Nosler Ballistic Tips for Whitetail Deer

[For Gallantry]

I've developed a great load with 120 grain Nosler Ballistic Tips and have used it successfully for the past few seasons on some pretty big northern Michigan whitetail deer. Every deer I've taken has been within 30 yards and has piled up without running 20. The problem is that the exit wound is very small and blood trails are almost nonexistent. I hunt in some very thick woods and if one of these deer were to really haul ass, I doubt I'd be able to track it . Chronographed MV's are just shy of 2500 fps and, like I said the ranges are short. Nosler says minimum velocity for reliable expansion is 1600 fps so I know I'm well over that threshold. I'm thinking about dropping down to the 100 grain variant and starting it out closer to 2750 fps but not sure if that's too light for medium-sized thin skinned game. Does anyone have any experience here?

[A5BLASTER]

No need to change bullets are do a new load.

Just change where you shoot them. You want a no tracking job kill. Shot them in the high shoulder/spine, neck or head.

Bullet placement will never be trumped by bullet size,speed and most times construction.

[rabiddawg]

It a ballistic tip. It’s not designed to punch thru.

If you want to shoot thru an animal go with something designed for that like the partition or a solid copper bullet.

If you study a deers anatomy you will see that the spine dips down between its shoulder blades. Follow the leg bone up and shoot them in the high shoulder and they will not run. Just like a5 says.

[Popeye212]

Personally I like he 130BT's in my .270. No it doesn't always exit but it turns the boiler room into red mass of jelly. I would rather have the bullet expend it's energy where counts instead of an exit wound. They don't go far and doesn't leave as much of a blood trail but they don't go far enough to need it. Good shot placement is the key and I don't care to track animals if avoidable.

[mdram]

while not in a grendel, i have used ballistic tips often, 300wby, and never had an issue with exit wounds being small
maybe they are too close?

what is your shot placement?

[deadeer]

I have taken a truckload of deer with 100gr BT from a 260rem Encore pistol. They killed like lightening with boiler room shots. I ran out and went to 120gr, and got the same result as you on 3 deer. When I finally found more, I went straight back to same load and picked up where I left off. Not many exits, but 90% dead right there. That bullet works!

They do make a 100gr Partition too. Am thinking about trying one of the two this season in my AR Grendel.

[1Shot]

I have killed a good number of deer with the 120 BT out of a 6.5x55 and it has always worked fine but I am running it 3000 fps at muzzle. I have killed a good number of deer between 300 and 500 yards with this bullet where it has slowed down a lot to Grendel velocities. But I am a shoulder/spine shooter. Where I was hunting over bean fields in east NC or logging paths between grown up cutovers you don't want a deer to run off. Even if you had a ball of string tied to it's leg it would sometimes be hard to find it the jungle is so thick and the swamps are deep. From my experience I believe the 120 BT has been toughened up a bit over the years for use in the higher velocity rifles and thus at the velocity that you are running it the bullet does expand and probably is fully expanding allowing the jacket to fold back against the bullet shank thus you are getting what you deem are small exits. You also have to remember that the hide stretches and thus the exit in the hide looks smaller. As to getting blood trail that also has to do with bullet placement. If you shoot a high lung shot you may not get much blood trail because the chest cavity has to fill with blood before it can exit. If you have destroyed the lungs then there is no air to expel the blood. If you have disrupted the heart there is noting to pump the blood out. Where people get the idea that the ballistic tip is a "blow up" bullet is from running it too fast of just repeating what someone else believes or from just one example. Yes Nosler gives a general velocity impact range that is optimal but in my experience with the BT in different calibers and usage of them since their introduction this is a VERY GENERAL impact velocity range. For example when the BT first came out I got some 150s for use in my 30-06. I was running them in the 2900 fps range. They were SUPER ACCURATE but when you shot a deer inside about 250 yards they would not exit and the deer ran off and left little to no blood trail. Their chest cavity was a mess where the bullet did blow up. It was a few years latter Nosler toughened this bullet up and it became much better. At the higher impact velocities of the given impact range you will get more expansion and at these higher velocities if you hit bone then you most often will have "blow up". It has been in my experience that most of the hunting BTs in .257 through .308 work best with impact velocity between 2800 and 2000 fps on deer. If you go to the 100 gr BT and run it 2700 to 2900 fps you may not get an exit but it will dump all it's energy in the deer and the hydro static effect can shock the animal causing it to fall down. In my experience if you can get them off their feet quickly they usually don't get back up or if they do they don't go far because of the time elapse that takes place the brain gets the message YOUR DEAD.