Nosler 168gr Expansion Tip - experience

[Borders Mike]

Hi, I recently did some home loading with Nosler 168gr Expansion tip bullets in a .308 calibre using Vihtavuori N140, and just couldn't get a load which would group out of my Sauer 202 (23 inch barrel).

Has anybody else tried to get these to work successfully. My best theory is that in a .308 I just don't have enough velocity, or twist rate to get it to stabilise. Maybe as a 30-06 and/or with a faster twist it could work.

Thoughts?

 

[Acm]

My finding with the e tip was they didn’t expand as well as the hornady cx. This resulted in a stag needing 6 shots to take him down at 260m and the only reason the 6th stopped him was I decided to head shoot him, the other 5 where all in the boiler room, gralloching showed minimal expansion. The next day my mate used my rifle to take a stag at 220 m and it needed 4 to kill it with same carcass damage. I didn’t use anymore. By comparison I shot a pricket last week at 280m with the hornady cx which dropped on the spot with the heart blown to bits. These are all with a 120grn 6.5 with an mv of 2800fps I’ve shot about 150 fallow with the hornady cx with no issues.
I did also use a couple of boxes of 180grn e tip in the .30-06 which to be fair worked well, but not as well as a 175lrx from Barnes.
If I was you I’d accept they don’t suit the rifle and try something else, I’m sure you could find a more accurate load if you really wanted too, but in my opinion, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.

 

[Borders Mike]

My finding with the e tip was they didn’t expand as well as the hornady cx. This resulted in a stag needing 6 shots to take him down at 260m and the only reason the 6th stopped him was I decided to head shoot him, the other 5 where all in the boiler room, gralloching showed minimal expansion. The next day my mate used my rifle to take a stag at 220 m and it needed 4 to kill it with same carcass damage. I didn’t use anymore. By comparison I shot a pricket last week at 280m with the hornady cx which dropped on the spot with the heart blown to bits. These are all with a 120grn 6.5 with an mv of 2800fps I’ve shot about 150 fallow with the hornady cx with no issues.
I did also use a couple of boxes of 180grn e tip in the .30-06 which to be fair worked well, but not as well as a 175lrx from Barnes.
If I was you I’d accept they don’t suit the rifle and try something else, I’m sure you could find a more accurate load if you really wanted too, but in my opinion, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.

Hi, that's really interesting. I like the CX bullets as well. Have you tried the ECX? Shorter range bullet, but a hunting round rather than being designed for long range which do many of them seem to be.
I'm going to try some Sako blades and I'm hopeful they will work. They appear to be a more developed design in comparison to the Nosler, and even the CX.

 

[Acm]

Yes I have tried the ECX bullet and have had good kills on fallow and roe from 20 yards to well over 200. I think you’ll be pleased with the sako blades, euro ammo always seems to be designed to perform well in the field, I often think American ammo is developed to have impressive statistics on the box!

 

[jthyttin]

These are all with a 120grn 6.5 with an mv of 2800fps

In the other thread you state E-Tip MV of 2660fps and lacking penetration beyond 250m. Did you try to boost the performance with more velocity? Just asking because we developed a load for friend's 6.5x55, got comfortable 2890fps but were loading over usual COAL.

Nosler e tip expansion test results

Thought you guys might find this interesting, I’ve been developing a load in my 6.5x55 using the nosler e tips and as I had a couple of hours free this arvo decided to do some expansion testing. At all ranges out to 300m I was getting a good 2 - 3 foot of penetration. The target was 25mm thick...

www.thestalkingdirectory.co.uk

For 308 I think 168gr is too heavy (expansion wise). 150gr is just about optimum, whether you want to limit carcass damage at close range (slower than 130gr class) or maximize the expansion threshold (matches the velocity of 130gr class at about 300m, comparing like for like designs)

 

[Acm]

In the other thread you state E-Tip MV of 2660fps and lacking penetration beyond 250m. Did you try to boost the performance with more velocity? Just asking because we developed a load for friend's 6.5x55, got comfortable 2890fps but were loading over usual COAL.

Nosler e tip expansion test results

Thought you guys might find this interesting, I’ve been developing a load in my 6.5x55 using the nosler e tips and as I had a couple of hours free this arvo decided to do some expansion testing. At all ranges out to 300m I was getting a good 2 - 3 foot of penetration. The target was 25mm thick...

www.thestalkingdirectory.co.uk

For 308 I think 168gr is too heavy (expansion wise). 150gr is just about optimum, whether you want to limit carcass damage at close range (slower than 130gr class) or maximize the expansion threshold (matches the velocity of 130gr class at about 300m, comparing like for like designs)

Yeah we went over book max using n160 then ran them over the chrono, I think it was 46 grains but sat in tractor at the mo and can’t check.