.257 WBY 87 Grain Spitzer

reynolds357 · December 30, 2012, 11:30 PM

One of my friends gave me 3 full boxes of above ammo. He bought it and was afraid to use it on deer. I looked at it and just as he says, Weatherby says it is Varmint ammo. The bullet is a 87 grain Hornaday interlock, so I decided I would not waste the ammo and took it deer hunting. Its late in the season and I am filling up the freezer. I shot a very old, very large doe tonight with this ammo. Shot was at 90 yards so it had not slowed down much. Entrance wound was right behind the left front shoulder. Exit wound blew the right shoulder off the deer. The shoulder was hanging by skin. The bullet completely smashed one shoulder bone and exited leaving a wound my fist would easily fit in. The internals were jello. Most of what was left of the heart ran out the exit wound onto the ground. My question is why would an interlock that stays together and penetrates like this be considered Varmint?

solocam72 · December 30, 2012, 11:47 PM

I would say that bullet blew all kinds of apart but was traveling so fast that most of the fragments passed through, I bet if it wasn't such a mess you would have found some fragment when field dressing it. I have a .257 ROY also and use the barnes 80 grain ttsx bullets chronod at 3700 fps, I have recovered a bunch of these bullets in snow and ice and 99 percent of them were fully intact, I chose the barnes figuring if any bullet had a chance of holding together at these velocities it would be the all copper barnes bullets. I am very happy with there performance, they shoot really good in my rifle

Sure Shot Mc Gee · December 30, 2012, 11:52 PM

Quote:

My question is why would an interlock that stays together and penetrates like this be considered Varmint?

Speed of it shot thru a weatherby. Very very fast. My friend has a 257 weatherby been shooting 87s near the entire time he's owned his rifle at MN size deer. 200 lbs plus on the hoof. (25 years perhaps) Swears by 'em.

reynolds357 · December 31, 2012, 12:00 AM

It impressed me. I dont care if the bullet stays together or not, I just want an exit wound or an entrance wound that looks like an exit wound. Preferably the latter.

solocam72 · December 31, 2012, 12:03 AM

Sounds like you found a winner!

reynolds357 · December 31, 2012, 12:08 AM

I want to shoot a few more deer with it before I decide for sure. It smashed one shoulder blade and bone completely while still exiting. I cant really comprehend how it could fail on a white tail if it did this.

solocam72 · December 31, 2012, 12:30 AM

Is that shoulder that was blowed off edible? Was there much bloodshot damage that will ultimately have to be thrown away? I have found there's a decent amount of good table fair on them shoulders, I personally like to eat as much of the deer as I can save, the little 80 grain barnes ttsx bullets I am shooting in my .257 weatherby expand to at least twice there size upon impact and pass through a deer like lightning leaving the lungs the consistency of jello, the best part IMO is there's very little if any bloodshot mess if I accidently get in a shoulder, making clean up simple and waste minimal. Different strokes for different folks

reynolds357 · December 31, 2012, 12:47 AM

One shoulder was a loss.

solocam72 · December 31, 2012, 01:10 AM

That's honestly not that bad for a bullet doing the damage you explain. These .257 weatherbys are a serious force to reckon with!! I tried the 110 grain nosler accubonds and they didn't hold up that well IMO and I am a HUGE fan of those bullets! I really don't like the barnes x bullets for fear that they won't do enough damage, they need hyper velocity to reliably expand, if there's anything in my arsenal that's hyper and lots of it, its my .257 ROY! I could push the envelope a little farther I'm sure with the 80 grain bullets but I don't see any need to? Barrel life will deminish that much faster. At 3700 fps that's varmint gun velocity with a deer hunting bullet! Impressive IMO!

solocam72 · December 31, 2012, 02:12 AM

Don't mean to skip around the board here but thought I would elaborate a bit on my experience with barnes. My dad swears by the 180 grain barnes x bullets in his .300 win mag, so I tried them in my 7mm rem mag, I was shooting the 140 grain accubonds for hunting and the 140 ballistic tip to play as they shoot the same in my rifle, the B.C. is identicle between the two .485, I ventured away and tried the barnes ttsx (suppose to be the same bullet as the original x bullet but with a polymer tip) I found a load that worked really well in my rifle, the load chronod right at 3000 fps, I shot several in a heavy snow bank mixed with ice, what I was able to recover looked pretty good, they expanded decent but not near as well as the .257 weatherby, the weatherby was running 3700 fps over the chrono and the 7mm mag was 3000 fps, I could tell the barnes liked the higher velocity of the .257, when spring time came and the snow and ice bagan to melt I recovered several more bullets from both guns and found that a few of the 7mm bullets had hardly expanded at all, this really bothered me! The last thing I wanted was a bullet to act like a piercen bullet and just poke a clean hole straight through the animal! I wanted to know that bullet would reliably expand EVERY time! I ended up culling the barnes in my 7mm because of this, but I love them in the .257 weatherby as they expand violently and reliably every time! My dad has great luck with the barnes x bullets in his .300 win mag and has taken a half dozen or more big bull elk and several whitetail with them with excellent results. I went back to the nosler accubonds in my 7mag as I have complete confidence in them. My advice is to shoot what you are confident in. If its not broke don't fix it!

solocam72 · December 31, 2012, 08:50 AM

Reynolds357, any idea how fast them 87 grain spitzers are traveling? They are factory weatherby loads? If indeed they are factory weatherby I am REALLY curious of the velocity

reynolds357 · December 31, 2012, 09:58 AM

Have not run them through Chrono yet, but WBY says 3825. In my experience WBY usually chronos a touch bit faster than what they advertise.

reynolds357 · December 31, 2012, 10:08 AM

Solocam, I have shot a lot of big game with the Barnes X. I have never lost one, but I have tracked a few much further than I thought I should have. I have never recovered an X bullet, but I have recovered all four of its petals. Sometimes it expands. Sometimes it does not. Sometimes, it comes apart and loses its petals, but it always performs. I'm not knocking them because they have killed everything I sent one of them to, but my personal preference is that there are very few situations where they warrant the price they command. I shot an elk with a 7mmX out of a 7 Rum and for all practical purposes I shot him with a monolithic solid. I have shot white tails with the same bullet from the same rifle and got 2" exit hole. The Elk literally had an exit wound the size of the entrance. You cold see neither unless you followed the miniscule amount of blood to them. To be fair to Barnes, all my experience is with the first generatiion X. I have not messed with the updated stuff yet.

hooligan1 · December 31, 2012, 10:26 AM

Well thanx Solo, you just saved me a few bucks and some vigorous testing, as I planned to give those Barnes bullets a tryout, I use Accubonds also in my 7mm rem mag.

solocam72 · December 31, 2012, 12:37 PM

Reynolds357, definately give an update if you get a chance to chrono them. I'm not knocking the barnes bullets they just didn't do what I was expecting them to, out of the bullets I recovered there were way more that showed expansion than didn't but the ones that didn't concerned me cuz they really didn't do much more than lose the little blue polymer tip, barnes claims that there bullets expand to twice there size and retain nearly all of there weight, and those are the results I got with the little 80 grainers at 3700 fps out of my .257 weatherby, but was far from that in my 7MM REM MAG, I'm sure there would have been more reliable expansion if I could have driven them faster but my rifle shot the lower to medium loads the best giving velocity of 3000 fps. I have a free video from barnes showing there x bullets fully expanding on a tomatoe in slow mo! my experience was hit and miss with them so I stopped messing with them and went back to the accubonds. My dad has yet to recover an x bullet from the game he has taken also and has found pedals that had broken off as well, he likes them better on elk than deer as the bullet has much more tissue to expand and shock before it exits.

December 30, 2012, 11:30 PM	#1
reynolds357 Senior Member Join Date: December 10, 2012 Posts: 6,164	.257 WBY 87 Grain Spitzer One of my friends gave me 3 full boxes of above ammo. He bought it and was afraid to use it on deer. I looked at it and just as he says, Weatherby says it is Varmint ammo. The bullet is a 87 grain Hornaday interlock, so I decided I would not waste the ammo and took it deer hunting. Its late in the season and I am filling up the freezer. I shot a very old, very large doe tonight with this ammo. Shot was at 90 yards so it had not slowed down much. Entrance wound was right behind the left front shoulder. Exit wound blew the right shoulder off the deer. The shoulder was hanging by skin. The bullet completely smashed one shoulder bone and exited leaving a wound my fist would easily fit in. The internals were jello. Most of what was left of the heart ran out the exit wound onto the ground. My question is why would an interlock that stays together and penetrates like this be considered Varmint?

December 31, 2012, 10:26 AM	#14
hooligan1 Senior Member Join Date: July 18, 2010 Location: Independence Missouri Posts: 4,585	Well thanx Solo, you just saved me a few bucks and some vigorous testing, as I planned to give those Barnes bullets a tryout, I use Accubonds also in my 7mm rem mag. __________________ Keep your Axe sharp and your powder dry.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version Email this Page	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

December 30, 2012, 11:47 PM	#2
solocam72 Senior Member Join Date: December 15, 2012 Location: Great Northwest Posts: 222	I would say that bullet blew all kinds of apart but was traveling so fast that most of the fragments passed through, I bet if it wasn't such a mess you would have found some fragment when field dressing it. I have a .257 ROY also and use the barnes 80 grain ttsx bullets chronod at 3700 fps, I have recovered a bunch of these bullets in snow and ice and 99 percent of them were fully intact, I chose the barnes figuring if any bullet had a chance of holding together at these velocities it would be the all copper barnes bullets. I am very happy with there performance, they shoot really good in my rifle

December 31, 2012, 12:00 AM	#4
reynolds357 Senior Member Join Date: December 10, 2012 Posts: 6,164	It impressed me. I dont care if the bullet stays together or not, I just want an exit wound or an entrance wound that looks like an exit wound. Preferably the latter.

December 31, 2012, 12:03 AM	#5
solocam72 Senior Member Join Date: December 15, 2012 Location: Great Northwest Posts: 222	Sounds like you found a winner!

December 31, 2012, 12:08 AM	#6
reynolds357 Senior Member Join Date: December 10, 2012 Posts: 6,164	I want to shoot a few more deer with it before I decide for sure. It smashed one shoulder blade and bone completely while still exiting. I cant really comprehend how it could fail on a white tail if it did this.

December 31, 2012, 12:30 AM	#7
solocam72 Senior Member Join Date: December 15, 2012 Location: Great Northwest Posts: 222	Is that shoulder that was blowed off edible? Was there much bloodshot damage that will ultimately have to be thrown away? I have found there's a decent amount of good table fair on them shoulders, I personally like to eat as much of the deer as I can save, the little 80 grain barnes ttsx bullets I am shooting in my .257 weatherby expand to at least twice there size upon impact and pass through a deer like lightning leaving the lungs the consistency of jello, the best part IMO is there's very little if any bloodshot mess if I accidently get in a shoulder, making clean up simple and waste minimal. Different strokes for different folks

December 31, 2012, 12:47 AM	#8
reynolds357 Senior Member Join Date: December 10, 2012 Posts: 6,164	One shoulder was a loss.

December 31, 2012, 01:10 AM	#9
solocam72 Senior Member Join Date: December 15, 2012 Location: Great Northwest Posts: 222	That's honestly not that bad for a bullet doing the damage you explain. These .257 weatherbys are a serious force to reckon with!! I tried the 110 grain nosler accubonds and they didn't hold up that well IMO and I am a HUGE fan of those bullets! I really don't like the barnes x bullets for fear that they won't do enough damage, they need hyper velocity to reliably expand, if there's anything in my arsenal that's hyper and lots of it, its my .257 ROY! I could push the envelope a little farther I'm sure with the 80 grain bullets but I don't see any need to? Barrel life will deminish that much faster. At 3700 fps that's varmint gun velocity with a deer hunting bullet! Impressive IMO!

December 31, 2012, 02:12 AM	#10
solocam72 Senior Member Join Date: December 15, 2012 Location: Great Northwest Posts: 222	Don't mean to skip around the board here but thought I would elaborate a bit on my experience with barnes. My dad swears by the 180 grain barnes x bullets in his .300 win mag, so I tried them in my 7mm rem mag, I was shooting the 140 grain accubonds for hunting and the 140 ballistic tip to play as they shoot the same in my rifle, the B.C. is identicle between the two .485, I ventured away and tried the barnes ttsx (suppose to be the same bullet as the original x bullet but with a polymer tip) I found a load that worked really well in my rifle, the load chronod right at 3000 fps, I shot several in a heavy snow bank mixed with ice, what I was able to recover looked pretty good, they expanded decent but not near as well as the .257 weatherby, the weatherby was running 3700 fps over the chrono and the 7mm mag was 3000 fps, I could tell the barnes liked the higher velocity of the .257, when spring time came and the snow and ice bagan to melt I recovered several more bullets from both guns and found that a few of the 7mm bullets had hardly expanded at all, this really bothered me! The last thing I wanted was a bullet to act like a piercen bullet and just poke a clean hole straight through the animal! I wanted to know that bullet would reliably expand EVERY time! I ended up culling the barnes in my 7mm because of this, but I love them in the .257 weatherby as they expand violently and reliably every time! My dad has great luck with the barnes x bullets in his .300 win mag and has taken a half dozen or more big bull elk and several whitetail with them with excellent results. I went back to the nosler accubonds in my 7mag as I have complete confidence in them. My advice is to shoot what you are confident in. If its not broke don't fix it!

December 31, 2012, 08:50 AM	#11
solocam72 Senior Member Join Date: December 15, 2012 Location: Great Northwest Posts: 222	Reynolds357, any idea how fast them 87 grain spitzers are traveling? They are factory weatherby loads? If indeed they are factory weatherby I am REALLY curious of the velocity

December 31, 2012, 09:58 AM	#12
reynolds357 Senior Member Join Date: December 10, 2012 Posts: 6,164	Have not run them through Chrono yet, but WBY says 3825. In my experience WBY usually chronos a touch bit faster than what they advertise.

December 31, 2012, 10:08 AM	#13
reynolds357 Senior Member Join Date: December 10, 2012 Posts: 6,164	Solocam, I have shot a lot of big game with the Barnes X. I have never lost one, but I have tracked a few much further than I thought I should have. I have never recovered an X bullet, but I have recovered all four of its petals. Sometimes it expands. Sometimes it does not. Sometimes, it comes apart and loses its petals, but it always performs. I'm not knocking them because they have killed everything I sent one of them to, but my personal preference is that there are very few situations where they warrant the price they command. I shot an elk with a 7mmX out of a 7 Rum and for all practical purposes I shot him with a monolithic solid. I have shot white tails with the same bullet from the same rifle and got 2" exit hole. The Elk literally had an exit wound the size of the entrance. You cold see neither unless you followed the miniscule amount of blood to them. To be fair to Barnes, all my experience is with the first generatiion X. I have not messed with the updated stuff yet.

December 31, 2012, 12:37 PM	#15
solocam72 Senior Member Join Date: December 15, 2012 Location: Great Northwest Posts: 222	Reynolds357, definately give an update if you get a chance to chrono them. I'm not knocking the barnes bullets they just didn't do what I was expecting them to, out of the bullets I recovered there were way more that showed expansion than didn't but the ones that didn't concerned me cuz they really didn't do much more than lose the little blue polymer tip, barnes claims that there bullets expand to twice there size and retain nearly all of there weight, and those are the results I got with the little 80 grainers at 3700 fps out of my .257 weatherby, but was far from that in my 7MM REM MAG, I'm sure there would have been more reliable expansion if I could have driven them faster but my rifle shot the lower to medium loads the best giving velocity of 3000 fps. I have a free video from barnes showing there x bullets fully expanding on a tomatoe in slow mo! my experience was hit and miss with them so I stopped messing with them and went back to the accubonds. My dad has yet to recover an x bullet from the game he has taken also and has found pedals that had broken off as well, he likes them better on elk than deer as the bullet has much more tissue to expand and shock before it exits.