I'm thinkin about changing to 150gr.Nosler ballistic tips out of my 7mag, What is evrybodys experiences with these in terms of acuracy, meat distruction, fragmenting, and knock down power. From all the stuff i heard about them, You usually love them or u hate them. I will be hunting in Pa where my shots will be 20-200yds usually, i also may take an occational bear with them. Any comments are appreciated

I like to shoot them. They are very accurate. However I have had bad luck with them in 6mm and 7mm at close range 20-50 yds.I guess you could call them explosive at 3000 FPS and above.Past 100 yds I think they would be a great bullet in the 7mm RM. I have switched to 160 Part.

Accuracy is usually exceptional. However, at 7 mag. velocities they are apt to come apart if you hit bone, especially at close range.

For a classic broadside lung shot it is hard to find a better bullet. Unfortunately, that shot does not always present itself. That being said, on deer size game they should work fine. A direct shoulder hit should produce a clean kill but probably no exit.

My philosophy -- "One hole does not a blood trail make." Which is why I usually opt for a Nosler Partition if the rifle will shoot them.

[This message has been edited by Mike M (edited 12-05-2001).]

I shot a deer with one in a 270. I blew him up, the range was very short.

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www.rifleshooter.com

If my longest shots on DEER where in the 200-250 range I would be carrying a nice, lightweight 7mm-08. You absolutely do not need 7 Mag velocities to kill ANY deer at those ranges. I recently shot a whitetail buck, a very nice one, with decent body mass, at around 150 yds with 150 partitions at 3000 fps out of a .280 Rem. I was only slightly off and the bullet went out the off shoulder. Ruined so much of that poor guy that it really bothered me. I know its tough to know the future; will that buck come out at 30 yds or 300 yds?
Ballistic tips at close range will make a mess for you, especially at the velocities your mag will generate. They surely kill great when they go off in the boiler room, but can really ruin meat if you hit bone or into the shoulders.

FN

Gentlemen,

I have killed two deer with the 150 gr. ballistic silvertip in my 7mm RM. The first was a neck shot at about 70 yards. The deer dropped like it was hit by lightning. The second, I got it a little too far back, and like anything else that is gut shot, it ran a ways...

They work great when they are put where they need to be, however I stick with partitions.
They work every time....

Joel Slate
Slate & Associates, LLC
The Safari Specialists
www.slatesafaris.com

7mm Rem Mag Page www.slatesafaris.com/7mm.htm

I used them in my 7mm-08 when they first came out (15 years ago or so). For perfect broadside lungshots, they are very impressive. Very impressive...but so would be any varmint bullet.... They're also extremely accurate.

My first clue came when I nailed a whitetail (my first whitetail buck, no less!) with a running shot at about 150 yards. I was off by about 6" in my lead so I hit him too far back (gut shot). He went down in less than 50 yards and died so some would argue that the bullet did its job. The disconcerting thing was that the exit hole was smaller than the entrance hole. From the size of the entrance hole it was obvious this wasn't due to lack of expansion but rather only "a button sized boattail" (if you've ever shot small caliber BT's into test medium you know what I'm talking about) was all that was left of the bullet when it exited. This was a broadside shot on a deer with a 140 grain bullet that didn't hit any bone bigger than a rib. Not a good sign.

Soon thereafter my dad lost a whitetail buck with a 150 BT from his 7mm Rem Mag. Solid shoulder shot, bullet blew up without even breaking the shoulder, much less entering the chest. We found the deer the next day. Sad.

We switched to Partions after that (X-Bullets hadn't been invented yet ) and never looked back. The funny thing is that the 140 Partitions turned out to be even more accurate in my 7mm-08 that the BT's were.

I forgot to add, after this I became a big fan of penetration tests. Even "low tech" ones can give you a good idea of how a bullet will perform. I tested in everything from soft wood to magazines to dirt to gravel to solid rock (yes, I mean solid rock--shooting bullets at a huge boulder through a board).

When I found that the Partitions would retain 60% of their weight when impacting solid rock, I was a fan for life. Surely even an elk's shoulder couldn't make them fail. It can't. The BT's routinely only retained 30-40 % of their weight in soft wood (where a partition would retain 80+%, depending upon velocity) and the rock turned them into tiny shavings of metal (and a lead colored "splat mark" on the rock).

Like I said elswhere, you usually don't need that kind of toughness for deer. But with high velocity rounds, why on earth would anybody risk using BT's when there are other "standard" bullets that don't have this sort of reputation (like Hornadies)?

[This message has been edited by Jon A (edited 12-05-2001).]

Ballistic Tips are designed for quick, frangible expansion. Accordingly, when pushed at high terminal velocities on medium framed animals(like a deer), they open too quickly to penetrate well. They are great target/varmint bullets and very accurate.

As jrslate & Jon A pointed out, they can kill efficiently if you have good shot placement. However, Ballistic Tips are better defined as varmint bullets rather than medium game bullets. The Nosler Partition IS designed for medium game and larger. It IS designed to penetrate.

Remember, the right caliber, with the right bullet, at the right velocity, with sufficient accuracy - this is the magic formula for hunters.

I've shot maybe 100 whitetails with my 7 MM RM. I've had 2 bullet failures. Both were close range. Both were very large whitetail bucks(270-300 lbs.). One was a 150 Gr. BT and the other a 120 Gr. varmint bullet. Both blew up giving large entry wounds, and no exit. Both deer died, but meat damage was the entire front end.

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JD