The Most DISSAPOINTING Bullet there ever was...

Muddy with much respect, as I genuinely enjoy and listen to your comments and read with vigor just like others from here. But this is where I may finally can contribute back to you.

2 options.

1. Regular BP rifles. Using BH 209 and the like. Check out these. Dead Center Bullets. By farrrr. The best regular muzzleloing bullet I have ever used. Converted so many locals to these in my area I must be keeping these guys in business. Average tracking Distance has got to be under 5 yards for lots and lots of deer put in my freezer.

2 modern smokeless Muzzleloaders bullets I am kinda of new at it and have only 1 deer so far but give Pittman bullets a try. Impressive is an understatement.
I may be freaking old but not too old to learn and appreciate recommendations and REMINDERS! I shot their Dead Center many years ago and frankly just dropped the ball staying with them. Good kick in butt to place another order.
 
Speer Grand Slam. Back in the day I heard how great they were on game. I'll never know since when I was doing load development I could swear I was shooting buckshot.
I've had the opposite results with the one rifle I load grand slams for. My Winchester M70 featherweight is a mule deer killing machine with 50 grains of imr 4350 and 145 grain grand slams in 7x57. Far more accurate than me. I've harvested deer from 50 to 500 yards with that load and they never go far and leave a good blood trail, all have been full penetration.
 
Barnes LRX 175's - Could have been my rifle. They were so bad that they have changed my load development methods. If I shoot looking for pressure, 8 - 12 shots over a variety of charge weights, and the group of all is over say 1.5", I'm done. These were about 2.5". I worked on charge weight and seating depth until I got a 0.3" 3 shot group. I shot 5 groups of 5 of that load. all were over 1.25". The composite group was probably 3". Dang! Hammers put the initial ladder under 0.75"!

SST's - Well, I have seen them blow up at ~2800fps and at 2500fps. So, let's say they are good under 2200fps and Hornady says the min velocity is 1800fps. That seems like a narrow range! Too many other choices.

Anything with a lead tip….I hate seeing those smacked up in the mag.

Bergers have always shot well for me, but kind of explosive. I would use again.

Trying CX, ELD-X, and Hammers now.
 
I may be freaking old but not too old to learn and appreciate recommendations and REMINDERS! I shot their Dead Center many years ago and frankly just dropped the ball staying with them. Good kick in butt to place another order.
These my friend I am talking about.
 

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I think every specific bullet weight and caliber for a particular design can vary. Many have said in other threads that the 30cal Nosler BT sucked unless it was the 180gr. I have had mixed reviews on SST, but honestly most of that has been with the 6.8spc shooting 120gr. They all killed well but sometimes they fragment, others they expand rapidly and all you find is a jacket under the hid offside and others you have a beautiful mushroom. I think a lot of the performance depends on what you hit and the angle you hit it at. I had a buddy who was fuming mad about a 9mm hp not expanding after being shot thru a car door. One look at it, showed it closed the tip the an angled shot and in no way could it have expanded after that. The design was good it just didn't work well in that situation, however it did penetrate and track true enough, so it did the rest of its job. When it comes to rifle bullets, some varieties are designed for certain rounds (velocity windows) and don't work great when shot by other rounds such as a 300WM vs a 308. One can see where a 308 designed bullet shot in a 300WM might blow up at close range but work wonderfully at longer ranges. If you flip that the 300WM bullet might work ok up close in 308 but at longer distance it doesn't expand as well. That's not a bullet design issue, that's just using it outside of its best velocity window. Packaging often doesn't tell us these velocity windows for a particular bullet so it takes digging or testing to find out what they perform like. Sadly a lot of that testing happens on game, and we see a certain combo didn't work well, and then we right off the entire bullet family as not worth having. Hence why you have seen just about every bullet made mentioned here. Every design can fail, which is why it is up to us to learn what shots to take with certain bullets.
 
Berger Classic Hunter 185gr. Produced the best groups I ever shot out of my 30-06ai. Only hunted with it once, shot a doe at about 150yards, hit right behind the shoulder and she just stood there. Buddy and I heard the impact and were looking at each other like what just happened. She just stood there along with several other deer. After a few seconds, expecting she was going to fall I shot her again but in the neck this time which dropped her. Couldn't find entrance or exit unit skinning on the behind the shoulder shot, it had entered right behind the shoulder and exited behind the last rib. Couldn't find entrance on the neck shot but had about a dime size exit. I didn't clear the hollow points so that could have been the reason but never used them for hunting after this.
 
I think every specific bullet weight and caliber for a particular design can vary. Many have said in other threads that the 30cal Nosler BT sucked unless it was the 180gr. I have had mixed reviews on SST, but honestly most of that has been with the 6.8spc shooting 120gr. They all killed well but sometimes they fragment, others they expand rapidly and all you find is a jacket under the hid offside and others you have a beautiful mushroom. I think a lot of the performance depends on what you hit and the angle you hit it at. I had a buddy who was fuming mad about a 9mm hp not expanding after being shot thru a car door. One look at it, showed it closed the tip the an angled shot and in no way could it have expanded after that. The design was good it just didn't work well in that situation, however it did penetrate and track true enough, so it did the rest of its job. When it comes to rifle bullets, some varieties are designed for certain rounds (velocity windows) and don't work great when shot by other rounds such as a 300WM vs a 308. One can see where a 308 designed bullet shot in a 300WM might blow up at close range but work wonderfully at longer ranges. If you flip that the 300WM bullet might work ok up close in 308 but at longer distance it doesn't expand as well. That's not a bullet design issue, that's just using it outside of its best velocity window. Packaging often doesn't tell us these velocity windows for a particular bullet so it takes digging or testing to find out what they perform like. Sadly a lot of that testing happens on game, and we see a certain combo didn't work well, and then we right off the entire bullet family as not worth having. Hence why you have seen just about every bullet made mentioned here. Every design can fail, which is why it is up to us to learn what shots to take with certain bullets.
The Nosler 7mm 120 grain BT is one of the best performing bullets ever in its class.
 
I just read all 52 posts and feel like I should go home and throw away all of my bullets. I'm also going to check the freezer and make sure the wildlife is still dead. I have to find some Remington Corelocks, nobody dissed them yet.
Boo!!!! corlokts!!! 👎 😂

In all seriousness if I was a factory ammo guy I would take Winchester super x power points over Remington corlokt or federal power shock any day as far as cheaper ammo goes.

My uncle had a sort of fail with a corelokt. Blew up completely on the scapula of a deer, they did recover it after a long long tracking job. It had destroyed one lung and thats as far as fragments went. 180 grain out of a slow moving .308, absolutely no way that should ever be.Possible haha.

It's insane how far an animal can go on one lung.
 
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