Winchester XP3s...I like em!!!

Here's a pic of a nice freezer doe I shot last night. She dropped within a few yards with a heart shot bout 150 yards out. The exit passed through the shoulder bone and bled like a stuck pig. I was using 150 grain 30/06 xp3s, shootin a Savage 111.

I went with these bullets because I lost a buck last year. I was using ballistic tip type rounds. Not a drop of blood! I never had a problem with these rounds in the past, they were very accurate, but always found they didn't leave a good blood trail. This is due to the design of the round, which rapidly expands and expends all its energy inside the animal. In theory, this makes alot of sense, 100% of the bullets energy is expended on the animal. In practice though, you only have one small entry wound, with no exit. As you all know, sometimes this gets plugged up with hair or fat, or clots up. And if you hunt in the thick stuff or swamp, you need a blood trail or else the wolves get a free meal!

As you can see by the pic, these xp3's petal out at the tip rapidly, then they also have secondary expansion in the middle of the bullet. This bullet I recovered from a buck last year. The animal dropped in its tracks from a frontal neck shot. I thought it was weird that I couldn't find an exit, till my oldest son spat it out after a bite of backstrap! It went through the front, and drove through along the spine for bout 8 inches! Wow, that's holdin together man!

Another thing I like is the ballistic type tip on them. Their trajectory is pretty near that of ballistic tips, so I practise with my handloads, which saves me lots a money!

Check em out here: http://winchester.com/products/catalog/cfrlist.aspx?bn=16&type=69