Just wondering how they have performed for others as a result of my experience last week.
I decided I was going to use the Model 94 for deer this year but didn't have time to order a proper mould (I've tried a few now and all had boolit noses that fit so tightly in the bore the lever is hard to close) So I figured, if I am buying jacketed bullets, I would give the new 160gr FTX ones a try.
I settled on a load of 30.5gr of Win 748 powder with WLR primer. This gave fine accuracy and about 2025FPS velocity.
When checking my targets I did have some concerns about the fact that I was finding most of the jackets from the bullets on top of the dirt of my backstop after going through only a paper target and 5/8" plywood.
So, the last day of deer season here I got a chance at a nice buck within 35 yards. Should have been an easy shot, but when I pulled the trigger I saw a branch of about .45 caliber diameter fall and a few others jump around. The deer looked at me for a second and ran off unscathed. As I sat in my stand I could see the branch I shot off and started looking at it though my binoculars. I could see on the surrounding twigs evidence of shrapnel several inches away from the branch I hit.
Now, I was by no means shooting through heavy brush, just one small aspen's worth of a few branches. I was unlucky to have so perfectly hit the branch I did, but it sure looked like the FTX just disintegrated upon impact with the branch. This really raised the question in my mind as to the performance of this bullet on game. Based on my limited experience shooting wood in a couple of different forms I'm not sure I want to try to take a deer with this bullet. My thoughts are with a good shot in the open it will likely get the job done, but this bullet will not hold together for decent penetration and certainly will not exit.
I don't want to pass judgment based solely on my experience though and don't intend to give the FTX a bad rap, I'm just looking for more info and thoughts on this particular bullet design.