I made a trade for a Ruger #1 .257 Roberts with a fellow board member. Included in the trade was a couple boxes of Nosler "Trophy Grade" +P 110 Grain ammo.
So far, this season, the Ruger has been fired at deer, 3 times...result?? 4 dead deer.
I am posting this because of "Mixed" results.
First shot killed 2 deer..a doe and a button buck standing behind her. Instant kill for both deer.
Second shot killed a 9 point that showed no evidence of being hit (no "hump-up/ dropped tail/etc,).
Third shot killed an 8 point. Instant kill.
Reason for this post is that this ammo has resulted in a "pass thru" in every case. The bullets do not seem to expand. In each case, the deer were shot thru the lungs/heart, but entrance AND exit holes were small. Accubond bullets have white,plastic tips. Velocity of Plus P is way up there but deer are killed by shock, not a great deal of tissue damage.
A public service message....

You want them to expand a lot stick them in the shoulder and see what they do. Sounds like you haven't had any trouble killing even more deer than you intended to with them.

What exactly is the complaint that you have no gaping hole on the exit or that they don't work?

Did you gut any of the deer? I think your getting some expansion otherwise it would be a long tracking job with little blood. Accubonds are a bonded bullet and you should get pass through. You might want to try a softer bullet if you want more expansion like an sst or ballistic tip.

All deer were gutted, skinned and quartered by me. I had a good look at entrance and exit holes, in each case the exit holes were small.
My issue is that the one buck that ran off left no blood trail. Fortunately, my Australian Shepherd found him after he ran approx. 60 yards and fell in a brush pile.
There is a thread in Deer Hunting where the shooter is using a Weatherby .257 magnum using Hornaday ammo with the identical 117 grain bullet. His results mirror mine.
I am including a picture of the buck that ran off..you can see the entrance hole and his heart was exploded, how he was able to run is a mystery to me.

I have had deer run like that with a perfect heart shot. The bullet is doing its job. I love the Accubonds and have been shooting them since 2007. Shoot one high shoulder and see what happens. One thing is for certain, deer will react different to the same shot placement . If you want DRT then do head shots.

Shoot enough deer and you will see lots of reactions. Bang flop, run off with or without any indication of a hit, flip over backwards, and others. Even with seemingly the same shot placement different deer can and do react differently.

As far as the accobond cannot ever remember any that didnot leave a 3/4 to 1.5 inch exit when shooting them in 25, 6.5, 7mm, and 308 calibers. The more bone you hit usually the bigger the exit.

I tested some of the 110 accubonds out of my 257 Roberts. Accuubonds are built to perform similar to Partitions. They blow about 1/3 their weight. Here are two 110 accubonds, one obviously has a much narrower mushroom but it still blew shrapnel when hit. Could explain the smaller exits even with instant kills.

I have seen deer hit in the heart with every caliber deer rifle I can think of and they still run sometimes; some of them leaving a blood trail like a fire hose and some don't.

I asked a professor of Animal Science at A&M about deer running after being shot through the heart and he stated.....

"Deer have enough oxygen in their blood stream to run for 15 seconds even with the heart completely destroyed; now consider how far a deer can run in 15 seconds." As we continued to talk about deer hunting, he basically stated what I believed all along......

"If you pull the drain plug on a tractors oil pan, it can still go ALONG WAY before it runs out of oil and the motor locks up."

"However if you pull the drain plug and take one of the front wheels off...... Your not going far at all before it locks up!"

Moral of the story being that you obviously know how to shoot; just adjust your shot placement so that the bullet lands right square in the middle of the front shoulder blade.

This will......

1.Give the bullet more resistance and allow it to expand.
2.Break the deers front shoulder and thus limit its mobility, should it run.
3.With the Accubonds you are using I have no doubt that they would still pass through and will probably give you a much better blood trail.

I've hunted deer with a 257 Roberts for 40 years. My father started me with handloads using 100 grain bullets, have used Partitions of various weights, Core-lokts, Ballistic Tips and the Accubonds. I have seen all kinds of reactions from the deer, but so far have not lost one, or had to use a follow up shot to kill one. The Roberts is as good on deer as are a plethora of other chamberings. Main thing is the ability of the shooter to make a good shot and having some tracking skills for the odd deer that doesn't know it dead yet.

I have killed hundreds of deer. This is not an exaggeration. As previously stated, The Roberts has been fired three times this season and killed four deer.
I know about shoulder shots (Look at the bullet placement in the picture to get an idea of my accuracy potential). With pass-thru, I do not want to ruin two shoulder roasts.
The good news is that I have discovered that I own a tracking dog.
The reason for this post was to inform about a specific bullets performance on deer.

I use a 250 Savage and have found that heavier bullets perform better than fast lighter ones.
I may not have the flat trajectories at long yardage that you enjoy but my shots generally leave a decent exit wound.
If you reload, try pushing more bullet.

I absolutely agree. I came up in the Jack O'Conner/Elmer Keith generation (Jack was.270/high velocity) VS (Elmer "Bigger is better").
A couple years ago, I hunted a season with a Marlin 1895 .45/70 using 300 grain bullets. Nothing but bang-flops.
Just for fun (and because I can) I hunt with a different rifle, every year.

DH3 Do you even know what bullet you were using?

In your first post you said "Nosler "Trophy Grade" +P 110 Grain ammo."

In your second post you said "Hornady ammo with identical 117gr bullet"???

And you've killed "hundreds of deer" and haven't figured out that they can run 50-100 yards without a heart??

Accubonds, like Partitions, lose a lot of their front parts and, therefore, don't generally leave big exits. By your discription, I'd say the bullets performed exactly as designed. And having a deer run 60 yards is nothing out of the ordinary. FWIW, when I had a Roberts I had the best luck using 100 grainers pushed fast.

^^^^^^^^^


This. Exactly.

You shoot behind the shoulder like me. I aim dead center between the top of the back and bottom of the belly. It usually results in a double lung and the heart all exploding into soup. The problem is the Accubond. It is designed to retain it's weight and exit, which is what you want for a through the shoulders shot. But, behind the shoulder it will poke a small hole all the way through and the deer is going to run. Switch to an SST, Premier Accutip, or Ballistic Tip type bullet and your results will be more desired for your aim point.

Yep...