Are Bullets Better Now?

[charles p]

I've been deer hunting in NC for about 45 years and I've taken a lot of deer.  Seems like the bullets we had many years ago worked as well or better than the new bullets on the market today.  I used to never track a deer.  When I started out I had one rifle - a 30-06 and I shot Core-lokt bullets in 150 grain.  Now I have a dozen or so rifles, and I handload many different bullets for each, and I think performance is no better - maybe worse.

Anyone else think our older cartridges and bullets were on par with the new stuff?

[The Gamemaster]

People - even my father gets stuck in a rut where all they can think about is performance and velocity.

The price per a bullet being higher today then 10 years ago, tells you that logic tells you that the manufacturers are doing their homework and have made a good product for a long time.

Maybe you are one of those people that thinks that you have to have 3000 fps and Nosler Partitions to shoot a white tail deer.

I am a Pennsylvania hunter and I can tell you from 30 years of experience that the old Remington Core Lokt's killed more deer than Barnes, Nosler and all them other fancy pants bullets combined.

Why?  Because most hunters are not in it for the sport, they are in it because it is a tradition and once a year they get down old Betsy and go to Wal Mart and buy a box or three of Remington's and go to the range and shoot a box or so sighting in their rifles and then only shoot one or two shells to harvest their game animal.

By saying that, I will attest that more shells are shot at targets than at deer.  But the ones that are shot at deer are very good for the money that you pay for a box of factory loads today.

Throw them silly old hunting magazines away and quit watching all them hunting shows on TV - where the hunts are canned and the only thing that the hunter does is shoot the deer.  Like catching fish in a barrel.

[Cheesehead]

I do not think Corelokt bullets have changed. I have been shooting deer with them since 1969. Still shooting deer with them. Shoot targets with them now more then ever. I also use premium bullets at times, just because I bought them on sale.

Cheese

[mcwoodduck]

Unless I have to go with a premium bullet for a no lead reason ( Pinko Commi bed wetters here in CA have made some places lead free and I need to use the Barns triple X bullets) I shoot Remington or Federal (depending on the rifle) standard soft points.  The remington 180 grain round nose soft point core lockt bullets stick deer on our farm in NC, on the ground and keep them there at a reasonable price.  I consider my 308 with them the best brush rifle ever made.  Lots of knock down and accuracy to reach out 200 yards in a field if needed.
The only time I would think of using a "premium" bullet is if I wanted to use a smaller caliber on larger game.  If I were to hunt elk with a 30-06 or my 308, rather than my 338 WM (also gets a diet if Rem 225 core lockts) I would think of the nosler partition but for deer or smaller, I don't think it would open up before it was out the other side of a deer.
Remington offers the Core lockt bullets for reloading.

[mcwoodduck]

Where are you in NC?
My Step mothers Family farm in just outside of Oriental.

[Don Fischer]

I don't think you could deny that some of todays bullets are better than the bullets we had 40 yrs ago. The question is are these new bullets really necessary? They are if you think they are I guess. I should admit to never having shot the first head of game with any premium bullet. I've shot a few deer with Sierra cup and cores and a lot of deer and elk with Hornady Interlock and speer Hot cores. So long as I continue to have the success I've had with them, I can find no reason to change.

[deltecs]

It is amazing how the original post on this question is so parallel to what bullets and rounds were effective on African game, both DG and plains.  Kevin Robertson, a vet and pro African hunter, in his book "The Perfect Shot" iterates these same posts.  With all the new ultra high velocity rounds, the bullets manufactured are for a range of velocities and what works at 300 yards with high velocity may not work at 50 due the bullet breaking up from too high a velocity impact.  Corelokt bullets are effective for the velocity range intended.  Not for 25 yards shots at above 3000 fps.  This requires a premium bullet for the velocity.   It has always amazed me that very good and knowledgeable hunters ignore the simple facts of physics when it comes to cartridge comparisons.  When a cartridge is effective at all normal hunting ranges with a particular weight bullet, some screwball decides a lighter bullet with a flatter trajectory is better just because energy values are higher.  And if it is better, then a round that shoots one 200 fps is much better, when in fact this is just not true.  An example.  A 300 Win Mag shoots a 200 gr bullet at around 2800 fps in traditional length hunting barrels.   A .338-06 shoots a 200 gr at 2750 fps.  The .300 has more energy, flatter trajectory, and more sectional density but doesn't hit any harder on game.  Using a KO formula for game, one must take into account bullet diameter and cross sectional area.  The .338-06 has a KO value of 26.5, while the .300 has a KO of 24.6.   Now I agree that this is not enough difference with the same weight bullet.  But go to a heavier bullet in the .338 having the same sectional density as the 200 gr .308 and the difference now is substantially in favor of the .338 and with a bullet designed for the range and velocity for proper expansion and penetration.   The 300 Win Mag using 200 gr at the  KO value of 24.6 is way out of its league when the 250 gr .338-06 has a KO value of 30.2, with a higher sectional density bullet and much less energy.  No wonder moderate velocity rounds at normal hunting distances have worked so well over the years due bullets designed for the velocity intended, and impact velocities for proper expansion.  These are the mathematical and physical facts as realized by anyone with a calculator.  Argue all anyone wants to, the facts bear this out on game.

[Graybeard]

Are the better now? I guess that would depend on your definition of better now wouldn't it?

Deer are really NOT that hard to kill if you put the bullet where it belongs. If you don't then contrary to what magazines might have you believe it really doesn't matter how fast it's moving or how the bullet is constructed it won't get the job done. Bullet placement far far far more so than bullet construction is what matters.

Sure we have some super high tech bullets that have higher BCs than those in days of old and therefore reach the target moving a bit faster and with more of that "paper energy" magazine writers so love to talk about. We have bullets made with no lead that don't fragment much at all other than losing the petals from time to time. We have bullets designed to expand quickly, expand slowly, not expand at all, blow up on impact and do about any other thing you might want a bullet to do. It's your job to decide which is right for the particular chore at hand and then to put it in the right place. But really if you do that (put it in the right place) none of the rest of it really matters as you'll have a dead deer either on the ground where it stood or at the end of a reasonably short blood trail. It doesn't take a super bullet to do that and those round lead balls fired from a flintlock will still do the job today if placed where they should be.

[flintlock]

Charles...Also in NC here...Your timing is scary...I spent this past weekend pricing out what it would cost me to get into reloading...Decided I'd keep shooting factory ammo...

The past 10 years, I have tried 8-10 different "Premium" factory loadings...Actually for deer I prefer the plain old CoreLokts, PowerPoints, GameKings,  InterLokts and Pro-Hunters...

As long as a bullet gives me a good exit hole on center lung shots and is hard enough to break both shoulder blades then I can kill deer with it...I took some time off yesterday morning and picked up 4 boxes of CoreLokts and 2 boxes of the Federal Classics (Pro-Hunter)...They were still priced at $14.24 and $14.95 a box...I've been stocking up on ammo for the past couple of years....Looks like it's going to go even higher....

[beemanbeme]

I'm gonna say yes.  And I'm talking about garden variety bullets. I don't think Rem/Win/Fed/Horn/Etc have been sitting on their hands.  There has been on going competition between them for their share of the market. Slight changes in core composition, slight changes in ogive and such.  Nothing dramatic and no shrill headlines promising a whole lot of crap they don't produce but definite improvements. 

[Hammerspur]

If I might weigh in on this topic... I think what today's bullet menu offers is better variety, and more "forgiveness": a range of performance suited to a wider range of parameters. However the main parameter remains velocity, specifically the bullet speed when hitting the target.

At one time all rounds were by today's standards on the slow side, but shortly thereafter (still quite a long time ago) both conventional velocity and new high velocity rounds became available. Bullets suited for either extreme were pretty much available.
As the range of velocities widened from low to super fast and everything in between bullet failures began to occur.
A bullet good for moderate range in a low-vel round is prone to fail miserably out of a hi-vel round at the same range... BUT if that same pill out of the hi-vel round is used at longer range, where terminal velocity is more ordinary it should perform as intended.

Scads of deer were taken over many years using "pistol" cartridges out of lever guns... .44-40 for example. Just like Bill said about the round lead ball, the round nose lead bullets at appropriate velocities and ranges worked fine.

Todays Super-Bullets offer the possibilty of a greater envelope, range/velocity wise, of desired impact performance than projectiles tailored to either end of the spectrum... a bit more versatility and increased hope for success.

Premium bullets are still no substitute for shot placement or good judgment on the part of the hunter.

[bubba]

I think that today's bullets give people a false feeling of security  and superiority by the way the companies portray them.  It gives hunters the feeling that they can take a less that great shot and still get the job done rather than take the best shot and put the bullet where it needs to go .  In other words it makes hunters not have to be as good of hunters and get close and take a good ethical shot cuz the bullet will do the work the hunter used to have to. Unfortunately as I said it is a false sense.  It is kind of like the hype of clean deadly sots with a muzzleloader out to 250 yards. Yeah I guess it can be done, but more deer are wounded and lost than are cleanly harvested.  Hunters expect instant results.  I love reading the posts about how a bullet failed because the deer ran 100 yards after being shot. Umm the deer died, you just had to put in a little more effort to find the deer. I would prefer a well placed shot with a supposedly inferior bullet than a bad shot with a superior bullet.  That being said, I load and shoot mostly sierra game kings.  Not because I feel they are a better bullet, but because they shoot the most accurate in my rifles and I know I can out the bullet where I want it fir that clean ethical kill. 

[mcwoodduck]

The first thing I want in a bullet is accuracy.  The second is that it will open up and make as big of a hole as it can to increase the damage to vital parts and hold together so it will have a better chance of continuing on a strait path through the animal.  The other problem in bullet design comes with the increased velocity of the Magnum cases.  A 150 grain bullet will work fine out of an 06 at 3000 feet per second and will not fail if shooting a game animal close, let's say 20 yards.  That same bullet may fail if shooting a deer or other at the same range if it leaves the barrel at 3600 FPS.  The real trick is making a bullet that will preform at all velocities in a given caliber.  The whole idea of the magnum was to get the same bullet to go faster and increase the range by having a flatter trajectory and to extend the killing power of the bullet.  Now you also have the other area for a premium bullet in using it on larger game at longer range but not fail close.  Capstick talks about this in one of his articles about a 340 Weathrby Mag and 250 grain bullets hot loaded to warp speed, blowing baseball holes in Zebra close up but working fine 200 yards away when the bullet slowed to normal speeds for the 338 bullets.
223 is a great varmint and predator round.  The light bullets open up at the speeds associated with that cartridge on small game, sometimes explosivly.  Would you take it deer hunting?  Maybe, but a 45 grain soft point you use for Coyote may not reach into a large deer far enough on a strait path to make a clean kill at medium to long ranges.  The premium bullet will allow you to use this caliber for a larger game animal then originally designed. 
The other problem is that the bullet makers now want to sell their super bullets that will work in everything from 30-30 to 300 ultra and they market them.  I have a friend that will only shoot premium bullets,  he has bought into the advertising that the bullet will...  Whatever be it handgun or rifle, center fire or rimfire.
Hey let's not gripe.  It could be worse.  We could have one style of bullet for each hole size, and that's it.

[buck460XVR]

If I might weigh in on this topic... I think what today's bullet menu offers is better variety, and more "forgiveness": a range of performance suited to a wider range of parameters.

Premium bullets are still no substitute for shot placement or good judgment on the part of the hunter.

gotta agree. Todays bullets are better only when combined with todays optics(the real reason accurate shooting distances have increased) and on some marginal hits. Deer shot years ago with my ol' model '97 with paper hulled slugs dropped just as fast as the deer I shot this year with my '06 with Winchester Supremes. Just like the first buck I shot with a bow....dropped within 35 yards after being shot with a cedar arrow out of a 45# wooden recurve......dropped just as fast as the ones shot with my Matthews. You still gotta hit 'em, and hit 'em good.

[K.K]

While deer certainly don't require "premium" bullets, there are certainly a lot of great choices out there these days. I am all for it!  I love to hand-load and shoot a great variety of these newer bullets. That said, I think that bullets are definitely better today, especially when using high-velocity cartridges at close range. Also, for the guy that owns only one or two rifles, premium bullets can allow a handloader to "step up" his cartridges (i.e 30-06 with heavy bullets etc), should the need arise. Personally, I think that today's bullets are the best ever, and newer ones are coming out all the time. To each his own.  Just my 2c!

K.K

[Ranger J]

 Of course today's bullets have to be better in order to get through the kevlar hides the game now grows.

RJ