With all the bullet bashing on the forum right now, thought I'd throw in another. Had two friends from Texas come up to hunt elk in Idaho. The 6x6 bull they shot at 285 yards was hit right on the large end of the humerous below the scapula, and the bullet absolutely blew up. This was a 180 grain GS from a 300 weatherby, and there was no entry into the chest cavity at all. It caused several more hours of blood trailing and shooting before the bull was recovered. Just goes to show that anything can happen anytime. I will be shooting my 7Mag with 160 Accubonds for mule deer in the Kaibab this next week, and will have another report then.

I used Grand Slams once on an elk hunt, only once!! I was also using a .30 caliber 180 grain with my .300 Win Mag at 3050 fps. The shot was about 175-200 yards with the elk about ready to reach the top of the canyon opposite me. I put the crosshairs between his shoulders and pulled the trigger. He went down immediately. However, during the post mortem, I found that the GS completely disintegrated when it hit the spine!! I was picking microscopic pieces of lead and jacket from backstraps for hours. I realize an elk's spine is big and rugged, however the Grand Slam blew up when it hit it, barely punching an entrance hole to the spine. The spine was still basically intact. Yes , the effect was immediate, but I expect a bullet to hold together better than that.I've had Ballistic Tips hold together better than that in the past. When I called Speer, they didn't seem surprised. I use Noslers now with complete satisfaction.

I've found the GS in any flavor to be a bit soft for game larger than deer or impact vel. greater than 2700fps. The new GS is basically a \Hotcore w/ thicker jacket.

I've killed several elk with Grand Slams and never recovered a bullet. Getting pass thrus in all cases. I doubt that the range on any of them was much beyond 100 yards if that. I was using the older double core type Grand Slams however. One would think at under 300 yards, a standard Horn or Corelokt would have done the job.

Without slandering anybody, any standard bullet without bonding and/or a partition of some kind will fail quite often. The manufacturers are so dependent on the materials used that even tiny differences will separate the god lots from the crappy ones. If that is your bullet of choice you should be aware of the possibilty that occational flaws may screw up your hunt.

In 95 situations out of 100 these bullets perform like intended, but no one should be surprised when a Speer GS, a Hornady IL, a Rem core lock and their piers fail from time to time. They are not designed not to.

And when you choose to use these bullets on big game you get the performance you can expect and deserve from a 15c bullet. If you want to make sure it does not happen buy a premium bullet.

Premium bullets also fail from time to time but very very seldom.

That's the difference from you get for spending 1$ a pop.

I guess your reality is a bit different from ours paying up to 7000$ a year to hunt but I have a hard time understanding why someone would want to save 25-30$ on their budget on the single most important part of a sucessful kill. And the one part we as hunters cannot influense one bit. No point in having 5000$ guns that can hit a quarter at 300y, the best optics money can buy, spend countless hours at the range perfecting ones skills when your bullet of choice comes apart and creates a shallow flesh wound...

For the same reason I have a hard time figuring out why many guys have 15 mediocre guns with even more mediocre scopes on top, instead of 3-4 top quality guns with optics in the same league.

Why not pay the premium price and get the premium performance?? If we talk about bullets, It's only 25-30$!!!!

But then again I'm from Norway so what do I know, huh ??

And guys this was not written to attack or hurt anyones feeelings and may have come out a bit more harsh than intended. Since english is still my second language I do not have the vocabulary to cover all the different layers of critisism you have in english. So feel free to pound on me quite abit

Blank,

Thanks for sharing. Makes me happy I use Sierra Game Kings SPBT in my 300 Win mag (and the 300 Weatherby too when I owned one). To date they have all worked GREAT on elk. They aren't partitioned or bonded, so fewer things to go wrong.

ASS_CLOWN