After trying both the 140 grain Sierra and the 130 grain TSX, I decided that I needed something in the middle. Ideally, a bullet that would hold together better than the Sierra, but that was soft enough to expand at the lower impact velocity of a longer range shot. With that in mind, I decided to try the 130 grain Nosler Accubond. I also bought a bag of Norma .270 WSM brass which replaced the Winchester brass I had been using and switched to a Federal 210 primer. My hope was that going with a standard rifle primer versus a magnum might give me a little less pressure while still giving consistent ignition and velocity. It turns out, I was right! Using Retumbo and loading the cartridges to an OAL of 3.132 inches, I got the following results:

62 gr – 3284, 3267, 3228 – group size 1.2 inches
63 gr – 3292, 3286, 3280 – group size .7 inches
64 gr – 3300, 3315, 3300 – group size 1 inch
65 gr – 3308, 3325, 3325 – group size 1.1 inches

None of these loads showed signs of excessive pressure. While I don’t claim to be an expert, I think that going from a magnum to a standard rifle primer made a lot of difference. I decided to go with the 63 grain load, now it was time to try it on game and see how the bullet performed.

The first animal I took with it was a whitetail buck. He was broadside at 350 yards. The bullet passed completely through, taking out the top of the heart. At the shot, the deer reared up on his hind legs and fell over backwards. Since it was a pass-through, I have no idea how much weight the bullet retained, but the exit wound was about the size of a dime.

The next day, I wanted to shoot a doe for some extra meat. I spotted a nice one at the edge of the woods at 250 yards. She was quartering away at about 45 degrees, so I held for the offside shoulder and squeezed. She ran about 25 yards and piled up. When I got up to her, there was no exit wound, but she did have a bump under her skin on her offside shoulder. After making a small cut, the bullet popped out.

It was a nice day and I had plenty of time, so I did a little digging in the gut pile after I dressed her out. The bullet entered her flank, went though her stomach, tore out a big piece of liver and went through most of the front shoulder, but didn’t hit the main joint.

The recovered bullet weighed 81.6 grains, which is 62.7% of the original weight. The total penetration was somewhere between 1.5 and 2 feet.

Tags: 130 grain Accubond, 6.5 WSM