Originally Posted By: poorcountrypreacher
Originally Posted By: joshm28
Originally Posted By: poorcountrypreacher
Originally Posted By: joshm28
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.


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.


We are both on the same page