Boolit failure or classic Nosler partition performance?

[Wolfer]

For some time now I've been shooting the 311-041 with a small HP out of my various 30 cal rifles. 2400 will push this boolit to around 1800 fps in all my rifles before accuracy starts to fall off.
These loads have proven themselves on deer several times.

Last Saturday I was setting by a tree when a two year old deer walks by. It was walking pretty fast and my window was pretty small. It was quartering away when I got the 30-40 krag lined up and touched her off. Boolit landed just in front of the diaphragm on the entrance side and came out just behind the opposite shoulder.

Entrance hole in the ribs showed moderate expansion. Exit hole was 30 cal or thereabouts.
Insides looked like a bomb went off.
At the shot the deer made a few quick steps, approx 10' before stopping all humped up. Trees blocked my view of the shoulder I could only see the hindquarters. What seemed like minutes but was probably only seconds it fell over. It was dead when I got to it.

Ive seen this same performance from Nosler partitions. Abrupt expansion with the nose peeling off and the shank punching right on thru.
While I like a bigger exit hole and have always had them in the past I have a hard time calling this a boolit failure.

Opinions?

[5Shot]

He's dead...I'd say it worked perfectly.

[C. Latch]

Entrance, exit, damage in between......what else do you want?

[45 2.1]

If you look at the GB's I run thru MiHec, you will see hollow points. I have written about their Nosler partition like performance many times....... the same as you have just descibed. Basically the nose blows off to the base of the hollow point and the base continues on thru the animal. Quick clean kills...... Not boolit failure.

[Wolfer]

Given an option I always shoot for the shoulder. In the past ive suspected my bigger exit holes were made more by bone fragments than boolit.
The reason I like HPs is for the times no heavy bone is hit. At my velocity, 1700/1800 fps they work for me. Increase the velocity and they could be overly destructive.

[white eagle]

to me that would be perfect boolit performance
I mainly shoot for a classic behind the shoulder shot
that would be ideal for me

[osteodoc08]

Good boolit performance. Nothing to complain about there.

[DougGuy]

I used the Nosler 250gr partition in .44 Magnum, it does the same thing. Extreme damage internally, with complete penetration. I have yet to recover one. The partition bullets were designed with African big game in mind, and they work very well. You have to figure that most boolits that penetrate fully do this with not much expansion, and the partition captures the best performance of a solid and a hollowpoint, all in one boolit. Have to give credit where credit is due, they work and they work very well. Sounds like yours gave a good accounting of itself!

[MT Gianni]

I would be happy. What was the alloy and was it air cooled?

[Smoke4320]

Sounds to me like it worked perfectly .. That is the actual performance I am looking for As I take (whenever possible) the classic Heart lung shot

[Wolfer]

I would be happy. What was the alloy and was it air cooled?

My particular alloy is 1WW-2 pure with a scootch of tin. Air cooled.BHN of 10 but to be fair my first old batch of WWs were hard, bhn of 16. The WWs I'm getting now are much softer. My next batch will be 50/50+2%

I like a bhn of 10 to 12

I shoot this same alloy in my 45 colt also with a hybrid cup point by Eric. When hitting heavy bone I've found chunks of the nose as far as 12" from the entrance wound. At my velocity of 1000 fps once soaked in salt water the meat will clean up with only the hole being lost.

At my speeds I've found that a small HP is a big help when bone isn't hit but isn't that detrimental when it is. It also helps if the range is getting on the long side and impact velocity is lower.

Where I hunt that's not an issue but my neighbor shot one a couple years ago beyond 200 yds.
First shot knocked it down but it got back up. Second shot put it down for keeps. One shot was a pass thru with a good exit hole. The other was a raking shot with 20 inches of penatration. Boolit was perfect mushroomed lodged in the hide on the far side.
Rifle was a 30-06 with a muzzle vel of just under 1800. I'm not smart enough to figure impact velocity but it had to be low.

If I hunted where these kind of shots were probable I would approach cast from a different angle.
Slower powder, higher velocity etc.

[dh2]

I had close to the same thing happen with a serria 120gr bullet out of my 25-06 the shoot was a large buck in very thick brush, at about 20ft. it entered his chest the jacket was in his hind quarter , dead in about 2 steps. when I ask Serria what had happened there belief was that the bullet hit at such a high rate of speed that it could not hold together after hitting the bones in the chest,

I would say that the bullet did not fail dead is what you are after

[Pilgrim]

I used the Nosler 250gr partition in .44 Magnum, it does the same thing. Extreme damage internally, with complete penetration. I have yet to recover one. The partition bullets were designed with African big game in mind, and they work very well. You have to figure that most boolits that penetrate fully do this with not much expansion, and the partition captures the best performance of a solid and a hollowpoint, all in one boolit. Have to give credit where credit is due, they work and they work very well. Sounds like yours gave a good accounting of itself!

xxxxxxx
Not...John Nosler designed the partition after a bullet failure while hunting moose in B.C. I do not know what flavor the bullet was that failed. I don't recall that info being supplied. I suspect it was a standard "cup & core" bullet and failed due to a high velocity impact. His rifle was chambered for the .300 H&H. It took him a number of tries before the partition came out of his efforts. I believe the partition was the 1st "premium" bullet on the market, at least one made in the USA. The brits had a number of highly regarded bullets, generally solids that were used and recommended for Africa. I don't believe standard "soft" bullets were recommended until the USA developed premium bullets hit the market (Nosler, Barnes, Swift, Bear Claw, etc). Norma and other european ammunition makers followed the Americans re: premium, controlled expansion "soft" bullets. FWIW Pilgrim

[davidheart]

He's dead...I'd say it worked perfectly.

I'll +1 this.

It sounds like your boolit performed beautifully. Now what you need to do is cast about about 100 or so and send them to me for extensive testing. :bigsmyl2:

Shoot I'll even run them through some water jugs and phone books for you and take pics. :D

[jhalcott]

I've used the 311041 and the 311291 "soft nosed" in a couple 30 caliber guns. I cast the nose to the driving band of pure or nearly pure lead. Then pour in a harder base of at least Lyman #2, but may use Linotype. I normally try for around 2000 fps muzzle speed. My 30-30 14inch Contender doesn't always get that fast in cold weather. BUT the base seems to penetrate quite well and the nose expands to cause massive damage on its way thru!

[nekshot]

congrats on the harvest. My son and I put a lot of hours in the woods and did not see a thing to shoot! Some times that happens when your hunting ground must have perfect weather conditions.

[Wolfer]

Jay
I shot the first deer that came by and passed on some others first weekend. Too small, too hard to get out, whatever reason. I haven't see a deer since.
Hopefully muzzle loader season will see them more active.

[winchester 71]

partitions are for bigger game then deer to start with......they are designed to hold up on big critters NOT deer......call the plant.........that is why they make balistic tips!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! trying to get a cast bullet to do what a wrong application jacketed bullet to do just doesn't make sense......shoot a flat faced Ranch Dog 165 gr bullet if you shoot 30 cal and it will smack down Mulies like a ballistic tip Nosler and it works good on black bears with one shot kills...twice the meplat of a what your shooting...........

[44man]

I used the Nosler 250gr partition in .44 Magnum, it does the same thing. Extreme damage internally, with complete penetration. I have yet to recover one. The partition bullets were designed with African big game in mind, and they work very well. You have to figure that most boolits that penetrate fully do this with not much expansion, and the partition captures the best performance of a solid and a hollowpoint, all in one boolit. Have to give credit where credit is due, they work and they work very well. Sounds like yours gave a good accounting of itself!
My thoughts exactly.

[Wolfer]

Upon skinning this deer the entrance hole thru the ribs was pretty big. Probably 3/4" or so. The exit hole thru the ribs was at least 45 cal with most of the chunks of the nose between the ribs and the hide. I believe this boolit mostly held together until it met the opposite hide.

[odicoilius]

Wolfer, This is pretty typical of cb hollow points in a rifle. Just a week ago I shot a medium-sized buck (about 160 lbs. we're talking big northern whitetails here). Bullet used was a 190 grn. Lee with a drilled hp from my .308 at 150 yards. Muzz.velocity is 1950+-. Almost identical to your description, lungs looked like he swallowed a grenade but small exit hole. As we had 3" of snow I was lucky enough to follow the bullet track and found the slug. Nose was blown off to resemble a flat cylinder and weighs 155 grns. Bullet failure? Hell no he made it about 10 yards and piled up. Odicoilius Manitoba Canada

[Wolfer]

Odicoilius
I see your pretty new here and I'm sure you've been welcomed but let me add a welcome also.
There are many people on here who don't like HPs. Personally I've had good results with them and plan on continueing to use them.
Ive always believed a person should try everything possible and then use what works for them.

There are probably an equal number on here that do like HPs.

[hog]

A 260 in .454 Casul failed to open and we dug the bullet out of a tree only to find the nose of the bullet rolled over and it did not expand. That was ten years ago and my last hunt with jacketed bullets. Its a post WWII design that solved the problem with jacket,lead seperation, not needed any longer if you use hp's.

[45 2.1]

What we have is the classic confrontation of a light fast hollow point versus a heavy slow blunt nose boolit. It could be noted that both work..... however I got VERY tired of game running off with NO blood trail to be found. I cured that with relatively heavy hollow points that blow off the nose and leave the rest to punch thru. That sure cured the game running off................

[Ramslammer]

G'Day
Well everyone has there own preferance and unless your with the other bloke you can't say what is correct for their situation. I use HPs almost exclusively as they suit Wallaby hunting best and that's my main hunting. But I've used both WFN and hp on Fallow deer and HP gets my vote.
Juddy

[GooseGestapo]

After reading the original post, I decided to go load up some .338" 220gr RNGC's for the .338MX I had hollow pointed some time back.
I had 2 weeks before, shot a smallish deer with 200gr FNGC from my .35Rem and was unimpressed with terminal performance. (1,900fps w/34.5gr H4895).

I was hoping for better performance from hollow-pointed bullet.

Indeed !!! I shot a ~140lb buck at ~35yds with load of 40.0gr of RL15 under the hollow-pointed Lee 220gr RNGC which run about 218gr hollow-pointed (~2,000fps). alloy is acww w/2% lead-free solder added.

bullet impacted mid-rib cage and exited just behind left shoulder. Entry wound was 3/8" and exit wound was 1"x2", or large enough for golf-ball to enter. Deer was knocked off his feet at shot and stumbled about 50' and fell and kicked twice. Double lung shot took out middle half of his lungs. Good blood trail.

From now on, all my "hunting" slugs will be hollow pointed. I've got a drill press and it's easy to use an automatic center punch to mark and then use a wooden cloths pin to hold the boolit while I drill it. Takes longer to describe than to do it. Not neccessary for target shooting but easy enough for a hunting "shot".
FWIW; when I tested the boolits at the range previously, the HP's actually were slightly more accurate at 100yds (2" five-shots vs. 2.5" five shots...