This summer at the range I played with several loadings in my 30 06. Suffice it to say 100yd groups told me the gun shot the 180gr fusion bullets as accurately as 165 Sierra Gamekings. (In fact every 30cal I have ever owned loves these Sierra Bullets. But accuracy and terminal bullet performance do not necessarily go hand in hand. I sure many of you have found the Gamekings have some limitations in terminal performance. I have experienced no different.)

Since the Fusions are "Bonded" I expected the terminal performance of these rounds to far exceed the GameKings. Accuracy differences we small enough that I couldn't discount that it was the shooter (me) versus the round. I felt I had a real winner. The price of these rounds is extremely reasonable. These just might be the bomb.

Last weekend a mature 6pt stepped into the shooting lane in front of my stand. 6 pts are usually youngsters that get a free pass. This deer was no youngster. The land manager figures he's 4 or 5. We will pull the jaw bone later and collect that data.

The deer refused to offer better than a quartering to me shot. No matter a bonded bullet from a 30 06 should go stem to stern on a deer. This was where things went a little awry.

The bullet entered the deer just behind the front leg, took out part of that sides lung, punched through the diaphragm, did some liver damage, through the viscera and lodged in the deer's pelvis. No exit hole. Decent penetration but lack of an exit hole made for a very sparse blood trail. These South Carolina swamp bottoms are thick. The deer went less then 80yds. It took two of us an hour crawling on hands and knees to find this guy. I was thanking God when we did. Finding only a pin drop every 10-15ft is tough and emotionally trying tracking.

Here's the deal. I don't believe the bond on these bullets is premium strong. Electroplating does bond at a molecular level, however because of this the resulting bond is quite thin. Chrome is often electroplated on steel. Plated parts always have the capacity to flake.

Based on this experience I don't believe Fusions are a "stem to stern" bullet. Since they are obtainable for a less than premium price, I can't complain. So from now on, using these, I will limit my shot selection accordingly. I still think for broadside and quartering away shots this bullet may work excellently. So I am not hanging up on them yet. I will let you know.

Anyhow, here's the deer. A mature 6pt. In fact the nicest cleanest six I have ever harvested. I am still thanking God for letting us find him.

Big Guy,

Thanks for the report. I had trouble with my 270 WSM shooting the Fusion bullet. Most reports say this thing is incredibly accurate; but my rifle averaged 1 1/2" with this bullet when it averages less than a inch with Ballistic Tips. I will stick with Nosler, but may switch to Partitions. Have a great rest of the season. Hugh

Hugh,

As far as I know the fusion ammo comes in only one grain weight flavor for the 270WSM. I don't think they are available for handloading either. Makes it a hit or miss proposition for that caliber.

Personally, I haven't ever been able to duplicate Ballistic Tip accuracy with Partitions. Maybe you can accomplish this. I never could. Regardless of this, I do like the partitions performance. They get the job done predictably with regularity.

quote:

Originally posted by TheBigGuy:
...No exit hole. Decent penetration but lack of an exit hole made for a very sparse blood trail. These South Carolina swamp bottoms are thick. The deer went less then 80yds. It took two of us an hour crawling on hands and knees to find this guy. I was thanking God when we did. Finding only a pin drop every 10-15ft is tough and emotionally trying tracking....

Hey Big Guy, You did well describing the SC Lowcountry that I love to hunt.

I'd say you all did just great finding it that quickly in the Man-Eating Briers and Shin-Tangle. Don't see the Brier Tatoos(ripped flesh) on your arms though. How did you manage to pull that off?

Congratulations of a fine SC Deer. You sure made me homesick!

Big Guy,

Did you recover the bullet? If so what did it look like? What did it weigh?

Congrats on a nice deer too!

Regards,

Pete

quote:

Originally posted by Hot Core:
Hey Big Guy, You did well describing the SC Lowcountry that I love to hunt.

I'd say you all did just great finding it that quickly in the Man-Eating Briers and Shin-Tangle. Don't see the Brier Tatoos(ripped flesh) on your arms though. How did you manage to pull that off?

Congratulations of a fine SC Deer. You sure made me homesick!

This might make you more homesick.

I can easily explain, no briar tattoos. That dude went straight into a bamboo thicket. It's crazy stuff to track through. The deer pushes thru bends the bamboo, bleeds on it, then boing it pops back straight up, blood sign is sometimes a couple feet off the ground. You got to look up and down when they go in that stuff.

Palmetto thickets are scarier, though. Getting on your hands a knees in one of them is a good way to get snakebit. Copperheads love hiding under those fronds. As you know, snakes are a threat to be out down here practically the entire season.

quote:

Originally posted by Pete E:
Big Guy,

Did you recover the bullet? If so what did it look like? What did it weigh?

Congrats on a nice deer too!

Regards,

Pete

Sorry didn't get a chance to dig for a bullet. I barely had time to get that deer to a processor. As it was we had to call ahead and beg the guy to wait for us. He had been closed 30minutes when we got there. This deer had been dead for over an hour in our 75deg weather he needed to be cooled down quick.

quote:

Originally posted by TheBigGuy:
... That dude went straight into a bamboo thicket. It's crazy stuff to track through. The deer pushes thru bends the bamboo, bleeds on it, then boing it pops back straight up, blood sign is sometimes a couple feet off the ground. You got to look up and down when they go in that stuff.

Palmetto thickets are scarier, though. Getting on your hands a knees in one of them is a good way to get snakebit. Copperheads love hiding under those fronds. As you know, snakes are a threat to be out down here practically the entire season.

Hey Big Guy, I know a spot on the Southwest corner of a property I hunt that has the Bamboo patch. Some of it is right large, maybe 3 1/2" in diameter.

Yes, I do understand about the blood being "up" on the weeds. We call it "High Tracking". When you do notice it, it can speed up a tracking job considerably.

Also understand about the Snakes. I carry a 357Mag with the first two cylinders holding the Speer Shot Capsules loaded with some really old #7 Lead Shot. No reason #7 1/2 wouldn't do as well, but I just have the #7 so that is what I use. It is absolutely outstanding on Snakes, so I can recommend it highly to you. I do fine around Snakes when I know where they are. Still get a thrill when I walk right up on one though. Just moved my Snake Chaps yesterday to reach something else.

Best of luck on the rest of the Season. And work over some Does while you are at it.

I hear you on shooting Does here Hotcore. I am all for it. I try to get every legal doe I can.

The "Bucks Only" guys are starting to loose their leases here. Some of the farmers here have had enough. And some of them get downright irrate about it. Deer are costing alot of these guys serious money in crop damage. They want the deer populations down and that means shooting does. If you don't do it. They will find someone else who will.

Hey Big Guy, I was in a Stand one afternoon called Turkey Tracks and looked across a neighbor's adjoining disked Bean Field to see a HUGE Trophy Buck ease out of the woods at about 400yds. He stood there a minute, looked down the field and stiffened up.

I swung the binoculars down the field and there was another nice 8-point also looking in the same direction at a Doe.

So the HUGE Buck begins the "stiff-legged" stomp down toward the smaller 8-point. The 8-point eventually looks behind himself and nearly cuts a flip turning. They are headed toward each other and I expected a heck of a shoving match. The Doe got frustrated and went on.

Just before the Bucks came together, the 8-pointer eased back into the woods. The HUGE Trophy Buck stood there for a minute and raised up to create a Licking Branch. As his front feet were off the ground, I aligned the scope to see how he looked through it and the Verticle Crosshair aligned perfectly with the Black stripe down his back.

But, we didn't have Permission to hunt that property, so he walked.

A few days pass and I'm in a different Stand near that same piece of property. Saw a nice 6-point ease across a natural Funnel area. Then a HUGE 6-point followed behind him. It had MASSIVE antlers, but again, no permission.

Talked to the lady that owned the place the next day and she told me to, "Kill ALL of them. They are eating us out of a nice profit."

Felt strange for not having asked sooner. Of course, we kept her freezer well stocked for her after that. Back then she had all kinds of Doe Tags, so we helped her out as best we could.

TheBigGuy, I have tested the Fusion bullet extensively and found it to be a little to fragile for my taste. The bullet is probably the best bonded bullet out their, but keeping the lead and copper together isn't everthing. Whats important is that the bullet doesn't over expand. This is what I have found the fusion bullet doing in most of my tests.

I usually end up with a glob of copper and lead, that doesn't even look like a bullet, that has a retained weight of about 30%. This is in non-magnum cartridges, ie. 30-06, 280, 270, and 243. I wouldn't even think of using it in a magnum cartridge, as my test have proven that they blow up like a varmit bullet, more or less.

I am a believer in Swift bullets even for deer. The Scirroco works great on deer, if it is not shot out of a Ultramag at close range. But, even so they are expensive. I most often use the Nosler Partition. Yes, the front core usually seperates, but their is enough bullet to punch through leaving an exit hole. The nice thing about the partitions is that they open up fairly quickly, because of the soft lead and light jacket of the front core. This offers a wound channel that starts about only 2-3 inches of penetration. Most of the solid copper bullets, ie. Barnes, Failsafes, require 4-5" before the bullet is expanded and the wound channel develops.

Yes, the fusion bullet opens up fairly fast to offer a good wound channel, but they shed a lot of weight as they penetrate leaving a trail of lead and copper in the wound channel with minimal penetration.

My opinion is penetration first, then secondly evaluate the wound channel effeciency. Without an exit hole it is hard to track animals. In the Northwest were I hunt, we have this red leaved ground cover that makes traking difficult.

TBG,

That's a nice buck!

Bought an old pre64 in 30-06 recently and since I didn't have time to reload for it before the season I bought a box of Fusion 180, HE (High Energy) Partition 180 and 180 TSX. Used the Fusions for sighting in but not great groups out of em (1.5"-2"). THe HE Partitions also grouped about 2". The 180 TSX shot sub MOA groups at 100 and 200 yards and bulleye at my 300yard gong. Couple of days later, shot a 105 doe at 160 yards with the 180 TSX. Small hole in, quarter size hole out but upon cleaning her, the ribcage had a good 2"-2.5" hole in both sides. She did a bang/flop. The TSX is not 'too tough' for little whitetails though it may be a 'bit much'.

If you want penetration and reasonable expansion without high cost you should try the Speer 180 grain spitzer and Mag Tip bullets. The Mag Tip retains more weight than the Partition when shot into test media but I haven't been able to recover one yet from a deer or a feral hog. In my opinion a lot of the new bullets are built to add sales hype. A thick jacket for a bit more than half the bullets length is better than a thin one bonded or not.

Big Guy: If you like Seirra bullets, you might give the ProHunters a try. I havent been able to shoot any game with them yet but they did as well as Nosler Partitions on some water tests for penetration and expanded to a greater diameter. The partition lost its front core while the ProHunter held together. This was in a 6.5 but 308s ought to be similar. Sierra rates the ProHunters as a tougher bullet than the GameKings...Rusty.

I shot a large doe last friday at 240 yards with my 243 win and the 95 grain fusion bullet. She dropped on the spot and it turns out I hit her farther back than I wanted to and took out both rear legs. Meat damage was minimal but both rear femurs were completely shattered and I recovered the bullet on the far side hide. I have pictures but dont have them on this computer yet, The bullet opened up quite a bit and ended up at 71.5 grains. The kill required a follow up shot which I took from about 20 yards and it hit her directly in the neck, breaking the spine and believe it or not I recovered that bullet also. That one shed more weight but I was still impressed, it weighed in at 67 grains. Both bullets stayed in one piece for the most part and I am impressed with their accuracy. I was a little disappointed in their penetration but the first shot, breaking both rear femurs in a nice large doe and dropping her in the spot is nothing I can complain about. I will try to get some pictures of each bullet posted asap and Im going hunting again in the morning, searching for an elusive buck, so I might have more information to post later, hopefully!

Here is the picture of my .243 Fusion bullet that I mentioned in a previous post. It was shot into a whitetail doe and ended up with 70% weight retention which isnt too bad.

I hunt across the river from Kenny Jarette's farm on a 4,800 acre farm. How is your season going? We have killed just a normal amount (8-8+ points bucks, & 22 does) for this point of the season but did not really have a rut, maybe it was the moon. We don't have any acorns but the food plots are in really good shape.

I too think the Fusions are too fragile. The much maligned Ballitic Tips perform better than they do in my opinion ON MY TYPE OF GAME, deer and hogs. Perhaps the Fusion fragility is a sometime thing, but that's not good enough. I'm restricting myself to rib cage shots or varmints with them. I've got less than a box of .300 Win Mags left and a box of .243s I bt for my son's gun. When they are gone I won't replace them with Fusions. And, yes, I reload, but I've got more hunting, fishing, and work to do than time to reload.