Ballistic vs Expanding ammo- POLL

[billy_boyle_2010]

Hi guys

Speaking to a very experienced stalker yesterday and was surprised to hear he shot ballistic tipped ammo for all his stalking.

He shoots a 270 and curiously doesn't use a dog- so likes his deer to drop on the spot if he can.

He also takes a large number of head shots as he sells a lot of the meat to game dealers (although not at the moment!).

It got me wondering how many choose ballistic tipped bullets ?

Could it be argued that- if taking a head shot- a ballistic tip is more ethical as- if the shot placement is marginal- the ballistic tip is more likely to destroy the brain ?

Perhaps the additional damage of the ballistic tip is worth it- even with majority chest shots?

Thanks

 

[Namman]

Hi guys

Speaking to a very experienced stalker yesterday and was surprised to hear he shot ballistic tipped ammo for all his stalking.

He shoots a 270 and curiously doesn't use a dog- so likes his deer to drop on the spot if he can.

He also takes a large number of head shots as he sells a lot of the meat to game dealers (although not at the moment!).

It got me wondering how many choose ballistic tipped bullets ?

Could it be argued that- if taking a head shot- a ballistic tip is more ethical as- if the shot placement is marginal- the ballistic tip is more likely to destroy the brain ?

Perhaps the additional damage of the ballistic tip is worth it- even with majority chest shots?

Thanks

They are both bullets which are designed to expand.

 

[8x57]

Billy are you aware that Ballistic Tip is a registered trademark of Nosler and is a particular make and design of expanding bullet.
I'm not quite sure what information you are trying to gleam.

 

[paul o']

Plastic tip or lead head , I use lead heads for everything including head shots GK's rule lol , But mind you many a deer has been taken with Target plastic A tip iam told
pity you have only allowed 1 vote as most but not all are chest shots .

 

[User00048]

Fragmentable tips and neck shots would be my vote. I use SST mainly. Like above, ballistic tip is a brand by Nosler, Hornady have vmax and SST, although the SST have a thicker base and very slightly thicker jacket than your average fragmentable tip bullet...that being said, having compared damage from a cal like 243 and bullets 70 to 75gr in weight - nosler bt in 70gr and Hornady SST 75gr seem to both have a very similar effect when hitting bone or flesh. This leads me to believe construction is somewhat similar. Not tried 75gr vmax but have seen the damage first hand, i would say lighter construction from the damage caused.

 

[Handloader.uk]

I am currently using ELD-X bullets, they seem to do the job very well

 

[Orion]

Fragmentable tips and neck shots would be my vote. I use SST mainly. Like above, ballistic tip is a brand by Nosler, Hornady have vmax and SST, although the SST have a thicker base and very slightly thicker jacket than your average fragmentable tip bullet...that being said, having compared damage from a cal like 243 and bullets 70 to 75gr in weight - nosler bt in 70gr and Hornady SST 75gr seem to both have a very similar effect when hitting bone or flesh. This leads me to believe construction is somewhat similar. Not tried 75gr vmax but have seen the damage first hand, i would say lighter construction from the damage caused.

Not all polymer tipped bullets are designed to produce equal results.

Nosler manufacture two separate lines of their Ballistic Tip bullets - a ‘Hunting’ range and a ‘Varmint’ version, which is more or less equivalent to the V-Max. Both of the latter feature very thin jacket mouths which ensure violent, almost explosive (depending on terminal velocity) expansion.

The construction of both types is very different:

Nosler BT Hunting Bullets

Nosler BT Varmint Bullets

 

[Mungo]

BTs in .270 are an ‘expanding‘ bullet.

In non-varmint calibers, all the things we think of as ‘ballistic tips’ are designed with body shots on deer sized animals in mind.

I think your survey would be more informative (and possibly get the answer you’re after) if you asked what weight of bullet they were using. 110gr VMax in .270 is a very different beast to 130gr ballistic tip.

 

[243varmint]

I use 70gr Blitzking for foxes out of my. 243. No way would I use them on a deer. They turn foxes into soup.
Deer= 165gr Hornady interlocks

 

[sikadog]

Your going to have some fun shooting 165gr interlocks out of a 243

 

[Edinburgh Rifles]

The plastic tip has cock all to do with the expansion or frangibility of the bullet.
Its jacket design and core material are the primary factors that dictate frangibility.
In fact of you remove it and shot them as a hollow point you will find the expansion rate and frangibility increases markedly

Ballistic tips are exactly that. tips that increase Ballistic Coefficient

SST, VMax etc expand more than other bullets due to the thinner jackets and the design of the cup.
some ballistic tips like Swift Scirroco won't expand anything like a frangible BT, they are designed to be very hard and penetrate very dense targets presented by thicker skinned, larger game.

The use of more frangible bullets in the assumption that they make a head/neck or "bang flop" shot more effective is misguided.
It does not make up for a slightly off bullet placement and can still produce nasty wounds.

A well placed non frangible round in head or neck will be equally effective as a VMax, SST or similar.
What it will also be effective at is punching through both shoulders of a thicker target. That's were the limitation of frangible bullet falls down

If you go down that route then no monolithic would ever possibly work on head neck shots. They do. arguably the increased pass through velocity has a similarly devastating effect to a frangible explosion.

Dont limit shot placement choice by bullet construction.

 

[Utectok]

This poll is nonsense perhaps it should be frangible bullets vs bonded bullets that would be interesting

 

[billy_boyle_2010]

Hi guys

apologies for the poor phrasing of questions. I appear to be learning something

FYI I may well have misunderstood the shooter by my poor choice of words.

I thought a ballistic tipped bullet was an exploding/fragmenting bullet. Clearly not.

So- ignoring FMJ- which is not legal for hunting in the UK- are there two types of bullet used for quarry (all with varying qualities which probably blur the lines somewhat!)

1) expanding- designed to mushroom, deform and expand on impact to deposit most of its energy into the animal. good at penetrating bone.

2) fragmentation bullet- breaks up on impact with the bullet becoming shrapnel. More internal damage can lead to a quicker death but more meat damage.

Is the above correct ?

Thanks

 

[Mungo]

Sort of. It’s more of a spectrum, rather than 2 distinct categories.

And how a bullet behaves depends a great deal on terminal speed as well as construction.

So a conventional soft point will still ‘explode’ if it hits something fast enough. A 130gr soft point from a .270 will go off like a claymore if you hit a roe deer at 30 yards, but will punch through neatly at 200 yards. By contrast, even a ‘frangible’ bullet like an AMAX will punch through quite neatly at lower terminal velocity.

 

[8x57]

Your going to have some fun shooting 165gr interlocks out of a 243

Keith I think Jon should perhaps have mentioned that the 165grn bullets were from his .30-06 rifle.
I wonder what a 165grn 6mm bullet would look like. I don't suppose it would leave a lot of room for powder if loaded in a .243win case.

 

[sikadog]

Or it would need a very long throat.

 

[Utectok]

I don’t believe FMJ is Illegal if it stands for full metal jacket which I assume is a lead core copper cup style bullet. I think the law states you must used bullets with a controlled expansion. However non-expanding bullets are only used to shoot people according to Geneva convention.

 

[Namman]

Going back to the original post. I have used Nosler ballistic tips since the day they were available in the UK. I have shot many dozens of Roe and Fallow deer with them . I have heard all the carcase damage stories from the early days, how they are banned on certain estates etc. I never had a problem with them causing excessive meat damage and found them to be extremely accurate and effective. I have never used a deer dog even in woodland, instead, like most stalkers I use field craft to find shot deer.
If you laid out ten shot deer on the ground, all with exit wounds I believe it would be impossible to tell what calibre or bullet had been used. I once shot a pricket with a .458 , 500gr soft point at just over 2000 fps muzzle velocity at 60 yards. The exit hole on the far shoulder was enormous. That bullet is designed for dangerous big game so I don't believe it would have expanded! Of course bullets must be chosen with the selected quarry in mind, in this case deer, not varmints.

 

[Namman]

I don’t believe FMJ is Illegal if it stands for full metal jacket which I assume is a lead core copper cup style bullet. I think the law states you must used bullets with a controlled expansion. However non-expanding bullets are only used to shoot people according to Geneva convention.

I believe it was the Hague Convention 1899 which effectively banned them.

 

[Utectok]

I believe it was the Hague Convention 1899 which effectively banned them.

Ohh sounds right I stand corrected (not that it bothered the US armed forces a jot?!)