50calty

I have hesitated providing any input in this thread, but since it is still out here and growing thought I might.

I am assuming that you have your questions about the regular XTP and the XTP Mag answered and they have provided you with a visual method to identify them.

I KNOW that XTP's probably have harvested more animals than any other bullet available in the US. When I first started shooting ML's I started using XTP's cheap readily available... even though the little voice in my head warned me no to go there.

When I was a centerfire hunter I tried Hornady brand bullets in my 270 and 300 Win mag and quicky learned there are better bullets available. Often, but not always, when shooting with the 270 or Win Mag - I would find the bullets separated. I would find the copper just inside the hide and the moved on through doing its thing. Sometimes staying together and getting good penetration other times fragmenting in pieces. At that point I switched to Noslers Partitions never looked back. I continued to shoot Hornady and other copper lead bullets at paper but not at animals.

When I moved to ML's - I found the same problem continued to haunt the Hornady line... except the 40-200 grain XTP - I have not got it to separate yet.

A few years ago I set out to test my thoughts on the XTP's after I found a separated bullet in a deer.

Here is an example...



This was designed as a torture test. You can see see some XTP's separated some didn't. I can not even tell you that a majority of them separted, but some did which created a doubt in my mind everytime I would shoot one...

Then when Speer brought out the Gold Dot, now called a Deep Curl (for American court ruling). When I read about the bullet they stated that the bullet was bonded and expansion was controlled internally... To me they proved to be a 'Poor Man's' Nosler Partition.

I repeated the torture test on the Gold Dots/Deep Curls...

Here are the results of one of those tests into the same medium that I shot the XTP's



I, unlike Lee, have very few XTP's left in the collection...

Nothing scientific in any of this but enough to know which bullet I would use if given the option.