Muley Hunter

This just me.... I really do not like the looks of those PB's, and yes I know they did the job... but I really do not want a bullet that pancakes like that... The frontal surface area has increased so much it has to be a detriment to penetration and even the effects of hydrostatic shock by the reduction of velocity, both by the necessity to shoot reduced loads with a PB and the fact that the frontal surface area of the pancaked bullet will greatly reduce velocity espesially in a semi fluid state of the vitals. One other problem with the size of the frontal is 'defection', that bullet can be easily defected by the fluids and lack of velocity.

You are far better off shooting a bullet that has controlled or at least semi-controlled expansion. The orignal reason for the development of the Nosler then the Barnes line was to prevent what you are seeing that picture....

Keep shooting your Barnes....

Yep! I always shot Noslers in my CF rifles. Expensive but such a great bullet.

IMHO, these debates we have about various muzzleloader bullets is good for our sport.the bullets that sell the best are not necessarily the best performing bullets.take the SST T/C gives free samples when you buy a rifle from them.is it popular, it sure is and very accurate to boot.the XTP has probably killed more deer than any other M/L bullet and is a good all around choice.powerbelt another extremely popular bullet, due to it's ease of loading. are these 3 bullets the best all around choice when accuracy and terminal performance are taken into consideration. IMHO when you take thousands of field reports and testing that has been done on them, they are not the best choices.i actually feel the XTP has better terminal performance than the SST and the PB,along with a moderate price tag compared to the other two.there are other choices out there like the PT gold and others, where the verdict still isn't in on them. to make it a bit more simple, we have the premium M/L bullet market and the economical bullet market. taking into consideration overall performance and real world results from everyday people along with people who hunt for a living, the results are obvious.Barnes expander MZ, has about as good a record as a bullet can get in the premium market. along with it's poly tipped brother the TEZ.it's cousin the full bore Thor is gaining the same respect also.Lehigh bullets are showing the same promise as the Barnes, although there's just not a large amount of people actually using them.Nosler was another good one, but has stopped making the excelllent bullets used in M/L's.in the moderately priced category you can't go wrong with a XTP, although IMHO the Deep curl is a all around better bullet. not everyone can afford the premium bullets.but we can do our homework and shoot the best we can afford.price VS performance the best buy on the market is the Deep curl bullet.and if you don't mind the rainbow trajectory,you can;t go wrong with quality heavy conicals either. there devastaing on animals..and very inexpensive to boot. Ray

builder459

Excellent post... IMHO

Yes, good post.

I'd like to comment on the PT Gold Bullet. I enjoyed the conversations I had with Ron. He's a nice guy and helped me a lot. I hope i'm completely wrong about the bullet. If we discount what Max got for results. I haven't seen one bad review except one, but he never said why he didn't like them. So, it's meaningless to me.

I'm probably more picky than most. When you're retired you have too much time to think.

After this i am seriously considering using either the 200 or 260 if i draw my new mexico deer tag.

You don't like Barnes? I haven't seen you test them. I know you like the Thors.

MD, if your talking about the PT bullets, just go to the 300 gr, with 110 gr BH the 300 is almost identical in the FPS arena and carries way more energy for the long range shots. just makes more sense to me.. Ray

He hates saboted bullets remember!!! LOL Ray

I know. Which makes me wonder why he's not using Thors.

I think he's bored.