Ballistic Tip for hunting

M

mississippi_rifleman

New member
I was under the impression that they were only for varmiting, but I read about people using them to hunt deer. How good are they? I'm a little hesitant to use them. It's my understand that they basically don't expand, but explode. Seems to me that there would be a very short wound channel. Anyone use them for deer hunting or elk? When I say ballistic tip, btw, I'm including Scirocco, Winchesters version, Blitz King, etc.

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Ben Lee
Student, Senior
Computer Science
Mississippi State University
Heed the man that owns only one rifle,
he likely knows how to use it.
- Anonymous
 
Ben, I along with several other people use them down here in south Miss. for these deer.I like the bullet personally. Don't get the wrong impression about the name however. The ballistic tip is a basic hollow point with a polycarbonate? tip in the end. Upon impact the bullet is suppose to mushroom out like a hollowpoint. The poly tip is suppose to help the accuracy.
 
Yea, I understood that, I just thought, from what I read, that the tip goes into the bullet cavity very rapidly basically sheering it apart. BTW, where in South MS? I'm from Gautier on the coast. I know the deer on the coast are very small due the the type of food source. The deer up here in cotton/corn country are twice the size.
 
I use Federal 150 grain ballistic tips in my 7MM Mag. I killed two bucks in North Mississippi last year with them. The first dropped like a bag of concrete from 70 yards. I recovered the slug. It passed through the back of his shoulder, smashed though to the other side, travelled up his neck a bit and lodged between the muscle and skin. Perfect mushroom expansion. I was VERY impressed. All the ballistic tip does is provide extra aerodynamic efficiency, and helps to reliably expand the round after penetration. I swear by them now. Didnt recover the second slug. Passed clean through at 100 yds. He dropped 30 yards away. In a caliber suitable for hunting deer you should use them with confidence.

[This message has been edited by CD1 (edited October 04, 2000).]
 
I use 100 gr. federal ballistic tips in my 25-06 and last season I shot a six point right behind the shoulder and it droped him where he stood.It's not good for penetration because it breaks up so quick but it's great for soft skinned animals.
 
According to the Nosler rep I spoke to at the NRA convention back in the spring, the BT was originally developed to help solve feed problems in auto-loading rifles, which are prone to jamming when used with exposed-lead soft-tip bullets.

So the polycarbonite tip is nothing but a device to help the bullet up the feed ramp. The bullet design itself is a standard hollow-point boat-tail. I've found it to be almost as accurate as HPBT Match bullets when properly reloaded.

The Garand is particularly sensitive to soft-tip bullets and was used as their "test bed" during development.

I've used the BT in both .223 and .30 cal with excellent results. It feeds flawlessly in the AR and the Garand and the effect downrange is as expected.

Ken Strayhorn
Hillsborough NC
 
There are two different Ballistic tip bullets made by Nosler, they do make them for varmit hunting, but also make them for hunting big game. Their data tells you which ones are which. I use their BT's in my 243, 70gr for hunting groundhogs and it is quite effective. For deer hunting I use the 150 gr in my 7mm Mag, the 165 gr in the 30-06, the 150 gr in the 308 and 180 gr in a 300 Win Mag. The results are outstanding. I have only recovered a couple of the bullets in the past 10 years, most of my shots are behind the front shoulders and take out both of the lungs and keep on going.
Mel <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by mississippi_rifleman:
I was under the impression that they were only for varmiting, but I read about people using them to hunt deer. How good are they? I'm a little hesitant to use them. It's my understand that they basically don't expand, but explode. Seems to me that there would be a very short wound channel. Anyone use them for deer hunting or elk? When I say ballistic tip, btw, I'm including Scirocco, Winchesters version, Blitz King, etc.

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Good point on the two kinds of bt's. I use them for deer hunting (rather average whitetails) and have had great success. I have used 150's in 30-06, 100's in 25-06 and 125's in 30-30 contender. Shots I have taken have been for areas other than heavy bone and have worked really well. They do not respond well to heavy bodied animals hit in heavy bone areas nor do they respond well at ultra high speed (for caliber) in magnum rifles. Used as intended, they work well. Good luck.
 
You all are on the right track. There are 2 types of Ballistic tips. Hunting and Varminting. The varminting ones are designed for rapid expansion and fragmentation. The hunting bullets are designed for controlled expansion. The polymer tip not only aids in chambering the round (since the tip will not deform) but it also helps to shift the weight back enhancing ballistic coefficient and accuracy. These are great bullets for thin skinned animals. The only problem is that you can not drive them past standard velocities without risking fragmentation. I load the 150 grainers in 30-'06 and 100 grainers in 25-'06. Both are accurate with great terminal performance. Also look into Hornady's SST (Super Shock Tip). It is similar to the Ballistic tips but has an interlock ring to keep the jacket from separating. I have worked up a load with the 150 gr SST sitting on Varget that will put 5 bullets into one ragged hole at 100 yards. I am going to use this for my deer load this year.
 
I think that the guys from Nosler worked out a problem with this bullet at high terminal velocities. In the earlier days of the ballistic tip they would often fail when an animal was shot at close range with a cartridge/rifle combination producing 3000+ fps type velocity. I have seen this happen in 7MM Whby., 7MM Rem., 280 Rem., and 25/06. These failures were at ranges under 150 yds and some of the game was recovered showing the problem. Some game were taken cleanly at the same ranges using the same combinations. Game at further distances where the projectile would be in the sub 2800 fps range never ever failed.
This was ten or so years ago and I beleive that the legends about the BT started then.
Given the fine accuracy and the improvments to the design I think that the Nosler BT will have a great future.
 
CD1 I just switched over from a .270 to a 7mm and was wondering how it was going to do. HMMMMM sounds good :D it's not that I thought it wouldn't kill one of these Mississippi deer but more what it would actually do.
 
The varmint BT's have a thinner jacket and a slightly different internal design than do the hunting Ballistic Tips. I don't know how fast too fast is for the varmint's, but I had some running at 4200 fps, with great accuracy, out of my .243 VLS Rem.

Lots of whitetails around here and lots of people using Ballistic Tips to kill 'em.
 
Great bullet, very accurate and deadly on deer/antelope sized game. Coyotes don't like very much. For anything bigger, like Elk, I think I'd go with Nosler's Partition. BTW, have you looked at Hornady's SST. Looks pretty good but haven't tried them yet.

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"Charlton Heston is my President"

Danny45
NRA, NAHC, Buckmasters
 
RR41Mag,
Ive used the 7MM Mag for about 6 years now and have shot deer as close as seven yards and as far as two hundred yards. Its just a great all around gun. You know how Mississippi is, sometimes you'll hunt fields, other times in the woods. I needed one gun that could do everything I wanted to do. The 7MM Mag does just that. Someday I hope to hunt elk, and it will do that too. The ONLY thing that sometimes hinders me is the longer barrel sometimes gets hung up on things when Im in the woods. Not a big prob though. Let me know how yours works out.
 
I used them in my .270 on my first deer, the deer just fell down. The interesting part is that later that winter at the dinner table my dad was eating his steak and bit down into the little yellow tip! The rest of the bullet just passed on through.
 
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