mule deer buck with an 8mm it worked fine with 200 grain. Dropped it there. No blood shot, about 80 yards.

I've used a .30/180 from a .300 H&H on cow elk, and a .30/190LR from a .300 WBY also on cow elk. Both were 1-shotters, and bullet performance was similar to a Partition, but either would have died just as quickly with an old-fashioned Remington CorLoct.

I've also used a .338/225 on large wild hogs, but that doesn't prove much. .30/150's do fine on whitetails, but again, so do .22/55 Hornadys, so nothing much is proven.

Overall, my observation is that Accubonds act very much like Partitions while their external ballistics are virtually identical to their counterparts in Ballistic Tips. In fact, I work up loads with the same caliber/weight of the slightly less expensive Ballistic Tip (when available), then use the Accubonds for hunting.

As to 500 yards, just keep impact velosity a bit over 1800 fps, better 1900.

The Accubond is my general game bullet. The bag is as follows:

1) 210 pound Fallow Deer before gutting: Shot with a 140 grain .277 Accubond from 270 Winchester at 80-100 yards. I hit him behind the shoulderblade in the lungs in the top lobes angling up. The bullet did not catch the spine or shoulder blade. The Fallow Dropped to the shot. Massive exit wound the size of a grapefruit. You could not get near him without being covered in blood.

2) Two euro boars smallish in the 100-115 pound range: S The first was shot in the left ball joint. The left flank completely unzipped, and the bullet exited the throat. His brother stopped facing away at an angle. I shot him through the spine angling down. The bullet exited in the front right leg where the leg joins the neck.

4) 100 something pound doe:Shot with a 140 grain .277 Accubond from 270 Winchester at 115 yards. I shot her dead center between the eyes.

5) Shot with a 140 grain .277 Accubond from 270 Winchester at 35 yards. The First shot was right in the center of the heart. The shot exited with a two of my fist sized exit wound. I shot her again as she was swaying through the center of the shoulderbaldes. This also exited with a small beachball exit wound.

5) Coyote: Shot with a 140 grain .277 Accubond from 270 Winchester at 12 yards maybe. I shot him between and on the inside of the left foreleg and neck. The on flank completely unzipped and the bullet exited the off side hip.

6) 210 pound Whitetail Buck: Shot with a 140 grain .277 Accubond from 270 Winchester at maybe 15 yards. The buck was walking adjacent to me but in a low. the bullet was just off the ball joint of the on leg. The exit wound was massive. I could stick my arms in it. Both legs where broken, but not actually hit.

7) 600 pound Red Stag: Shot with a 160 grain .284 Accubond from 7mm STW Winchester at 80 yards and 112 yards. The first shot was broadside and placed on the socket of the on leg which was pulled back over the heart. The bullet was against the hide on the off side. You can see it start to exit and the hide collapse back in on the video. The Stag could not put any weight on his forelegs. He stopped at the edge of the field at 112 about to go down. He was swaying. The guide said shoot again. I did. I shot him in the ball joint on the left hip. He collapsed at the shot. A piece of the bullet made it to, but not through, one lung.

5) 75 pound Mouflon Sheep: Shot with a 160 grain .284 Accubond from 7mm STW. I was high above this ram. But he was maybe 10 yards from the base of the cliff or bluff I was on. He was quartering away. I held between the two forelegs, just a little to the onside. He died where he stood, pure heart shot. The exit was large enough to stick my legs into.

6) 200 pound Fallow: Shot with a 160 grain .284 Accubond from 7mm STW Winchester at 112 yards. I screwed up on the first shot. I shot him dead center for the heart, but right in the intestines. He hunched and wobbled a few paces. I shot him in the center of the shoulderbaldes. He hit the ground so hard he bounced. Both shots exited.

7) 180 pound Whitetail buck: Shot with a 160 grain .284 Accubond from 7mm STW Winchester at 245 yards. I do believe this is my longest game shot. He was quartering to me. I shot him on the right side in the top edge of the shoulderblade. The bullet exited his left flank about 8 inches from the pit of the off foreleg. The buck went nose first and front legs out into the ground. He made it about 10 feet with his blacklegs.

If I get to go, I am going to use 225 grain Accubond from my 35 Whelen on a cow elk this year.

I used a 140 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip in 7mm/08 at 2770fps at 15 feet to neck a 150 pound 4 point whitetail. The bullet exited and blew out the jugular. I was impressed. This got me to the Accubond as I wanted just a little harder bullet for my second trip across to Austria that was coming up.

That is my Accubond summary.

I have shot several large Aoudad rams with 140 grain Accubonds out of a .270 Weatherby. Performance was all you could hope for. One big
ram was heart shot at 340 yards. He ran about 40 yards, all the rest either dead right there or only moved a few yards. Shot through the shoulders the bullet rarely exits.

I took a 90 lb bushbuck with a 165 Gr Accubond out of a 30-06 at about 2800 FPS. About 75 yards away in some heavy brush.
He ran about 30 yds and was very dead.
The bullet was under the hide on the far side. It had peeled back all the way to the base.
Not sure if I may've hit some brush right in front of him that caused excessive expansion.
Point is he died! It cannot fathom the bullet not exiting a 90 lb broadside animal shot at the crease of the shoulder with the bullet traveling less than 2800FPS on impact.
Shot two more impalas with that gun / load and one shot exited the other did not. They died!

EZ

I've shot at least 100 head of big game with an Accubond of some sort, primarily the 7mm 160 and 140 versions. They are a superb performer, and proven to me on some 50 plains game, numerous whitetails, mule deer, aoudad sheep, and countless feral hogs. I don't "catch" many of them, but here's a very small sample of how they perform when you put them where you're supposed to.

A lot of variables to take into consideration. At what speed the projectile impacts the target and the density of the target,
A lot of folks will say (do not push a projectile past 3200 FPS etc.) Well at 200 yds. that bullet is going about 2800 FPS, 300 yds. 2600 FPS. These are not excessive impact velocities for most projectiles.
Accubonds are good bullets as are partitions.

I took a Moose in Alaska with a 300 WM at 425 yards using 200gr Accubonds.

I’ve killed maybe a half dozen game animals with the accubond.

I still prefer the harder bullets- TBBC, TSX, A frames; and personally prefer partitions to the accubond.

That being said, I’ve never had a bullet failure with one- I just prefer a different performance profile than the one they were designed for- namely rapid loss of some weight but retention of a portion of it for penetration.

I've killed animals with AB's at 400yds, and the closest being 30yds with a 140 AB from a 7mm STW. That bullet had to be going 3300 or so upon impact. Performed like a champ. I've also killed numerous (probably close to 200) big game animals with Nosler Partitions. I've found the AB's and Partitions to have virtually the same performance on game, which is bested by nobody, IMHO.

Wow. Lot’s of positive comments and feedback on the Accubonds. Thanks!
A gun builder buddy who is also a very experienced hunter has been using and recommending Accubonds
for 20 years. I usually keep things simple and have one proven load per rifle. I have had such great results with the Partitions I haven’t experimented . On this new 300 H&H I am hoping the 200 grain Accubond will be the bullet of choice, but I am loading up 180 grain Accubonds, along with 180 & 200 grain Partitions as well.

Any powder recommendations for the .300H&H ?

They are a great bullet. I sold 2 boxes that I had to another AR member in 7 MM who wanted them more than I did. If memory serves they were 150G.

quote:

Originally posted by sambarman338:
I haven't shot anything but targets yet with mine but worry that they may be a little delicate, since the box I bought had half the tips broken off.

Interesting that you say that.
I opened a 'new' box of 200gr .30 cal AB last week and half had tips missing. I contacted Nosler and based on the lot number, they were 17 years old! I bought them off of the classifies a few years ago, but had no idea they were that old. Nosler is replacing them,to their credit, given their age. Any idea how old yours are?

quote:

I opened a 'new' box of 200gr .30 cal AB last week and half had tips missing

I bet they will kill things just fine

The Terminal Performance website out of I think New Zealand does not like the Accubond. I obviously disagree. However, if you want to here the other side just google your cartridge and performance, the sight will hit.

quote:

Originally posted by 4WD:
Wow. Lot’s of positive comments and feedback on the Accubonds. Thanks!
A gun builder buddy who is also a very experienced hunter has been using and recommending Accubonds
for 20 years. I usually keep things simple and have one proven load per rifle. I have had such great results with the Partitions I haven’t experimented . On this new 300 H&H I am hoping the 200 grain Accubond will be the bullet of choice, but I am loading up 180 grain Accubonds, along with 180 & 200 grain Partitions as well.

Any powder recommendations for the .300H&H ?

I use the 200gr NAB and a max load of H-4831sc (mv=2950fps) in one of my 300h&h's......it's very accurate and terminal performance has been excellent on whitetail deer and elk. All bullets exited on broadside shots.

Other good 300h&h powders are IMR-4831, RL-22, MRP. Have heard good things about RL-26 but haven't been able to get my hands on any to try it. Typically (my experience), a 24" barrel will push the 200gr bullet at 2850-2870fps and 26" barrels will push it 2900-2950fps.

My load with 180 Accubonds in my Sako .300 H&H is 73 grains of IMR7828SC for 2960 fps. It can be pushed faster within acceptable pressures, but I like the "traditional" velocity with the venerable H&H. By the way, regardless of what I tried in it when working up a load, this gun refused to put three bullets into anything larger than a 3/4" group. I even had one group with a "work-up" load where I had intended to increase the charge by 0.5 grain and inadvertently increased it by 5.0 grains -- the only way I knew what I'd done was by the extraordinary velocities shown on the chronograph. The group was still 3/4" and the cases ejected without any hint of bolt stickiness.

quote:

You can also use load data for the 300WSM as a reference for newer powders, as the 300h&h and 300WSM have very similar case capacities.

I beg to differ. The Nosler manual shows the case capacity of the WSM with a 180 grain bullet as 71.3 grains of water, while it shows the H&H with 77.6 grains of water. That is a significant difference. I'll grant that a load recommended for the WSM will not generate excessive pressures if used in an H&H, but it will also generate sub-optimal velocities. Generally speaking, the larger case capacity of the H&H allows the use of slower powders and achieving more velocity with less pressure than does the WSM.

Nosler’s data handload data is available on their website free. The 300 HH and 200 grain AccuBond are included.

quote:

Originally posted by Stonecreek:

quote:

You can also use load data for the 300WSM as a reference for newer powders, as the 300h&h and 300WSM have very similar case capacities.

I beg to differ. The Nosler manual shows the case capacity of the WSM with a 180 grain bullet as 71.3 grains of water, while it shows the H&H with 77.6 grains of water. That is a significant difference. I'll grant that a load recommended for the WSM will not generate excessive pressures if used in an H&H, but it will also generate sub-optimal velocities. Generally speaking, the larger case capacity of the H&H allows the use of slower powders and achieving more velocity with less pressure than does the WSM.

Stonecreek - you are correct, in that case there is ~8% difference between the two. I start any load development below MAX (usually 10%) and work up. I edited out my comments in my previous post, as I opened up a new can of worms and I probably don't want to go there. We will leave that for another day.

As was also pointed out - Nosler has some pretty good loads on line (free).

quote:

Originally posted by Duckear:

quote:

Originally posted by sambarman338:
I haven't shot anything but targets yet with mine but worry that they may be a little delicate, since the box I bought had half the tips broken off.

Interesting that you say that.
I opened a 'new' box of 200gr .30 cal AB last week and half had tips missing. I contacted Nosler and based on the lot number, they were 17 years old! I bought them off of the classifies a few years ago, but had no idea they were that old. Nosler is replacing them,to their credit, given their age. Any idea how old yours are?

No, Duckear, I don't know how old my bullets are but would not be surprised if they rival yours in age. Why? Because I later bought a box of Speer bullets from the same dealer (my local, 400 yards away) and discovered they were a design called DeepCurl, so old and apparently dodgy the maker does not even supply the arcane loading info for them anymore.

These transactions occurred just before the Covid19 shutdown. I could have taken at least the AccuBonds back but was short of time and, also, I didn't want to give the dealer any more pain than he was about to experience.

quote:

Originally posted by kennedy:
I shot a mule deer buck with an 8mm it worked fine with 200 grain. Dropped it there. No blood shot, about 80 yards.

Just out of interest, which 8mm and at what distance? Asking because I have had great success with the 180gn accubonds in 30 cal, but have been told by several people that the 8mm accubond is made fairly hard and only suitable for 8mm Rem Mag velocities.

I did a trip to Namibia in 2007. I took multiple Gemsbok & Springbok, plus a Steinbok. I used a 300 wildcat that essentially gave me 300 Win Mag velocities with 180gn Accubond bullets.

Shots on gemsbok were 100 yards to 350 yards, and every shot was a one hit kill. Shots on springbok were 200 yards to 550 yards, and all but one shot were one shot kills, and the one animal requiring a follow up shot was due to bullet placement.

I was extremely happy with the accubond's performance on game. I think out to 700-800 yards at the velocities I was getting they would perform great.

I only recovered 3 bullets out of about 20 shots on game:

quote:

Originally posted by LHeym500:
The Terminal Performance website out of I think New Zealand does not like the Accubond. I obviously disagree. However, if you want to here the other side just google your cartridge and performance, the sight will hit.

Yeah, but he doesnt seem to like much in the way of bullets really. Unless its the Amax / ELD-M, apparently its not great.

Granted the bonded bullets are too hard for very long range shots on game, but only a very small percentage of people actually need terminal ballistics that far out. Though a lot more like to think they do.

My favorite bullet is the Nosler Accubonds, may be some as good but none better, and all bullets are judged by the Nosler Partition. I have used both on most critters here and abroad with 100% satisfaction..Lots of good bullets out there today, so the world is your oyster in bullets these days, wasn't always like that, I remember when failure was common but even then it wasn't that big a deal, as those failed bullet worked most of the time, and folks learned to track.

I have shot a lot of game including African PG and one crippled buffalo, and my last 3 or 4 elk with the 200 gr. Accubond in my 30-06. They simply work as do most of todays welded core and partition bullets. and then you have the monolithics and they have come into their own apparently..Kudos to the bullet makers of today,they have done their job to near perfection..

I've shot piles of animals with a .280 AI and 140 grain Accubonds and have never had anything approaching a bullet failure. The kills include 20 or so whitetails, four mule deer, countless hogs, a kudu with a huge body (I've seen plenty, and this one was a horse), and a zebra stallion. My dad shot a big waterbuck with the same gun and ammo. Penetration is always great, and the bullets mushroom nicely. I've never seen one break apart in the way that the first generation Ballistic Tips were said to do.

After a few years of using the load, I stopped by the Nosler booth at a show and asked a rep what was the point of the Partition now that they have the Accubond. His answer: "There isn't any, except that some customers are committed to Partitions."

NO reason not to be commited to partitions. As much as I like the Accubonds, the partition is the bullet by which all others are judged by..I have the option of both bullets in most of my calibers, there will be boxes of both in my shelves..The only real plus for the Accubonds is they are less expensive than partitions, maybe shoot flatter, maybe more accurate, but maybe not, depends on the red gods...and whats available in blems and overruns at the Nosler outlet..

How do we feel about the 375 caliber Accubonds?

I just bought a Winchester Model 70 Alaskan from Ken Cline in the classifieds.

I have a bunch of Hornady Spire point protected pints for my 375 Ruger.

I know for the game I would shot either with the difference is non-existent. For the sake of discussion educate and inform me.

Stated another way, would you pick a fight with a brown bear w the 260 or 300 grain 375 Accubond?

Brown Bear are a soft species in regards to bullet penetration when compared to a Hippo, elephant or even a cape buffalo...Not referring to aggression, a mad Brown Bear can hold his own in any crowd.

I would shoot a bear with the 260, 270 or 300 gr. bullets my 375 H&H or Ruger. My preference on bear would be the 300 gr. Accubond or partition bullet..If my outfitter said use 270 Hornadys INtl. then that's what Id do, and it would work just fine 999 times out of a thousand I think! but I think I could say the same about a 30-06 with a 200 gr, Nosler partition or accubond.

I like the partition bullets way better on heavy game especially in bear country .I have had no luck with Accubonds in my 338 win mag rifles they made patterns not groups .The partitions really work better on moose and grizzly even caribou and black bear .I shot the partition 338 250 grain out of my 338-378 weatherby and got .25 inch groups at 100 yards and under and inch at 300 yards pretty awesome .I trust them on grizzly at point blank range too and out to 450 yards .

I've been shooting 150g Partitions through my 270 at 3000 fps almost as long as Ray Never found a reason to change. Good to hear the Accubonds are great too. I shoot 300g A-Frames out of our 375 Weatherby and 570g TSX's out of my 500 Jeffery. So many good bullet choices!

DGR416,
the Nosler Partition is the bullet by which all others are judged by, and every new bullet maker will say, "my new hollow copper super bullet is better than the Nosler partition in test run by bumhump studios" so can't argue much with your post or the caliber you picked some time ago to use them in..

That said, me thinks you were a little rough on the Accubonds, as Ive not been able to see much difference it the partition design and the bonded core bullets if the chosen weight is proper, Id probably go a weight higher with the accubond re; a 200 gr. Accubond = the 180 partition perhaps in the 30-06.. Ive shot a lot of PG including Eland with the 225 Accubond and Nosler Partitions, the end results were the same, but the partition showed more penetration, the accubond more expansion and more internal damage..Partitions leave two holes, Accubonds stop on offside skin fully expanded, about what I expected, and both killed, Partition left better blood trails, but Accubonds left sufficient blood trails..all this was based only on my observation, of probably 20 to 40 kills, nothing scientific..

As you can see, I like both bullet, but the Accubonds are nothing more than a bonded core Balistic tip and the ballistic tips are extremely accurate bullets as a rule..your gun won't shoot them so your choice is given, and rightly so.

On buffalo, Bison, Lion,Hippos etc. the heavy partitions is the logical choice, on deer, elk and PG Im very fond of the 225 accubonds. Its been my choice for the last 5 year or so.