Well, here's proof for you doubters of Nosler BT's for mule deer. I just got back from a West River mule deer hunt with my family in South Dakota. My father and I both shoot .30-06's for muler deer and our guns both shoot the same load sub-MOA. It's 57 gr. 4350 with a 165 gr. Nosler BT. We spotted one decent mule deer buck in the morning, and watched him go into a draw. We waited about 15 minutes to make sure he stayed and then put on the stalk. I cam from the bottom of the draw, dad went across the top. We met the deer at about the same time, turns out that there were two bucks together, one must have already been there. I let dad shoot the deer he had a good sight line on, about a 150yd. shot, then the other deer came trotting straight at me, terribly confused. He pulled up, turned broadside at about 50 yds. and I let fly. Dad took his deer right through the lungs, I made the heart into three pieces. Bullet performance was outstanding on both animals, .30 caliber entrance and a 2" exit, we butchered right up to the holes. Mom had a doe tag left and we took of to find her one. We got her a shot facing her at about 150-175 yds. and she centered the brisket with her .243 stoked with 100 gr. Nosler Partitions and the bullet exited the left ham, amazing penetration! It was a bit of a mess to clean up, but it did the job. I wish I had pics of recovered bullets, but they all penetrated completely and are buried in the gumbo of western SD. So for those of you who have doubts of BT's holding together, I disagree, and those who say a .243 is a poor choice for big game, give it 100 gr. PT's and it will take anything we can hunt in SD. This is not the first year that this scenarion has taken place, just the first time since I found shooting forums.
Yardbird

All the anti hype on ballestic tips made me a bit concerned so I tested some 150 grain BT's out of my 7x57 pushed to 2800 fps against an old favorite the 160 grain Speer and the BT penetrated deeper in clay every time. Soon I will be filling my doe tags with the Ballistic tips.

Very few of the people that slam ballistic tips have actually ever used them on game.Most just continue to spread rumors with no actual experience to back them up.I have killed 30+ head of big game with them without a single failure.

I`ve never seen one fail,but I am sure someone has,as with any bullet.

I've used B-Tips since they arrived on the scene and will agree they're dandy on deer. Still, deer sized game isn't much of a test of a bullet's ability to hang together... deer just aren't that tough.

I'll stick to stouter stuff for elk.

Brad

It seems to me that the most positive reports on large game with BTs come largley from the non-magnum crowd. They seem to do a good job there.

I use only 7mmstw's and 300ultramags and I have taken several moose and elk with the 180gr ballistic tip out of my 300ultramag.They held together fine and all but one bullet exited and that one was found under the offside hide after passing through the ribcage and shoulder of a bull elk.