Bonded core battle; scirocco vs accubond vs interbond

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Roadkill2228

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These 3 high bc bonded core boat tailed tipped bullets (that's a mouthful) are probably the 3 runners up for the most versatile and capable all around bullets for non dangerous game of all sizes at all conventional hunting ranges. Which is the best in your opinion. Judging by 4
criteria:
1. Accuracy
2. Penetration
3. Broad wounding
4. Consistency lot to lot.

Weight retention is not on the list because it is largely irrelevant. High weight retention is only desirable as a means to an end, the end being adequate penetration with as violent wounding as possible. But to say one bullet is better than another simply because of retained weight is silly...which one kills most emphatically and reliably, from all angles and distances in a variety of game sizes. That's the question. Personal experience and observation welcome!
 
I am a Hornady fan so most of my loads use Hornady bullets. The Interbonds are most accurate in many of my rifles, but a few prefer the Accubonds. My loads have been used on too many hogs to count and numerous deer and in performance there isn't much difference between the two in how quickly an animal expires. Use the one that is most accurate in your rifles.
 
In my experience, the Scirrocco II is tougher and out penetrates the accubond. The most devesdating bullet to use on anything that won't eat you is the Berger VLD hunting. I am no fan of the interbond. Maybe it is just the limited few of them I tried, but I never could get them to shoot accurately enough for my liking.
 
I am unnecessarily biased here.
1. Because I don't like the Accubond, even though I hear that they "fixed" the early failures. (And my negative view is based on second-hand information, even.)
2. Because I've never used the Interbond.
3. Because I use Scirocco IIs but have never put one into a game animal.


If my opinion still counts for anything after those facts...
I'd say the Scirocco II wins. Accuracy and consistency are nearly unbeatable, and penetration and expansion are reported to be excellent.
 
I've heard good things about Sciroccos. I like Hornady bullets but Interbonds have been hard to come by often times. I have only ever tried the Accubond.

There's not much incentive to try the other two any more. Love the Accubond. Accuracy and penetration have been excellent for me. Without looking it up, I believe the Accubond has the best BC of the lot. They work for me, I will have Accubonds on my shelf in the foreseeable future.
 
I tried the Accubond for my .243 rifle on a hunt for antelope. The shot was fired from approx. 175 yards and the animal was felled instantly as the bullet tore through chest organs. The bullet sailed all the way through this buck and was not recovered. Good accuracy and great performance!

Jack
 
Weight retention is not on the list because it is largely irrelevant. High weight retention is only desirable as a means to an end, the end being adequate penetration with as violent wounding as possible. But to say one bullet is better than another simply because of retained weight is silly...which one kills most emphatically and reliably, from all angles and distances in a variety of game sizes. That's the question. Personal experience and observation welcome!
Click to expand...

A few words about this. Weight retention is directly related to penetration. By default, more penetration means more weight retention. Also you mention "violent wounding" as well as #3 Broad Wounding. If you are looking for large wound channels, controlled expansion bullets are not what you are looking for (in my experience). Controlled expansion with bonded and monolithic copper bullets do not produce the violent wound channels I have seen with cup and core bullets and read about with ballistic tips and Berger VLD’s. I personally love this trait as meat loss is nowhere near as bad with controlled expansion bullets. Every time I am impressed with how little meat loss there is (and I’m shooting through meat/shouler).

I want a bullet that is going to penetrate as deeply as possible and break every bone along the way. I aim for shoulder and want that bullet to get through at least one shoulder and through the vitals behind it. If it gets through the other shoulder even better. Bonded and monolithic copper does this far better than cup and core. If you want a violent softball size wound channel through ribs only I say use cup and core or ballistic tip type bullets. Now in my experience wound channels have been a little bigger with bonded vs monolithic but my sample size there is smaller. Copper has gotten better penetration though. I would say bonded (or Partition/A frame for that matter) is probably the best compromise with bigger wound channels than monolithic but better penetration than cup and core/BT’s. I think this is what you are going for if I read your post correctly but don’t expect huge wound channels with bonded bullets in my experience- and that makes sense with better penetration.
 
1. Accuracy: Accubond, Interbond, Scricco.

2. Penetration: I've not ever recovered any (I've never shot an animal with the Scricoo's so it is exempt) so all met my requirements.

3. Broad wounding: Both the Nosler and Hornady did good in this area, Barnes did better though and I use them now.

4. Consistency lot to lot: All passed my inspection. I am not weighing nor measuring them though so others may have better data on this subject.
 
My friends and I use 160 grain Accubonds in our Rem 7mm Mags for moose. 25 shot, 25 down, most at between 300 and 400 yards. I consider that an adequate test. Would the other bullets have done as well, probably. We tend to stick with what works. One or two animals is no real test.
 
I tried the Accubond for my .243 rifle on a hunt for antelope. The shot was fired from approx. 175 yards and the animal was felled instantly as the bullet tore through chest organs. The bullet sailed all the way through this buck and was not recovered. Good accuracy and great performance!
Click to expand...

Were shoulders hit?
 
my experience is a little all over the place on these but I'll give it a whirl.

Interbond: I don't have a lot of experience with the interbond except with a single 30-06. we loaded up a bunch for my brother in law and he ranted and raved about how accurate the interbonds were... then again his criteria for thus was molesting my pistol dueling tree at 50 yards so you can guess how highly I regard his opinion on that matter. with that said I really like hornady for accuracy and their SSTs make excellent deer rounds(which is a little irrelevent but I think speaks to the company's ability to make a good bullet for a specific task). with that said I bought a box of 165gr interbonds to load for my M1 and plan to test them out for if I ever decide I need to pack another 11 pound rifle around for elk season.
so given that lets look at score board.

Accuracy 2
Penetration 3
Broad wounding 3
Consistency lot to lot. N/A

Swift Scirroco:
I've played around with this little bad boy while trying to develop elk loads for my 6.5 grendel. the 130gr .264s make for extremely accurate loads, and the ammo performed as best as could be expected given grendel velocities(about 2300 FPS). given my experiences with it I decided to work up a long range deer load with .243 90gr as well but have yet to test them.

Accuracy 4
Penetration 4
Broad wounding 2
Consistency lot to lot. N/A

and lastly the accubond:
I've had more experience with the accubond than the other 2. I've shot 140gr .264, 130gr .257, 180gr .308, and seen the results of 160gr .284. I've had the .140gr bullets split in half at extremely low velocities(below 2000 FPS). the 308 never saw very good accuracy and am unfortunately biased against the 25 cal having been hit by ricochets. given my experiences, I would say they do not hold together nearly as well as the swifts or interbonds, are not as accurate as the swifts, and in my opinion are just not the best bullets for the job.

Accuracy 2
Penetration 2
Broad wounding 4
Consistency lot to lot. 3

with all that said I think that bonded bullets have a 5th criteria that need to be considered and that's weight retention. in my experience the swift has the best weight retention, the interbond a close second and accubond would be the best if they didn't have the tendency of splitting or shedding the jackets.
 
Hey thanks for chiming in everybody! A quick word about what I meant concerning the irrelevance of weight retention: not entirely true I realize (that's why frangible rounds are not penetrators (0% weight retention). That said, there is a phenomenon whereby greater weight retention can actually reduce penetration depth. Some call it pancaking. The interbond is reported by some to retain greater weight and penetrate less than the accubond for this precise reason. Supposedly the accubond does shed its front a little, gradually, not all at once, thus creating a broad wound channel while avoiding a permanently maintained massive frontal area. I have no idea if that's true or not but it is the phenomenon I refer to. Massive frontal area causes massive shock but also arrests penetration faster. Super high weight retention can in some cases result in massive frontal area (again, not a bad thing.)

As for woodleighs...I love them too, I have a load worked up for the .300 win mag, 200 grain magnum weld core ppsn over 72 grains of rl22 for 2900 fps. Should be an absolute elk hammer. However they are not in the same category as these tipped and boat tailed bullets. The ballistic coefficients rule the woodleighs out of the comparison.
 
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