Trying to decide between 130 and 140 grain Accubonds or other brand

Appreciate your experiences & thoughts

Thanks

Hard to beat a 140gr Accubond!

140gr AB for mice to moose.
I think the Caraboo would fit in there someplace.

Which ever shoots better, they just never struck me as hard to kill. I'd use a 6MM or 25-06 if I liked the rifle and not worry.

I haven't used the Accubonds in 270, but I have used the 130 and 150 partitions on elk, and they work very well. I use the Accubond in other calibers, and it's fine so I am sure they will work fine, in 270. BTW for the most part in 270, I use the 130 Ballsitic tip on everything except elk.

Jerry

.280 Remington with 150 grain Partitions.

Thanks for the caliber suggestions, I killed my biggest caribou with a 257 AI; but this year I've decided to use my 270 WIN and I'm looking for comments on bullet choice

Caribou why not the 270. 130-150gr bullets should do the trick. It has in the past and should in the future.

Shoot the bullet that your gun likes best. The caribou won't know the difference, as either bullet will do him in about as fast as any caliber/bullet combination you can name.

My 270 loaded with 140gn Accubonds brought down two nice caribou.

I was hunting Reindeer with my buddy two weeks ago......I used a 30 cal. 180 gr. Accubond and he used a 130 gr. Nosler Bal. Tip. in his 270 win. We recovered both bullets and the weight retention was very different. The recovered Accubond from my 300wm (on the left) was 116 gr. (64% retention) and the Bal. Tip. (on the right) weigh only 52 gr. (40%)....we only recovered the jacket. I highly recommend you use either the 130 or the 140 Accubond in your 270 win.

Ingvar: Which reindeer went down faster, and where and at what angle was each hit?

Stonecreek,

Both stags went down in their tracks, I shot mine (with 300wm) in the neck...almost a frontal shot and recovered the bullet in the spine just behind the shoulder blades. The other stag (shot with 270 win) was a broadside shot in the lung area, we found the jacket in the ribs on the far side.

Both Barren Ground Caribou and Woodland Caribou are not large animals when compared to Elk or Moose, and don't carry lead very well...they generally have much lighter bones. Either are pretty easy to kill. Any bullet which works well on large Mule Deer should work great on caribou too.

If I was worried about bad angle shots, I'd use what I have used from my .270 for elk...plain old Nosler partitions, preferably 130 grains for caribou, but 150s are just as good....better if you plan to shoot at the south end of a north-bound animal. (I'd use 130s just because that's what I use on both whitetail and mule deer and I wouldn't even have to think about a slightly different trajectory.)

But to be honest you don't need premium bullets for caribou and a 130 Hornady would work great. I've munched on a lot of raw (sun or smoke dried) caribou ribs that were downed with that bullet.

The trick is to use the bullet which has worked best for you on other deer. You'll have faith in it and that always helps one shoot better.

I killed my first caribou with a 60.0 gr. charge of H-4831 and a 130 Partition. The range was longer than it should have been but I was a rather dumbass, 21 year old. That 130 put him down with no problem - thank goodness. After that episode, I went to a 150 Partition and have used them for virtually all of my hunting until the last few years. After discovering the NorthFork bullet, I'm gradually switching to them. For me, it performs as good or even better than a Partition and is slightly more accurate as well. My .270 Win. load is 57.0 gr. of Rldr-22 and oftentimes gives under 1" groups especially if I do my part. Have never used any 140 gr. bullets in any .27 cal. rifle - I'll stick with 150"s. I think the .270 is about the perfect caribou chambering.
Have fun. Bear in Fairbanks

I've shot a few caribou with the 270 win. using variuos bullets.I would stay away from ballistic tip/accubond/sst/bronze points rapidly expanding type bullets that offer little penetration.One hundred and thirty grain silver tips where OK but I would go with something offering a little more penetration.How about a 140gr swift-A- frame? I think that would shoot great in the 270 and give the perfect combination of expansion and penetration.I've recovered bullets from inside the heart that had almost nothing left to push through.That is why I would go with something tough like the a-frame.

quote:

Originally posted by Ingvar J. Kristjansson:
Stonecreek,

Both stags went down in their tracks, I shot mine (with 300wm) in the neck...almost a frontal shot and recovered the bullet in the spine just behind the shoulder blades. The other stag (shot with 270 win) was a broadside shot in the lung area, we found the jacket in the ribs on the far side.

Yes, it's too bad that the 130 grain Ballistic Tip didn't continue on to penetrate the highly vital offside ribs! And simply going down in its tracks, well, that's not good enough. How can a hunter follow a "good blood trail" when his quarry lays exactly where it stood?

Caribou are, as stated, easy to kill. The drawback in the .270 class is that they share their habitat with grizzly which are not so easy to kill. Timid sort that I am, whenever I'm in the Arctic, I carry a .375. Better overgunned than the other.

I would suggest a 140gr failsafe for the grizzly.

Stonecreek: There is no doubt in my mind that the Nosler Bal. Tip will bring down very quickly a caribou/deer........I’m more concern with the Jacket/core separation. I have seen in several occasions the Bal.Tip make a hell of a mess in the carcass particularly in high velocity cartridges like the 270 win. In my experience the Accubond doesn’t blow up like the Bal.Tip sometimes does.

Like others have mentioned Caribou give up The Ghost pretty easily; providing the shot is in the preverbial breadbasket (chest area). Shot placement is what good shooting is all about. Hammering them with a cannon won't help unless the bullet arrives where it's supposed to.

I really like your .270 Winchester choice - great cartdige for this game animal.

While my expereince isn't exactly vast - I've only shot 2 and been in on the taking of several more in the same hunting group; all with a smattering of .270 Win.'s, .30/06 Sprg.'s and the odd 7mm Rem. Mag. Performance & results virtually identical given good shooting although one group member's shooting ability was, Well, Ugh, let's say questionable and he was the one with - you guessed it; the 7mm Rem. Mag.

I used 130 gr. Winchester Silvertips with good results.

I've also used 130 gr. Nosler BT's on other game and while superbly accurate they tend to their "explosive" reputation IMO. Like Stonecreek says though, an exit wound is a flip of the coin and core separations occur often; at least with the .277" 130 gr. & .308" 165 grainers I've used for hunting. BUT as often as not the game animal is laying right where it got whacked, DRT or do the Wobble Trick, aimlessly taking a coupla steps prior to expiring.

Right now I've several MTM boxes full with the remainder of my old Winchester 130 gr. Silvertips which makes a fine load.

In the interm I've used 150 gr.Nosler Partitions and in IME this is one of the all-time great bullets in this cartridge, affording good ballistics, fantastic terminal performance with superior pentration. It down-throttles the Warp-Factor from the 3100 fps realm with the 130's down into 2900+ fps and that's a good place to be with this cartridge/bullet.

Have fun on your Caribou hunt.

quote:

Originally posted by Ingvar J. Kristjansson:
Stonecreek: There is no doubt in my mind that the Nosler Bal. Tip will bring down very quickly a caribou/deer........I’m more concern with the Jacket/core separation. I have seen in several occasions the Bal.Tip make a hell of a mess in the carcass particularly in high velocity cartridges like the 270 win. In my experience the Accubond doesn’t blow up like the Bal.Tip sometimes does.

I would agree that usually all you find of a Ballistic Tip is the jacket and its solid supporting base. That is usually found (on game the size of medium deer/caribou) right where you found that of your friend's -- in the offside ribs or hide. The fact that the core fragmented somewhere in the deer's vitals rather than coming to rest with the jacket simply means that more trauma was inflicted on the vitals.

Of course, much larger game like wapiti or moose (elk) have bodies that are sometimes too large for the limited penetration of the Ballistic Tip, meaning that the trauma it would inflict might be too shallow to have the most lethal effect. But Ballistic Tips are not intended for such game and should not generally be used (although some hunters insist that the keen accuracy usually associated with Ballistic Tips allows them to place their shots such that the lack of deep penetration is not an issue -- a philosophy which seems to work for them but which I don't necessarily share.)

Too often hunters associate the loss (or separation) of a bullet's core as a bullet "failure". To the contrary, if the bullet performs as designed and the game is quickly reduced to possession, then there is no "failure".

Parenthitically, caribou are just a tad larger than I am personally comfortable with when using the Ballistic Tip (at least in a .270 caliber or smaller), so I'd prefer the very similar but somewhat deeper-penetrating Accubond when pursuing this particular animal.

The 270 Win + 140 grain Accubonds is pretty close to ideal for caribou. That bonded bullet won't blow the beegeezuss out of some fine venison either.

Has anyone used 140gr. Barnes TSX? Works fine on
game larger and smaller than Boos.

quote:

Originally posted by Abob:
Trying to decide between 130 and 140 grain Accubonds

Flip or coin or better yet, shoot the one more accurate one.

Alan

If I was to return Caribou hunting it'd be with a .270 and 130 A-Frames!

They aren't really big animals!...merely spectacular!

Vapo, you keep vascilating between Accubonds & A-Frames!

Which is it!?!

friar

quote:

Originally posted by friarmeier:
Vapo, you keep vascilating between Accubonds & A-Frames!

Which is it!?!

friar

If there's anything better than A-Frames, God kept it for himself.

quote:

Originally posted by friarmeier:
Vapo, you keep vascilating between Accubonds & A-Frames!

Which is it!?!

friar

For my .270 it's A-frames as that's what I have on hand.....If I had to buy them now it'd be accubonds.....thery're simply more economical.......both are IMO up to the task......as a matter of fact.....most hunting bullets are up to the task for caribou.....they're just not large animals!

I have always used 150 grain in my 270. Winchester powerpoint. I think Federal fusion also has a 150 grain offering.

I am pretty sure there is no differnce in 10 grs. of bullet, one is as good as the other..As to bullet construction I usually opt for the Nosler partition, they have always shot well for me and never had one fail in 60 plus years, and they are cheaper than most premium bullets.

As has been said, you can never go wrong using a Nosler Partition. I used them for about 20 years with no complaints.

Since 1992, I have been using Barnes X, XLC and now TSX in my 270. I use the 130gr TSX for Elk and it hits hard and is very very accurate.

Why not get the best of both worlds, accuracy and on-game performance, with a Barnes?

When I hunt caribou I'm taking my 270 and 150 VLDs since they have performed excellent on deer.

If I was headed north to hunt Caribou I would go to my nearest Wal-Mart purchase several boxes of Remington 150 pointed corelokt and have at it.

quote:

Originally posted by 7x57:
If I was headed north to hunt Caribou I would go to my nearest Wal-Mart purchase several boxes of Remington 150 pointed corelokt and have at it.

This sounds like a "been there & done that" kind of guy

Yep on the CoreLocts for deer sized stuff. Nothing materially better that I've seen.
They work on bigger stuff too but wouldn't be my first choice.

the 130 gr Accubond did the trick, as did the 140 gr Accubond out my son's 7mm-08

nice post-rut eater bull, no pictures because the antlers had already fallen off

I think the .270 and 140 gr bullets are a marriage made in heaven. Flat, fast and lots of energy to boot.

The think about hunting Caribou in Alaska is you might bump into a bear, black or brown...

I would use a 150gr Partition in a 270.

I have seen several Alaskan Caribou shot, I have only shot 2 of them, and I did so with 450/400 3 1/4" iron sighted double rifle...

I have made brilliant experience with the 130grs Woodleigh PP from roe deer to wild boar - accurate working and clean on the spot kills without big meat damage...

Klaus