A lot happens in the milliseconds between deciding to shoot and the trigger breaking. I know, only take a shot you’re certain of, but I was glad to have the penetration of a copper bullet when a slight quartering away turned into a Texas heart shot right as I fired at a cow a few years ago.
My experience says that this is bs.
I used the 308 as my main rifle for years. And pretty much always shot 165gr Hornady SP in it. Have never shot an animal with it I could complain about the bullet with. While in Alaska I carried it fishing into remote areas and tried a number of different bullets. Even took that time to try some 150gr bullet's, Would never give them another shot, lousy shooting. But I tried 180 gr Hornadys and they surprised me they shot so well. But also tried 200 gr Speer Hot Core. They did not shoot any where near as well as the 180's at 100 yds but at 50 yds were great. I also felt that the Speer 200gr HC would be a better bullet should we have bear trouble relatively close and at 50 yds were acceptable accuracy wise. But here in the lower 48 my choice would always be the 165gr Hornady as It served me so well for so many years. The 150 shot so badly in my rifle I'd never try them again. Also I test shot those 165gr bullets into newspaper and Hornady bullet's retained 85% of their weight but the bullet was loose in the jacket. Did the same with 160gr Speer HC in a 7mm mag and they also retained 85% of their weight but the cores stayed tight in the jacket. Didn't try lighter bullet's in the 7mm mag other than hunting and will only say that most the other cup and core bullet's at 7mm mag velocity's simply blew up hitting the animals. I'm a big believer in 7mm Speer HC bullet's, know little to nothing about their other bullets! This year I switched my 6.5x06 and 6.5x55 to Speer HC bullet's and simply started out with them in my new 260 Rem. I used Hornady for all those years because results were so good with them but in that old 7mm mag, The Speer HC's were slightly more accurate. Truth is in those days that really lit my trigger. The 160's out shot the Hornady 155gr SP by about 1/16" if I remember right, pretty thin excuse!
cool
Something you'll discover about re-loader's is they all have what they thing is the prefect bullet! And to tell the truth, if they can properly place the bullet then they will find out they do have a great bullet. Then of course there's the other side that has never had the perfect bullet!
Sounds like a heck of a season Guy! Thank you, and everyone else for the advice in this thread.
One of the reasons I went with the Accubonds was the reviews of the early ballistic tips. I’ve also heard that they’re better now, but I’m extremely happy with the Accubonds, their performance for me, and I get the “blems” from SPS - now from Nosler, for the discount price.
I am very similar. I had bad experiences with the old ballistic tips out of my .270 (blew up on deer shoulders on quartering shots), so I went to the Accubond. I love that bullet out of the 30-06 (165) and 270 (140), but have historically used the ballistic tips for rough load development and practice since they were cheaper and shot very similarly to the Accubonds. Now I have so many 308 165 Accubonds through the old SPS that I have considered going to it in my .308 Win since my stock has been low on the NBTs. I was recently able to acquire some more 308 165 NBTs for a fair price and will quite possibly just stick with them… even though I have less cost per bullet in the NABs by a small amount
