[Handloader]

I have used 150 and 165 Nosler Ballistic Tips in my 30-06 for some time with good results and good accuracy. I have also shot allot of Sierra 165 gr BTSP with good results. Just remember that a bullet can not and should not have to take up the slack for a bad shot. Alsmost any bullet and mfg that you select and your rifle likes will do the job if you do your job and put the bullet in the old boiler room.

 

[whitehunter35]

All things relative

Gentlemen,

I had a real nice 9 pointer ease up out of the thicket at tobacco spitting distance a few years back. I busted it in the shoulder with a 308, load was a 150 nosler ballistic tip. Too close to miss, imagine my surprise when the thing arched in the middle, and did its very finest question mark imitation. Gut shot? how in the heck?

That ballistic tip struck the shoulder, turned left, and tried to make its exit out the long way, all the while flaking itself to pieces. I found the deer, and the knife work, well......my nose hairs have just now started to grow back. Just a shade messy.

Not that I don't like ballistic tips, as they shoot really well, but that broke me from sucking eggs regarding shooting anything in the shoulder with light/ lightly constructed bullets in the hardwoods. I think they work great in the fields, and use them there almost exclusively with very acceptable results.

I think that one's selection should be relative to the condition and eivironment that one finds himself, provided the point of impact is close enough for government work. For my 06, I shoot a 150 ballistic tip in the big fields, a 180 round nose sierra in the woods, and a 165 grain hornady as a compromise load, where a close or long shot is possible. All three work pretty fair, and ought to be plenty for deer.....with the exception of the Roswell variety mentioned previous.

Have fun, shoot a great big one.

Steve

 

[IDShooter]

Whitehunter35 is quite right, matching an appropriate bullet to it's intended use is of the utmost importance. As for myself, I don't switch rifles or loads for different hunting circumstances since I can find 10yd shots in the brush or 300 yd shots across clearcuts all in the same hunting area all on the same day. That's why I prefer a tougher boolit than the ballistic tips. And I feel that a shoulder shot is a perfectly acceptable shot and is sometimes the OPTIMAL shot depending on the angle of the animal and the terrain. So, an adequate boolit for my application needs to break shoulders and penetrate at 10 yds and still expand at 300. Combine this with the fact that sometimes we are hunting deer and elk at the same time and you'll see why the Partition is so hard to beat, and why I personally won't ever use the ballistic tip again. I don't condem them for all applications, but they don't suit me. I think this is the type of usage that MikeG referred to and why he recommended the Partition load. You really CANNOT go wrong with the partition. ID

On that note, I'm trying the Barnes X-boolits this year! It seems to be the only one that might give the Partition a run for it's money (besides the really expensive boolits out there) and may give better penetration, a plus for elk.

 

[Charlie Z]

TQ, Was that a Texas Whitetail Doe you asked about or a Texas Elk? I think we have concensus that you should not use the Nosler BTs on Texas Elk.

 

[IDShooter]

"Texas Elk" are Piggies! (Or exotics...)

 

[MikeG]

Oink!!!

I think the term 'Texas Tank' is pretty appropriate for what we have here. Maybe I'll call them Texas Elk - sounds more refined.

I have actually seen a few elk in central Texas but they were obviously imported as exotics from somewhere else.

By the way TQ did not ever say that he had seen pigs or planned to shoot them, that was an assuption on my part. But the pig population around here is getting out of hand and chances are very good that TQ will be seeing them one of these days.

 

[IDShooter]

Oink!

Yeah Mike, I thought you would appreciate the "Texas Elk"!

Kind of off the original topic, but speaking of pigs, a friend of mine shot a boar with his bow. It was a good chest hit but the pig made it into a pond. So Jack shot at the head, which was the only part visible. The arrow stuck straight into the forehead between the eyes, and that's exactly how he had the head mounted! IDShooter

 

[MikeG]

Love to see that!

It's a goal of mine to have a skull mount of a big pig with tusks.... with a .45 cal hole right between the eyes. I'll tell the ignorant that it was a three-eyed pig....

 

[al_sway]

I have not shot anything with a .30-06, but I have used my .308 Winchester quite a bit. I would suspect bullet performance would be quite similar.
I have had good luck with the Hornady 150 grain Spire Point (flat base) Interlock. Nothing fancy but it has gone completely through a large northern whitetail on a broadside shot at 150 yards (I realize that is the easiest shot, but the the buck was a large one that weighed 150 pounds at the butcher, without hide, legs or head).
In your post you say that the exit wound was small. Most bullets that are well designed, such as the Winchester Power Point, will have their maximum expansion inside the body and by the time it reaches the hide on the far side, it sill punch a hole through the tough, elastic, hide that is little larger than bullet diameter.
I am not convinced you need anything fancy. I will continue to happily hunt the large northern whitetail with the conventional bullets.
My favourite cartridge for deer, by the way, is the .257 Roberts with any 117 or 120 grain bullet.

 

[kdub]

You've got some good choices going there, Al -

And, you're right on the bullet performance. Unless hitting bone and deforming, most soft points such as the Hornady Interlock bullet will have an entrance hole the size of the bullet and a exit hole about the size of a quarter. I'm talking cartridges loaded to normal velocities for the bullet.

The last Coues deer I shot at approx. 150 yds with a 7mm Dakota with a 175 gr Remington soft point at 3100 fps MV left the off shoulder and leg hanging by a thread of skin. Nasty.

 

[2Bits]

Kdub.......Funny thing when a hunter speaks of using premium bullets, all he$$ breaks lose and 2 dozen posts come up telling him why for NOT.

Well, all I can say is that I learned a long time ago that using a 30-06 or 300 Win mag my bullet of choice is a 180 grain Nosler Partition, which has never mutilated deer meat to the tune of feeding it to the dogs.

The Nosler bullet also will take care of any roaming black bear or grizzly that might be in ones area, not to mention those Texas hogs....some call wild boar. The 180 grain gets the job done on a number of critters one might run into while hunting a foot.

 

[naumann]

In other threads I have spoken "against" the NEED for premium bullets in most cases. I still hold that they often aren't needed but I acknowledge that many of them work very well as others have stated above about Nosler Partitions.

I was very impressed in 2002 when I ended up taking a Pronghorn doe with my elk rifle. Ammo was Federal Premium 35 Whelen with 225 gr. Trophy Bonded Bearclaw bullet. Range: 125 - 150 yds. My shot struck a rib just behind the right shoulder and exited between the ribs on the left side without hitting any other bones.

That heavy, 35 cal. bullet opened nicely, leaving a half-dollar sized exit wound. There was no meat loss and the animal piled up after a 75 yd. sprint. Who could ask for more out of any bullet under those conditions?

In 2003 I took a spike elk with ammo from the same box. The elk was standing still below me on a game trail at about 75 yds., broadside. The bullet angled between the ribs, through both lungs and just the very edge of the diaphragm (without hitting any abdominal organs) to lodge under the skin on the off side. After a 50 yd. dash he dropped on the game trail and quietly gave up the ghost.

The take home lesson for me: at $32/box this premium factory ammo showed amazing versatility in its terminal performance on these two animals despite the significant difference in their size and the range of the shots.

Is it worth $32 a box? Would plain vanilla bullets have worked just as well? Do I care?

Now that I am reloading I doubt I will buy premium factory ammo again. But I will certainly use what's left of this box for hunting as long as it lasts.

 

[2Bits]

Naumann, any hunter who uses those Speer TBBC bullets will soon find out what YOU and I already seem to know. They are well worth the extra $10 dollars a box for that ammo.

I have used them on several species of game animals, including African game as well. Plains game are just tuffer animals period when it comes to hitting them with a rifle bullet, at least I still think so to this day.

Those TBBC bullets did all I could ask as a hunter! A minimum damage to meat using a .338 magnum 225 grain bullet. The penetration was very deep and the expansion looked just like a picture of a mushroom everytime we recovered a bullet. The exist holes were around the size of a US 2bit piece.

I have shot over 60 head of game animals with that type of bullet and not one loss because of bullet failure. This was all done at close to ranges over 400 yards! I still have some of those bullets downstairs in my reloading room on a shelf for people to view. It just pays to use the premium bullets when hunting big game, especially a big dollar hunt. The insurance policy is dirt cheap!!!

 

[Hatch47]

I've pretty much always championed premium bullets with few exceptions. Since the bullet is actually what does the final job, and is basically the cheapest part of the overall equation, to me using cheap bullets is like putting recaps on a Corvette.

 

[2Bits]

I've pretty much always championed premium bullets with few exceptions. Since the bullet is actually what does the final job, and is basically the cheapest part of the overall equation, to me using cheap bullets is like putting recaps on a Corvette.

Hatch for years I had a friend how could not afford an expensive rifle like the Winchester model 70. I know that the model 70 is geared for the working man, but some just don't have that kind of money still yet today. In his eyes my model 70 is a very expensive rifle, he will never own to his way of thinking. His rifle sports NO scope either. He was a man who lived in the Ozark Hill country and used a old military rifle to hunt and help feed his family. He bought that old rifle for $60 dollars in 1963.

He would also use lead window weights mixed with some other alloy, to make his cast bullets from and shoot out of that 30-06 military bolt gun he owned. I used to give him some Nosler partition bullets at least once a year. Once he started using them, he stated their ain't none he would buy but these in the future. "Them never lets a body down huntin" he would say. A hunter doesn't need that $3000 dollar rifle or the $1400 scope but you best surely load that magazine with what won't let you down and that is a premium bullet in a modern rifle on a big game high dollar hunt.

 

[Nathaniel]

Beause of my work schedule, (not enough time to re-sight in for varied loads), I'm currently a one load shooter in my '06s.

I stocked up on the Federal High Energy 180 grain Nosler Partition loads.

If things slow down to where I can "smell the roses" a little, I'd like to experiment with some 150 and 165 grain handloading using bullets I can trust.