nosler ballistic tip

[sharpshooter94]

has anyone used the nosler ballistic tip here? If so please post your results with that bullet. Also if you could give the weight of the bullet too. I don't necessarily want to know your hardworked for loads but if you really have a desire to post them I guess I could deal with some ideas.;)

[Fuzzball3]

Yes. Now, could you be a little more specific about what cartridge and what use you are concerned with? That does make a difference.

[Sidekick]

I made a reduced load for a 30/06 using 150 grn. BT's for my Mother to deer hunt with.
She will only take the behind the shoulder shot and has had nothing but great results with it. I think the reduced velocity helps prevent the overexpansion problems that they can be known for. Her deer almost always drop in their tracks. I use them in my 22-250 also. Very deadly and violent performance. I use the Hornady SST in my 270 and 300Wby. They seem to be a bit tougher in construction than the BT but still give good performance.

[Hi Ball]

Sharpshooter the Nosler Ballistic Tip bullets used to give very poor results on big game animals. There jackets were just to fragial and often separated from the core. I have also seen a lot of meat damage to whitetail and mulie deer from these bullets in prior decades gone by ok. They make a great bullet for taking coyotes and vermin alike but not for use on big game your going to put on the table later down the road.

Now in recent years, the past 3 or 4, it seems as though Nosler has taken some steps in trying to rectify the problem with Ballistic Tip Bullets. I purchased a couple boxes of those that were marked for hunting big game, in the 25-06 caliber but never really got around to running any tests on them. All in all they may be A-OK for hunting Mulie's etc but I never really wanted to take a chance. One should run a penetration test on them and shoot them into some kind of media so you will know positively what the results are OK. I love the Nosler Partitions and use them a lot in my 25-06 for deer the last 15 years or so. ;) :D

[sharpshooter94]

I am looking to use the ballistic tips in a 30/06 possibly with a reduced load. I just feel like I shoot better without thinking about a powerful shot to the shoulder after I pull the trigger. I have since found the hornady interlock sst's. The reviews I have read for them are much better than the ones for the ballistic tip. I was looking at the nosler partitions as suggested but I found them to be much more costly than I would like to be shooting.

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

I loaded some N BTs for #1 son once. They were 130 gr .277 fo rhis 270. I loaded them over 59 gr H4831SC (just like every other 130 gr 270 load I do). He lost two deer using them. He killed a few more than he lost but the losses stand out more in my memory. Both losses were, in my opinion, due to bullet failure. Of course that is only opinion. The failure may not have been that the bullet behaved badly or did not do what it was designed to do. It simply failed to kill the deer. For hunting deer (which is all I hunt + hogs) I prefer a lead core, lead tipped, jacketed bullet in a Green box and sometimes in a red box.

Alan

[Sidekick]

Sharpshooter, I use the 140 SST in my .270 and a 180 in my cousins .300WBY. They work great. I killed a deer just yesterday with my .270. Straight pass through shot at about 75 yds. Blew heart in half and there was a chunk of lung the size of a fishstick hanging out the exit wound. That's pretty typical performance for 20 plus deer so far. I'd use them with confidence.

Let me know if you want details on my Mothers reduced /06 load. It's a pleasure for her to shoot now.

[Sabre]

If I wanted to know how ballistic tips worked on deer I'd go shoot some deer with them. Never shot a deer through the lungs with anything that didn't result in a dead deer pretty damned quick and I've killed a bunch with thin skinned 50 grain varmint bullets out of a .222. Can't imagine a deer getting far after taking a ballistic tip through the lungs with any caliber from .243 on up. They just ain't that hard to kill.

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

The problems don't start until you miss the lungs. If, for whatever reasons, you don't then the BTs stop working well. They keep on doing what they were designed to do but they stop killing deer. Another type bullet, that holds together through muscle, gut or bone, will/may travel on through to something vital and kill the deer. The best hunter/marksmen make bad shots from time to time. BTs are less forgiving at those times.

Alan

[postoak]

I've used the 120 grains in the 6.5 x 55 and the 130 grains in the .270 WCF. Both performed nicely on the 100 pound deer we have in my part of Texas. I don't think I would choose them for northern deer, altho I think they'd be "OK".

[Sabre]

The problems don't start until you miss the lungs. If, for whatever reasons, you don't then the BTs stop working well. They keep on doing what they were designed to do but they stop killing deer. Another type bullet, that holds together through muscle, gut or bone, will/may travel on through to something vital and kill the deer. The best hunter/marksmen make bad shots from time to time. BTs are less forgiving at those times.

Alan

The Irony is that I've only lost two rifle shot deer in my whole life. One with a .35 Rem. and 200 grain power point and the other with a 7x57 and handloaded 154 grain Hornady spire point. Never lost one with the .222, 22-250 or .243, despite the fact that I shot a lot more deer with those cartridges and relatively light, fragile bullets.

[Perry]

A few years back, I was using them out of my 30-06 and actually stoped using them due to the fact they ripped the deer up something fierce. I never had a deer take a step when I hit them with ballistic tips, which is a good thing, but i prefer to not blow half the meat of of the deer lol.

[Cap-N-Red]

I use the 100grn in my 257 Roberts and the 140 in my 7X57 both perform great on deer. I've shot does through both front shoulders with my 257 and haven't recovered a spent bullet yet. They've been pass thru shots.

[Smitty5]

I have used the 165 gr BT's in my 30-06 pushed to 2600 fps and they are quick killers for sure! I don't think these bullets were designed for the mostly under 100 yard shots I get and they are pretty destructive if you hit a meaty area of the deer. However just about any 30-06 load is pretty destructive at short range.

[Ol` Joe]

The 7mm 140gr BT worked very well on a whitetail from a 708 a couple years back. I don`t recall the exact velocity but I`m sure it was in the 2650 fps range and the distance was under 50 yds. In tight behind one shoulder and out around the last rib on the other side. Dead deer right there, the damage appeared to be comparable to a 139 gr Hornady SP to me from the same rifle.
Lately I`ve been toteing 120 gr BTs in my 260 @ 2900 fps but the deer haven`t been working with me.

[GF.]

You know, I don't think any bullet ever made has created as many heated discussions as the NBT.

Don Wald, bless him, had fantastic results with a 160 out of his .280 - every single time. But he also took long shots, near-perfect broadside angles, and double-lunged everything he shot, so he probably could have used the Greenbox 120 grain HP varmint bullets and done just as well...

I put one 140-grainer through the lungs of a doe down in Alabama with my 7-08, and she ran about 50 yards, leaving only fine red spray as sign. Big exit wound, and you could hear the insides slosh when you moved the carcass. Oh, and they shot like crazy out of my rifle.

After that one shot, though, I had a few issues. Next deer I shot, I pulled about 8" to the rear and centered the paunch. It never left the stomach and peeled back to an empty jacket, but I really can't fault the bullet. Walked up to the deer, she got up to run, and I put one just right of the base of her tail. That stopped her and the bullet alike. Never found more of it than a few scattered fragments. And stopped her, yes, but didn't put her down, so I shifted POA to a rib and hit her a third time, at which point she tipped over dead.

Oddly enough, the last shot only pushed her over, which at that point I believe could have been accomplished with little more than a feather, because the bullet broke up immediately on impact and spun back out into space without ever entering the chest cavity.

Freak? Maybe, but Herne sure has a deep-seated distaste for them, and he's seen more deer fall than most of us will ever see, period..

So long story short, I won't use them any more, except to burn up the remaining supply in target practice or maybe going after some late-season coyotes...

But if recoil is an issue for you, check out the specs for the Rem Managed Recoil line; those bullets are intended by the manufacturer to expand adequately at the MVs and impact velocities that are likely to be involved. At 1/3 off, the muzzle energies are on par with a standard, 150-grain .30-30 round. I'm looking into the MR load for my 7-08, simply because the standard load is basically overkill for the way I hunt and this way I can get 7-30 Waters performance (and hopefully a bit less hearing damage!) without the expense of setting up a bench or buying another rifle.

[TERMINATOR]

Bottom line...if you are hunting where you shots are less than 75 yards as the norm and you are using the Nosler BT you are using the wrong bullet...especially if driving them from a long action cartridge like .30-06 or .270 (or .280) or heven forbid a mag in those calibers.

The BT was designed for the when the shots are long and velocity dropping off. Ranges where the boattail and perfect tip combine to get the most possible performance with the least wind drift and bullet drop.

I have killed whitetail and mule deer with them with shots from 100-350 yards...double lung, quartering toward, quartering away and they drop like they where hit with a sledghammer. I have recovered a couple of 165 grain .30s fired from an .30-06 that were from 200-250 yards on quartering away shotswhere the bullet entered the chest behind the near shoulder and went through the lungs lodging in the off shoulder. Those bullets were perfect mushrooms. I have never recovered one on a double lung shot at over 100 yards.

The only failure I have seen was my son hitting a buck at 30 yards with a 165 grain BT in a hot handload I made up for his .30-06. He hit the buck on the near shoulder at bow range and it overexpanded and barely made it through the shoulder. With those same loades he has put them through the near shoulder, through the lungs and into the off shoulder at 226 paces.

That proved to me what I should have already known...he had the wrong load to be hunting the swamp at bow ranges but we had been too lazy to work up a new load with a tougher, heavier bullet or just buy some Rem Core-loks and re-zero.

Bottom line, use the the Nosler BT for what it was designed for and it is a great bullet. Antelope, Mule Deer or Field Whitetails...perfect.

But if you take them into the swamp for bow range shots the fault is with the hunter's ammo choice not the bullet....

[Clark]

In the last 3 years I have killed 11 deer: 8 with ballistic tips, 2 with VLD, and one with SST.

For a broadside shot of a standing animal with the rifle on a bi - pod, the ballistic tips could not work better. Just aim for the front 1/3 of the animal, and out to 500 yards, they either bang flop, or run 50 yards and pile up.

[Chuck S]

I've shot a few Pronghorns with the old and new BTs. The results were the same as they are killers but the old ones did tear up a lot of meat on the way through and out. The newer ones do tear up a bit when compared to a more sturdy bullet but nothing undue for a through the lungs chest shot.