I am a big proponent of BT's. I have been creating my own handloads around 165's and on one season 125's. I never lost deer to a BT. So far, I have killed 38 whitetails and 4 feral Pigs (the biggest was over 300 lbs!) between hunting Eastern NC (Hyde, Washington, Wayne, Duplin, and Beafort counties), to Macon county Alabama, and then finally to my current place in Bexar and Atascosa counties, Texas. I had two loads that my old post 64 M70 30-06 (24" bbl") like really well, and they are both on the hot side. H1000 compressed load produced an average of 2990 fps behind a 165 and the other staple load was 58 grains of Hogden 4350 behind the same bullet. It averaged around 2900 fps. I have killed deer as close as ten feet away with these loads where you might think bullet failure would occur. Only on two occasions did I not get an exit would, once on a little buck at 15 feet broadside into his shoulder (he dropped dead there anyway) and the other was the previously mentioned 300+ lb sow. She had fat under the hide on her back 3 inches thick. Thoughs that know, know how tough that stuff is!

I am a Nosler Ballistic Tip beleiver. I was making loads for these bullets long before Fededal was.