Shot some different bullets out of my 7mm stw into some phone books today and had some interesting results. first the 7mm 160 grain nosler accubond. incredible accuracy, sub .5 moa. weight after 83.5 grains. huge hole. next 150 grain barnes xbt, moa accuracy very small channel compared to the other bullets. weight after 149.1 grains. last the 140 grain nosler partition. sub moa accuracy, large channel identical to the accubond. weight 104.7 grains. one would think the barnes would win the a penetration contest not so. both of the other bullets beat it by an inch(accubond) 1.2 inches (partition). anyway which one would you choose for big mulies and late season cow elk?? i am leaning toward the 140s but the incredible accuacy and the high bc of the accubond have me thinking. how bout you?? thanks! mark

I am surprised by your penetration tests as all other tests that I have seen have shown the failsafe and barnes x to outpenetrate all other bullets by a wide margin.I will try the accubonds myself if nosler ever makes a 140gr 7mm or a 180gr .308".As for your choice I hardly think that you could go wrong by choosing the accubond or the partition.

For Elk and Big Mule Deer I would test the 160 Nosler Partition. Of the bullets you have tested I would go with the 140 Nosler Partition. You can never go wrong with a Nosler Partition of the proper weight.

I'm in the heavy for caliber camp. I shoot a 160grNP in my 7mm Dakota. The Acubonds are more accurate & I would concider them for deer size game. When elk is on the menu, I want as much penetration as I can get. My rifle doesn't like the 'X' and I have never recovered a partion so I'm sold.
I wet phone book tested some NABs in my .280. What was the est. impact vel. & what kind of penetration did you get? I'm curoius how htey match up.

[ 06-02-2003, 14:13: Message edited by: fredj338 ]

Ya ever tried to dig an X bullet out of a sand/clay bank over any other bullet? I have. Plenty of them too, and they go so much deeper than the others it isn't funny. It'll leave a Swift A-Frame on the surface just smokin!!!! The X bullets always win in penitration from their retained weight to frontal area ratio....

Never shot into phone books before but, did the X bullet soften up the books first? I like the sand/clay bank test, it's about as brutal as it gets on bullets... seperates the weak from the strong that's for sure...

I look forward to using the new Accubond and Interbond bullets for sure, how they hold up is most important to me.... that'll tell how well they'll penitrate compared to the others right there.

How far away were you when shooting them, what were their muzzle velocities and how far did they penitrate?

Last ones I tested were 400gr XLC's and 400gr A-Frames at 10 feet out of my 416wby, both at 2700 fps. The 400gr XLC went 14-16" deep and the A-Frame about 4-6". The A-Frame weighed 365gr and the XLC was 398gr.

the phone books were set at 100 yards. they were dry not wet which might make a differance. velocity was as follows. 3720 for the 140, 3414 for the accubond and the barnes 150 was 3467. i know these velocities seem high but we have checked them on two different chonographs and they seem to be legit. on a side note. my friend shot a 130 grain sst interlock at 2990 fps out of his 270 winchester and the bullet completely came apart. it weighed 27 grains and there was no lead left just abit of jacket. penetration was poor as well. i will try and post pics of the bullets later today.

The dry phone books are really hard on bullets. If you soak them first, I think you get a more realistic idea of how the bullet will do. Bullets I've recovered from game resemble (not exactly though) bullets pulled from wet phone books. The clay bank test is kind of like shooting into a steel plate. Burning a hole through a piece of steel has no relationship to live game.
Try the wet phone books, you'll need about 36" to stop most bullets @ 100yds. Interesting fun huh?

Fred,

If the 400gr X bullet goes 14-16" into the sand and clay bank and the A-Frame goes 4-6"... that's just a "relative" test for sure, steel plate isn't much of a paralell though. I've seen 55gr Ballistic Silvertips in a 243win almost completely penitrate 1/2" mild steel at 300 yards while the 308win with 168's was laughable.

Definitely lots of fun!

Dry phonebooks is a really tough test on bullets--especially from a high velocity cartridge at close range. It isn't surprizing that the interlok--even at a relatively low velocity--came appart. I'd expect most standard bullets to. But thanks for the results, the more the better.

There's an article about the AccuBonds in the latest Shooting Times by Layne Simpson. It doesn't look like he did any of his own penetration tests but the two he recovered from his nilgai look pretty good (around 70% retention). He relates something from Nosler that is fairly interesting:

Apparently, earlier in the design process, the Accubonds retained a lot more weight. But they expanded too much and didn't penetrate very far (sort of like the Scirocco has a rep for doing). The final design keeps a smaller frontal diameter with the jacket folding back more closely to the shank as expansion progresses. This results in less weight retention (designed to be 60-70%, much like the Partition) but more penetration than earlier designs.

Without question you need to try the Accubond, and let us know about the results. These bullets are an innovation in the industry, and what better forum to do the practical field testing than this forum.

Perhaps I am a missing something here but if the dry books are harder on the bullets then that is what I think would be the sensible way to do it?

Right?

"GET TO THE HILL"

Dog

Also just curious but why is it you would say that shooting game and steel plates have nothing to do with each other? I would think we could learn a thing or two from the exercise?

MarkD. the problem w/ dry paper as in any "hard" medium, is it tears the bullet. It changes the way a bullet may "expand" as in a softer medium. The major bullet manuf. used to use wet newsprint before ballistic geletin came into use. So you may get a bullet that absolutely fragments in dry paper but expands beautifully in wet pack. I think it's easier to get relative comparisons btwn. bullets this way rather than shooting them into dirt or wood. If my bullet blows up on 12" of wet pack, then I don't want to hunt big game w/ it.

I've heard that shooting into plain "water" is the closest thing to the real world expansion and penetration but, geletin leaves evidence of the wound channel where water doesn't, so geletin is as close as it gets when trying to examine the channel.

Milk jugs in series are a good place to start and are cheap too. Anyone have another method for testing in water... with a reusable/resealable type container? For me, wet phonebooks seem hardly worth the effort, considering how many rounds you can get into them and the channels still be far enough away from one another...

Brent, you can test 3-4 rounds in each set of phone books. You wil probably need 8-10 1 gallon water jugs for each shot. I'm just guessing as I have never tried to stop a bullet w/ a water jug. Let me know what happens.
The problem w/ gelatin is cost & mess. If you don't mind either, that would be the best next to shooting into piles of meat. If I only new a butcher willing to part w/ a bunch of scrap meat?

[ 06-04-2003, 04:33: Message edited by: fredj338 ]

After using milk jugs and sand bags to recover bullets I plan to try, I still have to see the end results. It takes about five gallon jugs to catch soft bullets. Sand bags are brutal and a bullet that looks good coming out of sandbags will make a small wound channel in animals.
Many people have told me the Sierra GameKing is to soft to be useful. After recovering several from water, I decided the wound channel on a deer would be fantastic. For deer shot in the chest, I think they work great. I don't care for Speer Hot Cores' because of past experience with them. They may be fine now but I have had no reason to try them again. I also file my bullets in half to get a first hand view of the jacket thickness and general construction. Maybe I could try posting some of my pictures of recovered bullets and some I have sectioned.

Consider the animals chest cavity size, muscle structure and then think about how much penetration you need. You only need 36" of penetration if you shoot them in the rear! If you pick your shots then the diameter of the exit wound is whats going to make the biggest difference.
Cold air in = Warm blood out.

When hunting elk I want two holes and a good blood trail. On deer I still get two holes mostly but I look for big damage to the lungs as my first priority. I have taken deer with a .257 Roberts w/ballistic tips and about every bullet I've used on up has worked fine on deer.

This debate will rage on but but the terminal performance is what is most telling. I have a bunch of SST's that I will be playing with this year but won't feel bad if deer season rolls around, or a pig hunt comes up, and my rifle of choice that day is with last years ammo, or even factory stuff. I still live to hunt, and if my choice gets the job done thats whats important to me! The outcome may influence my future decisions.

I am now of the opinion that about any bullet will work for deer. My choices mostly come down to what shoots well.

On elk I go big. I don't get to go after them as much and I use a .338 Win Mag that wears a 22" barrel. The smallest bullet used in that one has been a 200gr. X, and the biggest 250gr. btsp and both worked fine in the end.

I'm a 7mm fan also, shoot a Ruger #1 in 7mmRemMag and a Rem 700 in 7STW. From over 25 yrs of hunting elk in Colorado, I'd stick with the 160 gr Nosler Partitions. 140gr NPs are good from the side, but IMHO if you need the penetration, the 160 will do it from any angle.

Water works well for testing. I started out using 5 gallon buckets laid on their sides and shot through the lid,with a sand bag backstop they worked well,but you have to replace them. I then used an old rubberized feed bucket,the walls of it were made out of 1/2 inch rubber with thread laminate,36 inches wide,it stopped bullets well,but wore out.

I then took a porcelain bath tub,cut a 12 inch square out of one end and bolted in a square of 1/2 inch plywood from the inside of the tub with an inner tube gasket,it seals the tub long enough to do all your shooting.

I quit using the tub after a friend who owns a ranch,put in a large water tank. He got a used tire off of a haul truck.Cut the side wall out of one side,sealed the hole and placed the tire in a canyon with a spring in it. The tallest side of the canyon lasered out at 87 yards to the tank from the top. I put a large piece of cloth screen in the bottom of the tank and shoot away.

From the above article:

Cool, I like the bathtub idea, I have one too!! Now, how to get a vidio camera mounted to the side of one looking through lexan at the action!

Do the bullets ever go through the back end of the tub, or ricochet up and out of it? Thanks for the tip there!

I shot 2 Springbok, a baboon, and a Blesbok with Nosler AccuBond 200gr .30 cal bullets this year in Namibia at Gras Hunting Ranch. I recovered one of the bullets from the Blesbok(took 2 due to poor shooting).

This bullet entered the left rear leg/hip, breaking the top of the leg bone. It went through the guts and broke a rib on the far side and wound up under the skin. The animal was walking away from me, quartering right to left, range was approx 310 to 325 yards.

In the pic it says Hartebeest, but it really was from the Blesbok.

Well done George, good to see some actual field experience. Nice GEmsbok, what did you shoot it with/? Is it a cow or bull? I ask because the horns look really pointed like maybe a cow.

[ 06-07-2003, 23:21: Message edited by: fredj338 ]

Used to stop 270 bullets with milk jugs and water. At 100yds, it took about (8) jugs and a phone book back stop. I knew I had this damn plastic recycling bin here at the house for some reason

For deer hunting down here, you can't beat Hornady's for price and performance. At least in the 270......

I just read an interesting article in the current Rifle mag., by Ross Seyfried about bullet testing. With all of his years of experience, testing & helping to design bullets, he has settled on wet newsprint as a testing medium. He says it offers the closest comparison to live muscle tissue of any of the testing mediums. Read the article, it is informative. There is also another article about bullet performance, SD, etc. aslo quite good.

here is the link to the pics pics

Thanks George, that's what I thought. On my trip in 98 we chased Gemsbok alot, & saw many cows. It seems the bulls avg. shorter, heavier more blunt horns & the cows longer, thinner more pointed. I love their color & markings & they can be very tough. I will have to get to Namibia some day soon & take a really good cow & another better bull.

I got some 160 gr Accubonds in the reload bench. They look very impressive. Over 1.4 in long and absolute the most sleek thing you have ever seen. I can't wait to try them, but I have to pick up some RL22 and I am going to bed my rifle first. I would try the Accubonds, esp if long range shooting might be called for.

Fred,
That's what I found also. The bull I shot was 34" and much heavier in the bases and along the length of the horns.

That's a very good pic, Mark. Thanks. All those bullets look very good for being put through such a tough test. I wouldn't expect many, if any, standard bullets to be intact after the same test.

So far in every test I've seen, the recovered AccuBond--shapewise--looks almost exactly like a recovered Partition. With similar weight retention and penetration.... Now I can't wait to do my own tests.