Long Range Accubond Review

[Karl Blanchard]

Great report. I have been committed to the original 300 WSM 180 Accubonds for years. Shot plenty of animals with excellent results. None past 400 yds tho. I use Nosler ammo. At what point would you recommend changing to the 190 LRABs? I guess if they work well at short and long distance and shoot well out of my gun why not. Sounds like you had a great year. Happy New Year to all.

Hey shootem.  Honestly, I don't really see an advantage unless your heading north of 500.  That being said, one buck died last year from a good old fashioned accubond at 700 and it worked fine.  Bang flop.  Or you could mention interest in them to coach and you'll just end up with a box on your doorstep

[Biggerhammer]

I really like the Accubonds especially with the .300 WSM. I prefer more speed due to the fact speed makes up for mass to a certain point and with the average shot here being 300 to 500 yards it has worked well for me to use a stout powder charge behind a 150gr Accubond.

This is a 150gr Accubond recovered just under the hide on the off side of a Mulie shot at just shy of 400 yards. Couldn't ask for better performance.

[shootem]

Great report. I have been committed to the original 300 WSM 180 Accubonds for years. Shot plenty of animals with excellent results. None past 400 yds tho. I use Nosler ammo. At what point would you recommend changing to the 190 LRABs? I guess if they work well at short and long distance and shoot well out of my gun why not. Sounds like you had a great year. Happy New Year to all.

Hey Doc.  Honestly, I don't really see an advantage unless your heading north of 500.  That being said, one buck died last year from a good old fashioned accubond at 700 and it worked fine.  Bang flop.  Or you could mention interest in them to coach and you'll just end up with a box on your doorstep

Gee Coach it sure would be interesting to see how they shoot out of my gun. Those are beautiful bullets.

[grundy53]

Thanks for the review. . Great write up!

Sent from my E6782 using Tapatalk

[Wanttohuntmore]

Thanks guys, keep it coming.  I've got some 175's I need to try in my 7stw, then the 150's in my sons 270.  This post gives me hope.  I'll post my findings later as well.

[kentrek]

Good review !

Hey Carp, how fast was those 190s going ??

2850 out of a 300 wsm. I never would have thought they would kill so poor at even that velocity. Not super fast but still acted like a grenade on contact.

Yikes ! I'm shooting a 185 @ 2870 out of a 300 wsm....I'm getting enough kills added up to get a pretty good opinion on them and can see me moving to the accubond or maybe hornadys new wiz bang

[Karl Blanchard]

Great report. I have been committed to the original 300 WSM 180 Accubonds for years. Shot plenty of animals with excellent results. None past 400 yds tho. I use Nosler ammo. At what point would you recommend changing to the 190 LRABs? I guess if they work well at short and long distance and shoot well out of my gun why not. Sounds like you had a great year. Happy New Year to all.

Hey Doc.  Honestly, I don't really see an advantage unless your heading north of 500.  That being said, one buck died last year from a good old fashioned accubond at 700 and it worked fine.  Bang flop.  Or you could mention interest in them to coach and you'll just end up with a box on your doorstep

Gee Coach it sure would be interesting to see how they shoot out of my gun. Those are beautiful bullets.

 

[coachcw]

I'm pretty sure Karl has some loaded up . maybe he will send you some ...lol

[Karl Blanchard]

All I need is your gun DOC and I'd be more than happy to work up a load for ya   Coach will just have to use his super powers to find you brass! 

[Antlershed]

Thanks for the review, but I'm not sure I see the advantage to the LRAB in a round like the .300wsm. I can push the 180 AB at 2900fps, which according to Nosler, would make it perform optimally out to about 700-800 yards. Does the LRAB need less velocity to perform on game animals? Curious what the difference in drop is between the 180 AB and the 190 LRAB at 800 yards coming out of a .300wsm. I would imagine not much?

[Karl Blanchard]

According to Nosler, standard accubond requires 1800 fps to reliably expand.  LRAB only requires 1300 fps, so the advantage is a bonded bullet that doesn't take so many fps to go pop.  The high b.c. of the LRAB does start to pull away from the standard accubond out past about 650 in my setup.  Preasure and temp all play a roll so the numbers aren't stagnant. 

 Most all my practice shooting is long range, because 100 yard paper punching is boring to me, but for hunting, I rarely shoot to distances that I (me) would consider long range.  However, I'm not against it and if the situation calls for it, I'm gonna send it.  I wanted a bullet I could snap shoot a whitetail with at 40 yards or go downtown on a muley with if need be.  VLD'S at short range had mixed reviews at short range so I figured these may be a suitable hybrid.  So far I personally believe they are.

[Antlershed]

Ok, that's what I was curious about is the velocity required for the LRAB. At what range does your load drop below 1300fps?

[carpsniperg2]

Good review !

Hey Carp, how fast was those 190s going ??

2850 out of a 300 wsm. I never would have thought they would kill so poor at even that velocity. Not super fast but still acted like a grenade on contact.

Yikes ! I'm shooting a 185 @ 2870 out of a 300 wsm....I'm getting enough kills added up to get a pretty good opinion on them and can see me moving to the accubond or maybe hornadys new wiz bang

I know. They shot super super well in my rifle. I was really excited about them even though I had heard to horror stories on close range shots. Well after witnessing it first hand I said no more of that. It was my rifle but my cousin is the one who had the bull tag. I am not that lucky. He was packing his 338 lap and got tired of lugging around a 12lb gun in thick timber. So he started packing my 300 wsm.

I am also planning on playing with the eld-x.

By far the accubond is the best bullet I have ever used. Even though I have killed a good amount of critters with a partition and etip. I have killed far more animals with the accubond now days and trust them 100% all the time. Like Karl said 1800fps is what nosler recommends for good expansion. Which is what I run in my 300wsm most of the time. I switched to the bergers and had the poor results in killing power at close range I talked about above.

Thanks for the review, but I'm not sure I see the advantage to the LRAB in a round like the .300wsm. I can push the 180 AB at 2900fps, which according to Nosler, would make it perform optimally out to about 700-800 yards. Does the LRAB need less velocity to perform on game animals? Curious what the difference in drop is between the 180 AB and the 190 LRAB at 800 yards coming out of a .300wsm. I would imagine not much?

That is the twin load to what I shoot in my 300 wsm. At 650 yards is right at the 1800fps mark anything more is getting into less expansion then recommended. However when you switch the bullet to a 190 LRAB with a minimum required expansion velocity of only 1300 fps. And even drop down to 2850fps. You are going to maintain 1300fps out to around 1200 yards or so.

My personal preference is to stay at the recommended velocity by the bullet manufacture and 1000ft pounds of energy. Just my personal numbers. With the LRAB that is a max range for me to 1000yards. While my accubond load hits the minimum fps at only 650 yards.

[Antlershed]

Thanks for the info. You are right, I was off on my numbers. I had 1700 stuck in my head for the AB for some reason. 1800 puts it in there at 650-700 yards.

I have never tried the Bergers, and don't really have any desire to. Shot the A-Max out of my .300 RUM a couple times and didn't like picking bullet fragments out of my meat.

I hadn't messed with the LRAB's primarily because of all the reviews on how finicky they are. May have to give em a try sometime if I have the time.

[Mxracer532]

I shoot the 95gn VLD's out of my .243 and killed alot of coyotes at various ranges. My sisters and nephew have killed multiple deer with them as well. I can honestly say the VLD's do act funky at close range. I have shot coyotes at 150 yards or so with no exits but also had others at the same range with baseball sized exits. Deer wise my sister killed a buck at 520 yards (perfect heart shot) that the bullet had fragments that almost exited the offside shoulder. I killed my spring bear with the same load at just under 300 (if I remember right) and had an exit on the 1st shot and followed up on a quartered too shot that bang flopped it. (No exit)
All that being said, the consistency of the Bergers are 2nd to none. I just purchased a Sendero in 7mag and have 168gn VLD's on the way. This will be my bear gun ONLY so my plan is to load some Accubonds or Barnes to keep on hand for that one time the bear shows up under 200 or so.  Donno guess I will see.