March 11th, 2024

9minute read

Iexpected the elk to fold.

It was just 40 yards off.

Even in the 2 12x Alaskan, its shoulder was big as a car door.

In this photograph we see the author’s target along with Federal Premium Ammunition loads for the .308 Winchester and 6.5mm Creedmoor. Both ammo loads would be good for whitetail deer hunting, mule deer or even hog hunts. A soft-point bullet, also known as a soft-nosed bullet, is a jacketed expanding bullet with a soft metal core enclosed by a stronger metal jacket left open at the forward tip. A hollow-point bullet is a type of expanding bullet which expands on impact with a soft target, transferring more or all of the projectile’s energy into the target over a shorter distance.

Open Tip Match (OTM) bullets are not the same as hollow-point bullets. While OTM projectiles promise flat, accurate flight, do they also offer humane kills?

Instead, it hopped ahead and stood, as if puzzled by the .270s report.

My first softnose had shattered on the scapula.

None of its shards had damaged vitals.

Shown in this photograph is a .30-40 Krag soft point load on the left and a .30-30 Winchester Silvertip load. Silvertip bullets use soft lead and are suitable for self-defense and wild hog hunting due to its stopping power and ballistics. The .30-30 ammo is a rimmed cartridge often used in lever action rifles and handguns. The .30-30 Winchester cartridge was first marketed for the Winchester Model 1894 lever-action rifle in 1895. The .30-30, as it is most commonly known, along with the .25-35 Winchester, was offered that year as the United States' first small-bore sporting rifle cartridges designed for smokeless powder.

Early soft point bullets had lots of lead exposed for upset at low impact speeds. Winchester’s Sivertip followed the advent of smokeless loads hurling bullets at over 2,000 fps. A .45-70 round is shown to the left of a .30-40 Krag round.

The .375s blast sent the bull galloping off.

We followed, expecting a short trail.

But after a kilometer, prints showed the beast was keeping a brisk pace.

In this photograph, we see a Remington Arms cartridge load with an expanded soft point bullet. The ammo is much better for expansion in soft tissue than a FMJ bullet that is likely to over penetrate as compared to a hollow point or soft point load.

Remington introduced its inner-belted Core-Lokt in the 1930s. This is still a fine all-around big game bullet with good penetration and expansion.

How could that be?

A few minutes on, there he lay.

We dug the bullet from a hip.

In this photograph, we see a bullseye type shooting target being used by the author to sight in his telescopic sight with a load of Sierra Bullets at the shooting range. These loads use hollow point ammo and provide excellent accuracy and precision.

Sierra’s MatchKing hollow-point has an enviable reputation at 600 and 1,000 yards. It’s not for hunting.

The bullet had driven the length of the huge beast like a solid.

Expanding bullets can fail to behave as we expect in game.

Bones, muscles and gut contents dont replicate ballistic gelatin.

In this photograph, we see the kind of tissue damage a pointed soft point can do in ballistic gelatin. This gives us an idea of if the load is good for deer compared to cast bullets. When hunting deer, a ballistic tip bullet is much better than a full metal jacket round. You want to humanely kill a deer not just cause a blood trail.

Ballistic gelatin shows how this match bullet disintegrated even at modest .308 velocity (2,600 fps).

Impact speeds and shot angles vary.

Mud, even water on an animals hide can affect bullet upset.

Thick lead bullets neatly killed bison, brown bears and Africas eland into the 1880s.

In this photograph, we see the results of Hornady SST Superformance .308 Win ammo in calibrated ballistics gel.  Hornady Manufacturing Company is an American manufacturer of ammunition cartridges, components and handloading equipment, based in Grand Island, Nebraska.

Hornady’s SST poly-tip hunting bullet, proven in gelatin, delivers lethal upset and penetration in game.

Then small-bore cartridges fueled by smokeless powder pushed velocities high enough to foul bores with lead.

Pass-through strikes wasted much of the energy imparted by high speed.

Other military powers followed suit.

In this photograph, the author shows us three .30-caliber Nosler Partition bullets. They are 200-grains in mass. Nosler produces six different hunting cartridges. The first to be introduced was .26 Nosler, followed by .28 Nosler, .30 Nosler, .33 Nosler, .22 Nosler, and .27 Nosler.

The author still favors John Nosler’s Partition bullet, circa 1947, for big beasts with thick muscle and bone.

Tin plating helped, but was abandoned when it was found to cold-solder to case mouths.

Incorporated in the jacket, tin fared better.

Jackets on both softpoint and hollowpoint hunting bullets are applied from the rear.

In this photograph, we can see Trophy Bonded bullet that provides a better experience when hunting as it penetrates to the vital organs inside the deer which will ensure an ethical harvest. During deer season, you get limited opportunities for a good shot. So make sure your rounds will penetrate as deeply as they need to go.

Jack Carter’s Trophy Bonded bullets, now by Federal, give double-diameter mushrooms and drive deep with 92 to 95 percent weight retention.

Most lead cores of jacketed bullets contain antimony to make them harder typically 2.5 percent.

A hard core best endures heat (bore friction) but fragments most readily on impact.

Winchesters Precision Point had a cone of jacket material over the bullet tip and anchored under the jacket proper.

In this photograph, the author shows us the Terminal Ascent bullet. This is a rifle bullet that is a jacketed hollow point with a polymer tip favored by many deer hunters. It eliminates any feeding issues with hollow points while improving the ballistic coefficient of the projectile.

Bullets with high ballistic coefficients help you hit at distance. This one was designed to kill game, too.

Upset began at three lead windows at this juncture.

Peters Protected Point also had a nose cap.

Each Protected Point bullet required three hours and 51 operations to make!

Here we see the author in the field with a dead moose he shot during a hunt. The moose or elk is the world’s tallest, largest and heaviest extant species of deer and the only species in the genus Alces. It is also the tallest, and the second-largest, land animal in North America, falling short only of the American bison in body mass.

Most game is killed inside 200 yards — this moose, felled by a Hornady bullet from a .338 RCM, at 80.

A similar bullet without the band became Winchesters Silvertip.

During the 1930s, Remington developed its Core-Lokt bullet, a mid-section jacket belt resisting core-jacket separation.

Remingtons Bronze Point bullet had a conical tip metal tip that drove back into the core to prompt upset.

Federal

Despite its armor-piercing look, this sleek missile could rupture violently at high impact speeds.

Legions of polymer-tip bullets now share its peg-in-nose-cavity design.

Neither performed reliably in tough game.

Hornady

Match bullets might pierce, tumble or mushroom, depending on several variables.

Hunting hollowpoints had thin jackets that extended above the cores.

DWM had a strong-jacket bullet, its cavity lined with copper tubing.

Remington

The Choices?

Still, most hunters used softpoints for deer and bigger game.

On deer they could be destructive.

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The contagion of higher velocity had taken hold!

It would bring stouter softpoints.

In 1946 John Nosler hit a mud-encrusted moose several times with bullets from his .300 H&H.

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At last, the beast expired.

John found his bullets hadnt driven deep enough.

The heel remained intact to drive deep.

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Later jackets made by impact extrusion have a smooth, bright finish.

In the 1980s Lee Reed improved on the Nosler Partition with his Swift A-Frame, bonding the nose section.

A swaged jacket ring helps secure the core of Speers Grand Slam.

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The shank of a TIG has a funnel-shaped mouth to accept the coned butt of the front section.

Upset begins at this juncture as well as at the nose.

The rear core opens slowest because its hardest.

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A TUGs rear section fits into a cavity in the front section.

On impact, the nose gets slammed from both ends and opens violently.

The shank powers on.

Speer gave its Grand Slam bullet a two-part core, the rear section harder than the front.

The later Triple-Shock (TSX) had driving bands that improved accuracy.

Solid-copper hollowpoints now issue from nearly every company that makes hunting bullets.

They fly accurately and plow deep.

Weight retention routinely nudges 100 percent!

They typically deliver their best terminal performance within narrower velocity windows than lead-core bullets.

While tipped bullets predate WWII, only recently did polymer become useful tip material.

Color-coded to brand or diameter, theyre cosmetically and ballistically attractive.

In 2005 Hornady used a soft polymer to make pointed bullets for deer rifle cartridges like the .30-30.

Like hard-tipped pointed bullets, they fly flat and retain energy well downrange.

No bullet gets to 700 F quickly or stays that hot for long.

Doppler hasnt shown tip melt foranypolymer inside 300 yards.

Similar bullets have since appeared from other manufacturers.

Conclusion

So, which is best for hunting: softnose or hollowpoint?

I prefer heavy bonded softpoints for tough beasts at modest ranges.

But solid-copper hollowpoints have become hugely popular.

Theyre much more suitable for big game than were jacketed hollowpoints of my youth.

And they fly as flat as match bullets.

Tipped bullets lead-core and solid-copper have nose cavities.

So, arenttheyhollowpoints, too?

No bullet can yet match the killing effect of sound shot judgment and good marksmanship.

Go to forum thread

Federal

Hornady

Remington