Today’s bullet sales and profit seems to cater to where the bullet volume is. Specifically, sales cater to the long range crowd, shooting very low drag bullets and to the big game long range crowd. Long range in this case is beyond 200 yards which is a common sense limit for round nose ammo. Yes, I am one of those guys who likes to play with long range stuff but what about a hunter who owns rifles of odd calibers and/or those hunters who invariably do not hunt long range such as the deer hunters of my state of New Hampshire. These hunters often harvest deer in the woods at 40 to 60 yards on average with bullets that are of long range design.
And finally to those who believe, like me, that a well placed round or flat nose or semi-spitzer bullet will drop game faster than a fully pointed spitzer would because more energy is delivered to the animal given that the range to the game animal needs to be relatively short, say 100 yards or less. Of course energy, frontal area of the bullet, and sectional density play a part.
The tug of a bullet entering game hide is, for all practical purposes, crushingly more powerful for a round or flat nose bullet than for a pencil pointed bullet which pokes a hole in the hide. In fact, you can often hear the slap (surface shock) of a flat or round nose which often instantly drops the game and highly recommended for dangerous game. I shot a red doe with a .375 dia flat nose bullet traveling at 1500 fps and she went 20 yards. Similar to the .375 Winchester or 38-55.. That speed is too slow for a spitzer to even open up and mushroom. Spitzers often need at least 1800fps to mushroom adequately. Semi- spitzers mushroom faster as they are more rounded.
Of course there are pro’s and con’s.
I have harvested deer with spitzers which mushroom ideally and have harvested with round and flat nose as well. Both work! My limited experience is that game seems to drop more often, on the spot, with round or flat nose than with spitzers give that it is short range. On long range I trust Nosler AccuBonds and E-Tips. Round nose and flat nose bullets are still out there. Hornady, Barnes, Speer and Sierra makes them too.
My Texas buck in 2018 was taken with a muzzleloader and semi-spitzer tip and a flat hollow point design under the tip. He never took a step. Of course 150 grains of powder and a 300 grain bullet dropped him right there because of the huge energy delivered and frontal surface area.
My brother loves his 444 Marlin lever action with 240 grain flat points for New Hampshire thick stuff. Otherwise he likes his 300 win mag that does it all. I like the .375 Ruger for hunting everything because I handload. Of course, if it is a rifle, I love them all and of nearly every caliber.
Great campfire fodder!
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