ballistic silver tip bullets?
 

thinking of trying some silver tips for deer/hog, anyone ever them in 308 or 30-06 some say thay dont hold up very good & come apart, anyone ever rocovered one

I've got a buddy that used them for years in his '06...They usually don't exit, but sure do create a mess inside...He has since moved up to a .243, using 100gr CoreLokts and has good pass throughs and blood trails...

Well, I was going to use them in my 30-06 BAR but I couldn't get a decent group with them. I ended up figuring out my gun much preferred soft points so I stuck to them. I ended up selling a buddy my box and and partial box I had left. He normally used the classic Winchester Silvertips in his but not he ballistic ones. He said these shot about 1.5" high so he hunted with them. However, he never got a shot with them. He also has a 300WSM he uses them in and really seems to like them. A few guys I hunt with also use them. One for 25-06 and a couple for .270's. I think they all like them to. Another bullet other than soft points that seem to be popular with the guys I hunt with are the Hornady SST's.

The Ballistic Silvertip bullet is nothing more than a mixture of Nosler and Winchester technology. It is a Nosler Ballistic Tip bullet with a silver tip and a Winchester Lubalox coating on it. So construction wise, it is really no difference between it and the normal Nosler Ballistic Tip bullet. With my experience shooting them, and hunting partners I have seen that use them, they are a fast expanding bullet that maintains about 50% of their weight by design, the fragmentation inside the body causes multiple secondary wounds to incapacitate the animal faster. I would not shoot a whitetail deer directly through the shoulders with one of these bullets, I consider them more to be a bullet designed to placed right behind the shoulder, much like an archery shot. The bullet will expand rapidly and destroy the lungs and possibly heart area without having any super hard bones in the way. A whitetail deer shot in this manner will normally fall over dead right there because you just turned their internal organs to mush. First let me say that I have never hunted a hog before, but I read that they can be somewhat of a tough animal to bring down. I know their size can vary a lot too. Since I wouldn't try to put one of these bullets through a whitetail deer's shoulder, or take a steep quartering shot with these bullets, and I consider the hog to be a tougher animal, the same would go for the hog. I have read that the heavier weight the bullet is for the caliber, the thicker the jacket construction is for the Ballistic Tip bullets. So on that note, maybe shooting the heaviest bullet you can for your caliber would be a wise choice with this ammo selection.

I personally much prefer a bullet designed to retain at least 70% of its weight to ensure expansion. A good all around bullet that is really popular out there is the Nosler Accubond. It is what I like to think of as a new and improved Ballistic Tip bullet. It still expands pretty dang fast but because of the redesigned jacket and bonding process, it retains more weight and allows it to penetrate deeper. It is just as sleek as the Ballistic Tip which makes it retain energy at longer ranges better. And if you are just a Winchester ammunition fan, they even happen to load the Accubond with the same Lubalox coating that is on the Ballistic Silvertips.

I shoot them in my 308. I have never shot a hog either so can't speak there, but the whitetails shot with them dropped quickly, no recovered bullet...all pass throughs, nice exit hole. Distances were less than 75 on all animals shot. I think its a good bullet, but again, for hogs, I am really not sure how they react.

i Do not have an explanation on why i want to shoot Silver Tips, just looking on nosler.com and seen them. i shoot all hand loads for the accuracy & was thinking it might be a good target and hunting bullet

plenty of through and throughs here....baseball size exit wounds and quarter size entries. hogs never take a 2nd step, i had a deer run 40 yards one time. recovered in 20 minutes.. everytime.

Have used the Ballistic Silvertips for years and have great success on deer using my Ruger M77 Ultra Light. Never hunted hogs. If you like to hand load your bullets the casings on the Silvertips are NOT a good choice. The silver looking case is mighty pretty and looks real sexy, but not a good choice for reloads.

I just prefer a good bonded bullet like the Hornady BTSP. Good for all round, anything that walks out shooting. I gave a 150 pound hog two new ear holes (pass thru) yesterday with one. Several of us tried the ballistic tips when they started to become popular and there were a lot of deer lost without good reasoning.

I tried them in my Tika T3 lite 25-06 but couldn't get them to group so I never hunted with them.

I shot the Nosler ballistic tips back when you had to reload 'em, and now that Winchester has the ballistic silvertip, I shoot those. They group really well in my .30-06 and I've shot deer at ranges from 10 yds out to 357 yds with not a single deer lost. In fact, I've never had one take more than 20 steps from where they were standing and most dropped like a stone. Some times I get complete pass through, some times I don't ... just depends on the range, angle, and placement but for my money, like Tony the Tiger says ............... ''They're Great!"

The BST in 150gr in a 06 and 130gr in a 270 are the best bullets for deer I have ever used. Most drop on the spot, the only one that did not was a perfect double lung on a big 10 pointer that went about 125 yards, this was a pass through with a blood trail Ray Charles could follow. The BST shoot great in both my BAR 06 and A-Bolt 270, both MOA. I have only had one in about 30 deer not be a pass through and that was from a range of less than 10 yards striaght down between the shoulder blades.

I am in the process of finding a new bullet to deer hunt with. After killing over 60 deer over the years with the original 150 gr SILVERTIP, I switched over to the BALLISTIC SILVERTIP and have lost two wall hangers. The last one just last week. I usually head shoot a doe or two each year and both lost bucks were shot right behind the shoulder, the last one at 30 yards. I've been researching the internet and it appears that the 150 and 168 grain BST's have a thinner jacket and softer lead core than the 180 grain BST. I want to continue shooting 150 grain bullets for the longer distances that sometimes present themselves. Going to try a box of Barnes solid copper. Hope they are as accurate as the BST's have been. I'll use the rest of the BST's I have on coyotes.

I get nice groups with my 270 Remington 700 with the silvertips..Died instantly

If you hit a deer smack in the shoulder with a ballistic tip bullet he will run like mad and leave no blood trail.

I use the Nosler Partition this bullet breaks bone if needed and leaves plenty of blood if needed.

Last year's deer killed with 270 silver tips..died on contact..lung shot.

BSTs pack a lot of punch depending on the caliber. The 30-06 is not a weak round either.

They can easily go through the shoulder. The shoulder will actually look like it exploded. When they hit bone, they do as they were designed and fragment out. I've caught the opposite side front leg on two of the three bucks I've taken with the BSTs, and it just blew the leg bone up.

The other buck I nicked the rib behind the shoulder, and the fragments expanded creating a 2" hole in the rib on the other side. The neatest looking hole I've seen the round create so far. Normally the round fragments, and you have many little holes.

They are like Noslers rounds, but are cheaper to purchase. A very violent round. I've come to like the partitioned rounds for hunting. They work, and they work well. However, you have to be willing to lose some meat for the stopping power. They do more damage then other rounds commonly used for hunting.

I have reloaded ballistic tips for 20+ years with several different cartridges. If you put the bullet where it needs to be they will do there job no problem

I'll second this. Its all I use, excellent bullet.

Can't really comment on the bullet the OP is asking about, as I've never used them. Lots of great options out there today that will give good and specific types of performance. I'm personally not a fan of ballistic tip bullets for deer - just based on what I've seen.

That is very true. Its what happens on shots that aren't exactly where they need to be that (to me) determine the type of bullet to use. I'd rather have something that's gonna do the job regardless of the shot placement - than one that only works if placed perfectly. I'm not saying they are bad...they aren't. They do exactly as they are designed to do.

Partitioned rounds do not need to be nominally placed. The way the bullet design works makes it an all purpose killing round. All you need to do is get in the same bread box as any other effective hunting round.

They are no better than some of the other mentioned rounds. All of the more modern hunting rounds are so close to one another in regards to effectiveness once they hit the target it really does not matter which you use.

What matters more is your guns ability to make the round go where you need it to, and your confidence in that chosen round.

show me where your research says the jacket thicknesses are different and softer lead is used, according to my sources at nosler, the 150's and 168's use the same jacket cup so the 150 would have the thickest jacket, and they use the same antimoney amount in the lead cores.
I've shot a ton on deer with BT's, if you lost 2 wall hangers, wasn't the fault of the bullet.
RR


RR, here is one example of what I found reading up on BST's. Go to Google and type in "Winchester Ballistic Silvertip failure" and you'll find plenty people bitchin bout em. I'm not gonna bitch about em anymore, just not gonna use em for anything more than coyotes till I finish off the last three boxes. If you shoot as many deer as you say, you'll eventually run into this situation. Maybe you have small deer where you hunt. Bottom line is, I'm not using them anymore. And if you didn't see the evidence, how do you know it wasn't the fault of the bullet? Anyway, if you get bored, just type in what I said and good reading!

http://wassonhuntingservices.com/php...pic.php?t=2928

I shoot the 270 WSM and found that the Silver BT was the best bullet type I had to choose from to keep deer intacted so I could butcher therm. I had a choise between Accubounds and SBT and the accubounds would blow the heck out of the deer on exit. They were great for Moose but way over kill for deer. Since I changed the SBT performs every bit as good and is the perfect exit on any deer I've taken and I have taken a number of them with it....

Using a 150gr Ballistic Silvertip in .308, I have only shot one deer but had good result. The deer was quatering away hard at about 20 yards, and rolled over into the prone position to get the shot. I fired and he ran 10-15 yards and collapsed. When I recovered him, I found the entrance wound at the rear of the rib cage (exactly where I aimed) and the exit wound through the shoulder. Due to the angle of the shot, the entrace wound was about the size of a baseball and obliterated the ribs. The exit wound was much smaller, due to the fragmentation of the bullet, but made it through the shoulder blade just fine.

Even though my experince with them is limited to this one kill, I would not hesitate to use them again. Although, once I start reloading, I will switch to the Speer DeepCurls. I use them in my muzzleloader (which is what I normally hunt with), and they are absolutely devastating with no fragmentation.

I have recovered several Winchester Ballistic Silvertip .30-06 150grn bullets from KS whitetails over the last 12-14yrs. I started using them sometime in '98 or '99, and haven't used any other load in my ol' standby .30-06 since then. At the time, I was looking for ONE load to suit for deer, hogs, and coyotes, the BST's delivered. The first deer I dropped was a doe at 383yrds (lasered). The wound tract looked like a standard softpoint tract at 100yrds.

That said, I HAVE had a few bullet failures. Within the first year of using this round, I hit a doe at about 60yrds cleanly right behind the shoulder. I could SEE the entry wound in my scope as I tried to get a 2nd shot on her, but I failed to connect on the follow up shot. The entry wound looked shallow, and about the size of a baseball. I tracked blood for a half mile before I lost her trail. Fast forward over a decade, and I hit a doe this winter quartering towards at 40ft (ft, not yrds). I could have used a ladle to field dress her, I cut her trachea and anus, and everything else poured out like jelly. I have hit 2 other deer with these under 50yrds, and honestly, it's good that I don't try to use rib meat, because everything in their chest cavity was shredded. I hit a badger at about 6ft this winter in the neck. The exit wound was the size of a baseball... Through a badger's neck...

What's amazing about them is that they still do their job very well at long range. Yes, they're prone to breaking up at under 100yrds, but I've only had that one deer that made it more than 50yrds. On the other hand, I've hit over a handful of deer over 400yrds with these babies and I get either DRT's or 30-50yrd runners. It's a high trauma round.

Frankly, they're probably too frangible for deer at anything under 75yrds. They're a pretty thin jacket, but the jacket stays pretty well intact. The BAD part, at least for deer hunting, or the GOOD part for coyotes, is that the jacket and core almost ALWAYS separate. You WILL end up with jacket and core frags scattered all over. Oddly enough, I've recovered several jackets, even on deer with substantial exit wounds. I guess that means the core is exiting, but the "petaled" jacket isn't.

They're VERY accurate, and if you pick your shots carefully to avoid meat damage, you'll love them. Never shoot a deer facing you though, because it's going to look like it got hit by a train.

I've hit two deer under 75 yards. One at 45, and one at 60. Both are dead.

The thing that matters with the closer shots is hitting bone. You hit bone and you get guaranteed fragmentation. It's why aiming for the breadbasket or neck is important. You are more likely to hit something hard enough to cause the bullet to expand at close range causing traumatic damage.

I shot my first buck in the back at 45 yards, and then through the gut at 15 yards (it was in a full run at the time). The bullet made clean exit with no expansion at 15 yards. A through and through shot.

I hit no bone, and was too close to the deer to have it fragment properly without help. I did not know it at the time, but my first shot was kill shot. The buck ran the 45 yards back to my tree and died. It was a good thing I made a good first shot, because the second shot provided valuable insight to the round itself while doing nothing to help make the kill.

If you are closer to the deer, I agree that you need to aim somewhere with enough mass to force the bullet to break apart. It's the one "weakness" of the round. An odd thing to say.