Sexy appearance is ok in dear hunting, but deer require different criteria. [:'(] A lyman "m" die will solve your flatbase bullet seating troubles.

Agreed- I love the M-die, I have one for each rifle caliber I reload.

The Ballistic tips are usually the most accurate bullets in my rifles.

I have been loading the 165-grain BT in my .30-06 cases the year after they were introduced to handloaders. I have two -06's: a Winchester Model 70 and a Savage Model 110E. This bullet has produced sterling accuracy in both rifles, and of the 10+ deer I have killed with them, only one has made it past five yards from the site of the shot.

I have always acheived full penetration, from ranges of 35 to 150 yards, except for one instance. In 2000 I shot a buck straight down between the shoulders from 25' up in my treestand. The bullet centered the spine, completely pulverizing three vertabrae into white bone powder, and snapped off another three. When I field-dressed the buck, I noticed the lack of exit and no damage to the heart (I was aiming to drive the bullet through the bottom of the chest and through the heart). I also noticed the right lung was intact, but the left lung, well, there was no left lung. After the bullet smashed the spine it entered the left lung and detonated, turning it into raspberry puree.

Ballistic Tips get a lot of good/bad press. Most praise them for the their accuracy, some praise them for their expansion, and some damn them for a lack of penetration, especially through heavy bone. I will admit, they would not be my first choice for game as large and heavy as elk or moose (unless I loaded the 200-grain BT in my .338, since that BT is made with a heavier jacket, but I know I would simply stick with the 250-grain Hawk spitzers I load now). But for whitetails/muleys, antelope, caribou, black bear and similiar game, I think they are great bullets and I will cotinue to load them with confidence (I wish they made muzzleloader bullets!)

Brian

Dont ya just love that......

I told you they'd shed their cores. [X(]

Slamfire, the shot was taken at less than 25 yards. Muzzle velocity from my Savage Model 110E is a chronographed 2840-2850 fps, so let's say the bullet struck the spine at 2800 fps. Other than a Fail-Safe or an X-bullet, I wouldn't bet any simoleons that a bullet would stay together completely at that close a range and impacting heavy bone.

Mossy, yeah, I like it! They do not run far with that kinda damage!

Brian

BDHUNTR ,I agree with you . At that range and striking the spine ,I bet even his favorit flat base bullet would have had the same break up.

Huh uh, Nosler partitions don't breakup until impact velocities exceed 3100 fps.

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.