nowhere in this post do i see the barrel twist or bullet dia. mentioned. (sabot or bullet engraved.) I have been tinkering all year with t/c maxi-balls with my renegade. tweeking the lead alloy for a good fit. I will say this.............. these shoot better if you do not use max loads. Pictured is a 3 shot group at 100 yards with a t/c maxi-ball. Not bad for an older guy.
These are Hornady FPB bullets. They are a j-word, full bore conical. I'm not aware that they make them in anything but .50. I guess I should have mentioned these are the 350 grain version. The 300 grain ones never shot nearly as well. The twist rate is irrelevant, this thread is nothing more than a warning to hunter that these bullets do not perform as advertised.
i understand that they are a lame duck. I never had faith in these types in muzzle loaders. good old fashioned lead for me.Originally Posted by megasupermagnum
My hunting partner uses the Hornady FPB. I was with him when he shot 3 of the last 4 deer and I helped him skin and cut up the 4th. I was impressed with their performance.
I think you just had a fluke with those Hornady bullets and like Minuteshaver said things happen that weren't the bullets fault.
I've always used the TC Max-ball 370 grains with excellent results. Never had a deer run with them they just piled up, but I was pickly about choosing my shots. I don't agree with pushing them faster makes them less accurate. The accuracy I got out of more then one rifle was excellent. The rifles I've had had a wide variation in twists and it didn't show up for me on the target that was any better then other.
3-400 yards with lung hits is a bullet failure! Until these, I've NEVER, and nobody I know has ever had that happen. I've never even heard of such a thing with a bow.
@M-Tecs, were you seeing good expansion? The deer I've shot left scarcely more than a pinhole going in, lungs just had a small hole in them, and the exit hole was maybe dime size. Even the heart shot, the heart was split open, but I remember thinking how lackluster it seemed.
I hope people have been having better luck than us, wounding deer makes me sick. I'd rather break my own leg.
from the sound of the one you recovered, only one lung was hit. A 1/2" diameter is much more than a pin hole. Dime size exit hole is not a failure either.
My nephew this year used a 180gr soft point 7.62x54 on a small buck. He destroyed both lungs and the heart was split in half, That deer still still made in 30-40 yards. Dead deer can cover a lot of ground, especially when they have one lung left.
Shot placement is the #1 issue with the problems you guys have had, or at least that is the #1 suspect on our list of why you can not drop a simple deer with a 350gr conical.
it was said that possibly the large quantity of fat in the deer. possibly all this fat did plug up the wound channel. there fore no blood trail.
The bullet may be .50, but acting like a FMJ, they leave just a pinhole. 30-40 yards is good, but a farcry from the 500+ we had. You can play the what if game forever, but the fact remains that these Hornady FPB's provided dismal performance. Yeah, you can kill a deer with a FMJ 223 with a good hit too. I've seen a lot of deer killed, and I've never seen anything like this. I've seen multiple deer that were shot through the guts, and didn't even hit the lungs at all. Those deer went a short ways and laid down. When we walked up to them an hour later, they were dead. Trust me THESE HORNADY FPB BULLETS WOUND DEER. I love hornady, but I will never recomend these bullets again.
Keeping in mind, i do not follow inline's performance history. But I hear a lot of "LACK OF EXPANSION" with these types of bullets if they do not hit any bone. Much along the lines of a stab wound with a knife.
jon, these fpb's weigh twice what your prb's weigh. to the energy( Knock down) theory, it holds an invalid argument. Shot placement is not the issue here. There is more to this then we all know. I can not beleive these rifles were that far off at such a close range. even with scopes. FMJ do not expand............. period. These kinds of bullets seem to mimmick that. HOT KNIFE THRU BUTTER.
I know plenty of folks that have killed deer AND elk with zero issues while using these bullets. We already know that only one lung was hit and the stomach. Thats shot placement.
Exactly. Speaking of scopes, this was the first year MN allowed them to everyone. My dad and myself mounted them right away. My dad is getting older, and it gets hard to focus on an animal and the sights at the same time. I just prefer low power scopes myself. My uncle prefers open sights, and he is good at it. He was shooting 3" 3 shot groups at 100 yards. My dad isn't quite as good, but we are talking 20 yards from a man who has been hunting since he was a teenager. I never liked relying on expanding bullets, I use big SWC's for my carry handgun myself. A wadcutter design cuts a bore size hole in, and either tumbles, or if soft, expands. These FPB's are a hot knife through butter.
Are you kidding me? A lung was hit, and you blame shot placement? I suppose an ethical hunter would only shoot for the brain. I'm one of the hunters who have killed deer with these without issue, but that doesn't make them good. It just means I made great shots. I can't believe the resistance to information I am sharing, just so others don't have to loose animals. Look at the pictures of those 265 grain flex tips on the other page. If those had been what we were shooting, that buck would have collapsed in 30 yards, and left a blood trail.
you need to own up to the fact that the deer you did recover, was not hit with great shot placement.
ive gone through the same story with powerbelts. Weeeee, we shot a deer with a powerbelt and blew up as soon as it hit the hair! weeeeeee, it didnt expand!
Did you find the deer? No.... really? How you know what the bullet did if you couldnt find the deer?
This buck was shot at 40 yards with the FPB.
This one as well
As you can see, those are just a few examples of what bullets do when they are actually hit in the vitals. I don't mean to give you a hard time over it, but an FPB not being able to kill a deer quickly and humanly? I don't think so. The only thing I dont like is how hard they are to load.
Wow, I've had nosebleeds worse than those deer. If anything that supports my theory. I'm going to stop now. I just hope you don't kick yourself too much the first time you don't place a bullet perfectly.
Try an over powder wad with the REALs. That seems to help allot for most people. Don't push them real hard either or they strip the rifling.
Aim small, miss small!
Expansion was inline with any of the various bullets in that caliber and velocity class that I have personally taken deer with. Very little blood shot meat compared to 7mm mag but very much inline with my 45/70 using 405 Remington bulk jacked bullets at about 1,800 fps.
I have only killed 20 or 25 deer with 45 cal and larger but while very effective the wound channels look unimpressive compared to high velocity jacketed. The term you can eat right up to the whole comes to mind.
Posting Permissions
| BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
| BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
| BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
| C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
| HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
| PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
| LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
| GC | Gas Check |
Reply With Quote