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Plastic tip bullets

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4onaside

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Anybody had any experience with polymer tip bullets, such as Nosler Ballistic tips or Hornady SST's? I have read a bunch of reviews and the love/hate remarks seem to be about even, well actually more love than hate. What say ye?
 
I use BT's in my 270 and 30.06 and love'em.

Yote1A.jpg


This a yote that I shot last Sat (5Jan) with a 270 Win tipped with 130gr Nosler BT at about 140yds. I shot a deer the same day and the hole was about the same size from about 110 yds.
 
The reason that I asked, was that I have some .270 bullets layin' around, and some brass beggin' to be filled. None of these are new, but I have some 130 bt's and some 130 pro-hunters, some 150 bt's and some 150 gamekings. I have been loading all of my 130's with 55 grs of 4350, but with all of the meat destruction bt talk that I have read, I believe that I will load those and back off to about 52 grs. Maybe the reduced velocity will still poleax the critter without unnecessary meat destruction. Actually, I have always been a proponent of leaving as much energy as possible inside the animal, and I think that bt's do that. Once it penetrates the vitals jacket and core separation is fine with me. But I have not shot any game with them and just wanted some opinions.
 
before season I loaded about 125 rounds of the hornaday 150 grain SST's. Loved the grouping but when I took them to the woods that was another story. Opening day shot a 8 point and the bullet did a complete thur and did not expand. Didn't think to much about it at first, but after hitting 5 does and knocking them down, and they would get up and run off without one drop of blood, I switched back to my seria bullets.

Saw a 200 grain MZ Hornaday SST bullet that was pulled from a deer and it was still intact and never expanded.

So I can say I don't like them.
 
Allen Sullivan said:
before season I loaded about 125 rounds of the hornaday 150 grain SST's. Loved the grouping but when I took them to the woods that was another story. Opening day shot a 8 point and the bullet did a complete thur and did not expand. Didn't think to much about it at first, but after hitting 5 does and knocking them down, and they would get up and run off without one drop of blood, I switched back to my seria bullets.

Saw a 200 grain MZ Hornaday SST bullet that was pulled from a deer and it was still intact and never expanded.

So I can say I don't like them.
Click to expand...
That's very interesting Allen, because the usual rap on the plastic tips that I read is that they explode on the surface, mushroom too soon, come apart, etc. I believe that you are the first that I have heard who reported not enough or no expansion. I went ahead and loaded a box of ballistic tips today using 53 grs of 4350. I antelope hunt, and occasionally I get an opportunity at less than whitetail ranges. Nosler recommends that velocity does not exceed 3,000 fps at impact, so I loaded MZ velocity at slightly under that and yet at a level that would still do the job at 2 or 300 yards. I sawed a 130 gr ballistic tip lengthwise today along with a sierra pro-hunter for comparison. The nosler has a pretty thick solid copper base that is not present in the sierra,other than the same as the side jacket thickness, and the jacket is apparently thicker than the sierra, at least up to midway toward the front. However, the bt thickness appears to taper toward the front and that was not apparent to me with the pro-hunter.
 
Since I've been using 150 grain ballistic tips in my .30-06 and my 7 mag, I've had really good results with both guns...killed 5 deer - only one of the deer even took a step. She ran about 30 yards. They seem to shoot pretty tight groups as well...
 

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