Which would be the better bullet to use on whitetail out of my 243 AI, the 90gr ballistic tip or the 90gr accubond ?

Ballistic Tip. Accubonds tend to be inconsistant.

Yes------

Personally I would not use BT.
The ballistic tip is in my opinion to much of a grenade on deer in a 243 for angled shots.

The Accubond can be good if you can get it to be accurate in your gun.
I have heard people have problems with the accuracy with them.

Personally I would use the 80 grain Barnes TTSX bullet for Whitetails.

I would use the 95 grain ballistic tip. I know it's only 5 grans more but it supposedly has a thicker jacket and is built a little tougher.

quote:

Originally posted by Norwegianwoods:
Personally I would not use BT.
The ballistic tip is in my opinion to much of a grenade on deer in a 243 for angled shots.

The Accubond can be good if you can get it to be accurate in your gun.
I have heard people have problems with the accuracy with them.

Personally I would use the 80 grain Barnes TTSX bullet for Whitetails.

Ditto! Norwegianwoods is exactly right.

I have used both 90 and 95 BTs out of my 240 weatherby with good success on antelope. I would take the 95 grain though, if they are available.

I've become a huge fan of the Accubond over the past few years. Pretty much quit the Partition in favor of the accubond. I vote Accubond.

quote:

Originally posted by Pancho:
I've become a huge fan of the Accubond over the past few years. Pretty much quit the Partition in favor of the accubond. I vote Accubond.

+ Several



Best,

GWB

I'd do the Accubond as well, at 243 velocities. I know they've stiffened up the BTs, but I had several disintegrate in days past, and haven't used them since.

Our family of four boys has used Ballistic tips for everything from elk to ground squirrels with out any failures of any kind.

Accuracy has been superb and it was accuracy in the BT that lead us to change from Sierra HP BT Match Grade 52g .224 bullets for varmint usage. Distances have been from 70 yards to 450 yards on the big game and the bullets have never "blown up" on the surface. Very effective bullet.

I've shot average size mule deer with a 40g. NBT out of a hot .223, with a 50g NBT out of a hot 22-250 and with a 55g NBT out of a hot .243 with great accuracy and wonderful performance.

My vote is accubonds up to 30 cal , 30 cals I have not been able to tell the difference.Whatever is most accurate. When I was young I shot whitetails with a 22 swift using factory yellow box super X and 48 gr sp's, norma 50 ammo. In my older days and a collection of many centerfires I go 25 cal and up. I just love the 30 cal let the air out, dead right there , drop in track,go get the truck bang flop.Heck even with the .25 they usually do a little rodeo kick or buck, plow with the nose 10 yard dance. Just my 2 cent. very best

I use Accubo0nds for pretty much everything I load.

Use either. Ninety-eight times out of 100 either bullet will yield the same final results. One time out of a hundred the B.Tip will get you a deer when the Accubond might not have; and one time out of a hundred the Accubond will hang a deer on the meat pole when a B.Tip might not have. If in the area you are hunting the deer average just over 100 lbs, then lean toward the B.Tip. If the deer are big hogs in the 200 lb range (or if you expect to get a shot at actual hogs that large ), then lean toward the Accubond.

I have not used this particular paring of Ballistic Tips and Accubonds, but in other parings of the same weight and caliber each bullet has shot to the same point of impact and with the same accuracy as the other when using the same load.

Sort of like Stonecreek said. It depends, for me, where you are and the size of the deer. For a southern smaller deer, BT is great. For a 200# doe like I shot a couple years ago, I would feel more comfortable with the AB.

Perhaps I should amplify my previous post on the subject of Accubonds vs. Ballistic tips.

For load development 24 caliber and above I just about always start with ballistic tips.

I do some paper punching, but all is done with the the taking of game as the objective.

I may kill 4 to 6 deer a year depending on whether an exotic wanders in front of my rifle. In a good year I will shoot 50 or so hogs.


I can’t even begin to count the number of critters I’ve killed with ballistic tips. However, many times Ballistic tips do not pass through and leave an exit hole, nor a blood trail.

Due to the nature of the terrain that I hunt, should an animal not be DRT, I want a blood trail that can be followed in the dark. Two holes, one going in, and one coming out, doubles the chances of having a blood trail.

Here is an example.



I call this the canopy. It is a 164 yd. shot. The opening is probably about 30’ in diameter or less. If you look closely you can see a dead hog underneath the spin cast feeder. At dark-thirty if the critter ain’t DRT, and a blood trail can’t be found within 10’ of POI, the animal is usually lost. Unlike they do on TV, there is no going out the next day to recover your animal. Within hours the ants, bugs other hogs, coyotes and the temps conspire against ya’.





I’ve shot multiples of animals with the Accubonds. Have yet to have one not pass through.

That plus the fact that they fly like a ballistic tip is why I shoot Accubonds.

Best,

GWB

Man, it looks like you are shooting from a water tower. How high is that blind?

Scott,
whoever put up some of the frames on this lease must have had some heavy duty equipment. This stand is on the top of one of the highest hills on our lease. Eye height is probably about 20'.

Here is a view from the spin cast feeder in the previous picture back up the hill.



I've recently added another spin cast feeder at about 160 degrees to the north. The upright of the open bump-gate at 11 o'clock to the feeder is 675 yds.





and a couple views back up the hill. This feeder is 174 yds. according to my rangefinder.








Between November 1st and November 16th I had 251 pix on the game cam.........













about a dozen were in the daytime. The rest were at night. Hogs are just about totally nocturnal right now.

May just have to start sleeping during the day and hunting at night.

Best,

GWB

That is a pretty cool set up. You can glass all around. It's the exact opposite of my set up. I'm in a ground blind in the woods with very little visibility. Shots are short but extremely fast.

My favorite topic, I get to expound upon my bullet knowledge a little bit.

I love my ballistic tips and think they are the perfect thin skinned game round. These bullets are explosive and have taken numerous game for me but I learned that sectional density is a very important attribute when selecting them, IE: the 130 grainers did not perform equal to the 150's in my 270 Win. Core seperation and inconsistent penetration showed numerous times with the 130's but never with the 150's. The additional sectional density allowed for a longer expansion window without experiencing core seperation and full penetration. This all equates to a quicker and cleaner kill.

Fast forward to the new ACCUBOND. Now we have a bonded core that will not experience core separation. This will result in deeper penetration from less sectional density so I can now enjoy the vurtues of the 130 grain bullets without sacrificing terminal performance. That being said, it has also limited the expansion characterisics of the original ballistic tip meaning that it is now more controlled, IE: a tad less violent for lack of a better word.

All told, the new accubond has opened the door for the smaller/lighter/faster bullet crowd and offered them a better performing bullet over the ballistic tip but I would not select it for the heavier side. There is plenty of sectional density to prevent core separation and still get violent quick expansion with the heavier selected ballistic tip.

Just my opinion

I shot the 95gr in a 6RemAI for antelope and now that I have 243AI I'll use same bullet.

I dont really trust BT's in the smaller calibers. Get enough of a BT on small enough game and it will do a bang up job. I have killed several mulies with 115 gn 257 BT's but frankly they do not inspire confidence in me. I think you are better off with a hornady interlock or a speer hot core with those smaller calibers. Partition even better yet.

With that much said, I have done some torture tests with larger caliber BT's that were downright impressive. I also agree with Gdubya, Accubonds are fantastic hunting bullets.

quote:

Originally posted by Geedubya:

quote:

Originally posted by Pancho:
I've become a huge fan of the Accubond over the past few years. Pretty much quit the Partition in favor of the accubond. I vote Accubond.

+ Several

Best,

GWB

for a cheap cup and core bullet, the AB's arent bad at all...

BT's and game are only for people that dont understand what bullet failure means

quote:

Originally posted by TEANCUM:
Our family of four boys has used Ballistic tips for everything from elk to ground squirrels with out any failures of any kind.

teancum, please don't be insulted, or angry at being an example .. EVERY bullet that is shot at game and doesn't have a 70% or higher weight retention in a single piece is, by definition, a bullet failure ..

funny thing, SSTs in my 7x64, 270, 308, and 3006 give awfully close to those results...

ABs? i only use them in my 257, and as yet have recovered a bullet to measure... but there is an exit wound, not crater ...

quote:

Originally posted by jeffeosso:
EVERY bullet that is shot at game and doesn't have a 70% or higher weight retention in a single piece is, by definition, a bullet failure ..

Damn, I guess Partitions are failures too since they usually are under that 70% mandate for success. I think every animal I ever killed died of bullet failure.

I would not be adversed to using either on whitetail, but I would prefer the Accubond hands down..With a hot 22 or a 6mm, many times the bullet does not exit, and it will kill like a bolt of lightening OR the deer will run off, leave no blood as its bleeding internally, and they can run a long ways and crawl into some awsome places and you may never find them.

I suspect the Accubond will make two holes evry time..I know it normally does on Mule Deer and elk in the 7x57 or 30-06..I have some loaded in my .338 Win but have not shot anything with them yet.

No offense taken.

My definition of bullet failure is different from yours. By the way, where does the 70% of weight retention number come from?

My definition is more of the results on the game from a properly placed shot. If the shot is placed in the correct spot and the critter is not taken due to the bullet disintegrating on impact, no penetration to the vitals, or a "pencil" job then in my book those are failures of the bullet in a general sense. Of the deer that I've shot with a NBT,and usually it's from a small caliber at high speeds, most in not all of my kills would be classified as failures using your definition. However the deer lying there dead says to me that it performed it's task.

I wish I could cite the article and maybe it was in a issue of Handloader about a lad that looked into all the components and tasks that we as reloaders go though to produce the most accurate rounds. He looked at and isolated many of those and concluded that the largest contribution to accuracy for a reloader was the quality of the bullet. He went on to mention some of the more exotic target rounds that produced this greater accuracy and mentioned that of the broad based appealing bullets, he found the NBT to be outstanding.