7mm-08 Etip exit wounds and blood trails

Firemedic92

Active member
Joined
Apr 24, 2019
Messages
60
Curious what kind of exits and blood trails you guys are getting with the Etips at 7mm-08 velocities?
 
Broadside behind the shoulder shots. Or for that matter any of them. They shoot really well in my rifle but I have never shot any game with a mono bullet.
 
I don't usually have huge blood trails with rifle shots. There have been a few times I brew up something's heart and had blood gush out while they ran about 40yds.
 
I shot barnes tsx bullets from my 7mm Rem Mag on a plains game safari in South Africa. It was the first time I had used all copper bullets on game. As other guys have noted, I observed smaller exit wounds than with standard lead core bullets, maybe the size of a quarter. Also less bloodshot area/damage when the game was skinned. Blood trails depended on shot placement. Penetration was amazing. When shooting large animals with a smaller caliber, the copper bullets really improved performance. I had complete pass thrus on kudu, gemsbok, and hartebeest, often breaking shoulder bones on the way thru. On the smaller antelope, I was less impressed, pencil hole sized entrance and exits. I'm sure the bullet was expanding, but it did not look like much. With lead core bullets I had always experienced "bang, flop" on deer sized game. My grey duiker took a double lung hit, ran maybe 100 yds, and the tracker had to dispatch him with his knife when he found him.
 
Broadside behind the shoulder shots.

I've never made that shot and had to worry about a blood trail...

I have used coreloks, barnes match grade, partitions, swift A-frames, and Etips.

Coreloks - couldn't get them to group, period (9 inch groups at 50 yards)
Barnes Match - exploded, worked ok in broad side shots, but not a good hunting bullet
Partitions- They did fine, used them on 1 elk, 1 pronghorn, and 2 deer. They came apart in the animal, only the shot on the pronghorn and elk had pass-throughs
Swift A-frames - Phenomenal bullet, clean pass throughs on broadside shots, decent sized exit hole
Etips - Only used them once so far, on a bear, seemed to be similar performance to the Swift A-frames

Personally I don't like bullets that don't pass through on a broadside shot, as to me that suggests they wont make it far enough on a high shoulder shot or pass through the hind quarter on a poorly placed quartering away shot. I don't recover the vast majority of my bullets for this reason.
 
Glad I click into this post bc my son shoots a 7mm08 and I am going to get a couple boxes of diff ammo that was suggested on here to see how he shoots and see if there is any difference in patterns.
 
I've never used Etips, but have used Barnes Vortx ammo and Federal Trophy Copper pretty much exclusively. I've never needed a blood trail for any recovery as animals have never gone far. The all copper bullets are very good at complete pass throughs which is really the only way to get a good blood trail IMO. My only 7mm08 experience was last year on an antelope with 120 grain barnes. Dropped like a stone and didn't budge.
 

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
110,805
Messages
1,935,062
Members
34,883
Latest member
clamwc
Back
Top