I've been using the silvertips for years now, and I've only lost two deer that I remember. But I have killed numerous deer where I don't find blood or only a small amount of blood then the blood stops and it would take me a while to find the deer. But it does worry me when it come to a nice deer and the chance of not finding blood or any deer really. It would just really suck to know I just shot a really nice buck and can't find it, thats numerous nights of no sleep and questioning your self.

Some one told me about the Hornady GMX all copper. Just don't know any one that has used it.

I don't like ballistic tips. Use a mushrooming bullet that will penetrate hard and leave an exit hole. The exit hole is your best friend when tracking.

Yes everything is good. I just recently started questioning the ammo due to hearing numerous people state they would never shoot silver tips or any nosler loaded ammo due to no pass through. 90% of the time I find blood or the deer drops. But that 10% could cost you a nice deer!!

The idea behind ballistic tips or silver tips is that the bullet will fragment into pieces upon impact and become more like buckshot as it passes through the deer. The problem with that is the fragments do not have nearly as much penetrating ability as what one solid bullet would have. If you hit the deer in the shoulder then there’s a chance that the bullet with explode on impact and then the meat of the shoulder will absorb most of that penetrating punch from the fragments. Even if you don’t catch a lot of meat the fragments may still not pass all the way through the deer.

I used silver tips in my 30-30 for a while back when I used to shoot a lot more deer than I do now. I always shot deer behind the shoulder and the silver tips would make mush out of the inside of the body cavity….but I would often times find the fragments embedded in the off side rib cage and not get a pass through. That made for several tough tracks where there little to no blood and I quit using them.

The idea behind ballistic tips or silver tips is that the bullet will fragment into pieces upon impact and become more like buckshot as it passes through the deer. The problem with that is the fragments do not have nearly as much penetrating ability as what one solid bullet would have. If you hit the deer in the shoulder then there’s a chance that the bullet with explode on impact and then the meat of the shoulder will absorb most of that penetrating punch from the fragments. Even if you don’t catch a lot of meat the fragments may still not pass all the way through the deer.

I used silver tips in my 30-30 for a while back when I used to shoot a lot more deer than I do now. I always shot deer behind the shoulder and the silver tips would make mush out of the inside of the body cavity….but I would often times find the fragments embedded in the off side rib cage and not get a pass through. That made for several tough tracks where there little to no blood and I quit using them.

I shoot a .300 mag with win ballistic silver tips. They are wicked

They catch a lot of flack, but I have had great luck with Winchester's Deer Season XP's. I've killed six deer with them and have not had one run yet. They're also more affordable than Winchester Ballistic SilverTips.

I shoot the Winchester ballistic silver tips and I really like them and the damage they do.
They’re all I will shoot.


Entry

. My uncle lost one on a shoulder shot using a .300 Magnum. I tried to tell him the bullet wasn't designed to go that fast, but he had to find out for himself.

In my experiences with Winchester rifle ammo I would find something else.

Here's a good rule of thumb

Muzzle Velocity above 3300fps = Mono Bullets

Muzzle Velocity between 3000-3299fps = Bonded Bullets

Muzzle Velocity below 3000fps = any big game bullet


Of course this is MY rule of thumb and based on MY research and real world testing. But...there is a lot of truth to the above. The faster the bullet the more violent the entry. At 3300+ the Ballistic Tips have a higher probability of coming apart too quickly. At .308 speeds, or equivalent they can be absolutely devastating. Choose your bullets based on speeds in which you are pushing them.

I agree completely with your conclusions, though all of my experience with bullets faster than 2920 is based on what other people were using. I don't own any rifles faster than a .308 or 30/06. I have never hunted game bigger than deer and I don't hunt where I can see over 400 yards, so I have no use for anything bigger. My uncle had his 300 Magnum for a caribou hunt, and I think he developed a flinch from shooting the thing and has never been a good shot since.

The first deer I shot with a NBT was sometime in the early 90s. I saw a buck walking across a cutover at 180 yards and had to take a quick shot before he got across. He went out of sight at the shot and I didn't know if I had even hit him until I got there. I caught him high in the shoulder and had a fist sized entry with a small exit. I wish I had made a pic; it was the most devastating wound I've ever seen from any gun. A deer has no chance of surviving a hit like that.

So I then loaded some 120g NBT to shoot out of my 7x30 Contender at 2400 fps. I killed several deer with it, and then lost one of the biggest bucks I've ever seen on our place. He was directly facing me when I shot him, and I tracked blood the rest of the day and never recovered him. I switched to a 130g bonded bullet after that and never lost another one. If I'd been using that to start with I have no doubt the deer would have dropped on the spot.

An NBT is a great deer bullet in 30 caliber below 3000, but it's a bad choice in dinky calibers or at higher speeds.

I miss the old original silvertips! Left exit holes like soft balls!

The deer you lost wasn't because you shot a BT. You likely got off center and just clipped part of a lung or maybe just got shoulder. Yes,a better penetrating bonded or mono bullet might have helped if you were at an angle to reach other vitals after more penetration. That BT however acted just like about any cup and core bullet would have with that shot. A core lokt or inter lock may have done the exact same.

It also depends on which one you are shooting. A 120 grain 7mm Nosler BT is a very tough bullet. It was toughened to knock over silhouette targets for those guys when they complained about it.

In general however I do agree with the speed assessment.

I agree completely with your conclusions, though all of my experience with bullets faster than 2920 is based on what other people were using. I don't own any rifles faster than a .308 or 30/06. I have never hunted game bigger than deer and I don't hunt where I can see over 400 yards, so I have no use for anything bigger. My uncle had his 300 Magnum for a caribou hunt, and I think he developed a flinch from shooting the thing and has never been a good shot since.

The first deer I shot with a NBT was sometime in the early 90s. I saw a buck walking across a cutover at 180 yards and had to take a quick shot before he got across. He went out of sight at the shot and I didn't know if I had even hit him until I got there. I caught him high in the shoulder and had a fist sized entry with a small exit. I wish I had made a pic; it was the most devastating wound I've ever seen from any gun. A deer has no chance of surviving a hit like that.

So I then loaded some 120g NBT to shoot out of my 7x30 Contender at 2400 fps. I killed several deer with it, and then lost one of the biggest bucks I've ever seen on our place. He was directly facing me when I shot him, and I tracked blood the rest of the day and never recovered him. I switched to a 130g bonded bullet after that and never lost another one. If I'd been using that to start with I have no doubt the deer would have dropped on the spot.

An NBT is a great deer bullet in 30 caliber below 3000, but it's a bad choice in dinky calibers or at higher speeds.

PCP, just a quick note and totally unrelated but bullet speed and recoil don't always go hand in hand. Usually when I'm talking about high velocity bullets then I'm talking about 6mm 7mm and .257 bullets which can be shot extremely fast but without a bunch of recoil. My 25-06 handloads are pushing 3400fps but have the recoil of your.308.

I certainly understand that, and not quite sure what I said to make you think I didn't? Maybe me saying I had no need for anything bigger than a 308 or 30/06? I was thinking more along the lines of my uncle's 300 Magnum, and the fact that it's too fast for a NBT. Only reason I can see to use that in AL would be at longer ranges than I can see anywhere I hunt.

I've always thought felt recoil had more to do with the weight of the projectile than the velocity. At any rate, I don't think we are disagreeing on anything here.

My main point in getting involved in the thread is that for deer I think there is a pretty narrow range of bullet weight, diameter, and velocity for which the NBT is a great choice. But get very far from that ideal and it becomes a really bad choice.

You may be right, but keep in mind this was early 90s and the NBT back then supposedly fragmented worse than they do now. I was on a Contender forum back then and a lot of other hunters had bad experiences with that 120g bullet. The buck was chasing a doe, and the first thing I noticed was the size of his nose. I've never seen a deer that looked like him before or since. He was for sure over 200 lbs and going by body shape he was 7 or 8 and one tough hombre. It was a 75 degree morning the day after Thanksgiving and I was just hunting a doe. I heard him grunting as soon as I got in the stand and immediately wished I had brought the .308.

He grunted and chased her in the thicket for an hour or so, and finally she came out and made a circle by me. I had a rest, but I needed him stopped to try the shot. He stopped at 40 yards facing directly at me, and I put the cross hairs on the center of his chest and shot. His knees buckled, but it didn't even knock him down. Then he ran off hard and came right by me; had thick antlers about 20" wide but looked like just 6 points.

It is certainly possible that I was off center with the shot and only got one lung, but also very possible that tough rib cage deflected the bullet to one side, or even slowed penetration enough that it didn't get a vital at all. I sat in the tree for an hour, confident he would be dead within 100 yds. There wasn't a drop of blood or any sign of a hit. Obviously wasn't an exit, but any bullet would not likely have exited from that angle.

I spent an hour looking through a thicket and finally found blood a quarter mile away where he crossed a road. He had to have been bleeding from the entry, and there wasn't a whole lot. When I found that, I went back to camp and waited a couple of hours. I would have waited longer, and should have, but it was so hot I figured he would spoil if I didn't get him soon. I had other hunters coming that afternoon, but I was still alone at that point.

So I went back and picked up the trail where he crossed the road. Deer had been shot for 4 hours by then. I followed the trail about 200 yds and jumped him. I should have backed away again, but I checked out the bed to see how much blood was there, and it wasn't much. I felt sure at that point the bullet was in his chest cavity and hadn't just blown up on a shoulder. I walked a few yards to where he crossed a ditch to see if there was blood there and jumped him again. He had only gone about 100 yds. I backed off then and waited several hours before going back. I found one more drop of blood and never saw another sign of him. I looked for him until dark and then most of the next day. It was the worst deer hunting story of my life.

I can never know for sure exactly what happened, but I always thought the bullet got inside him and fragmented so much that it wasn't able to kill him. Whatever it was, I still get a sick feeling thinking about that deer. He would have been a great deer to take with a handgun. As I said, I switched to the bonded core bullet after that and never lost another deer with the gun. I will forever believe I would have killed that deer if I'd been using the bonded bullet that morning. I could be wrong.

Several years later I shot a 185 lb buck with the .308 and a BT from that same angle. It completely destroyed everything in his chest and it was like a mass of jello when I field dressed him. Not all NBT bullets are the same.

The Winchester xp is the most accurate ammo my model 70 will shoot, but I have had mixed results on deer and swapped to fusions. After reading this thread I might go back to it and try to stay away from the big bones. Need to find a bonded bullet with the same accuracy