I've never been a fan of the barnes bullets in anything, I've seen them shot by friends with great success. I've also personally seen them not expand at all either and with more than enough velocity that they should have. Thats all I'll say about them.
Up until this fall, I'd used partitions in everything from .22 to .338 calibers for most of my hunting the last 25 or so years. I've never had anything bad happen with a partition, not once.
However, this past summer, I was trying to squeak out every bit of accuracy I could out of a 7mm Mag that a friend and I worked on. We bedded the rifle, installed a new trigger, stock, etc. I was shooting honest MOA with the partitions and then decided to give the accubonds a try.
My rifle
A 300 yard target after working with COAL and using 160 accubonds ahead of 62 grains of IMR4831. MV of 2970.
With them shooting so well, figured I wring them out on game this year. I was nervous about the accubonds and all the explosive stories I'd heard.
I shot 4 antelope with them from 50 yards to 420 yards and had the same results on all three, nice quarter to 50 cent piece sized exits.
I also shot 4 elk with them this year as well. Shot a WY bull at 25 yards, impact velocity over 2900 fps. That shot worried me the most. The bullet entered through the back part of the shoulder blade and exited just behind the shoulder. Shredded the lungs and the bull never took a step, just slumped over and died.
Photos of the entrance and exit sides on that bull:
Entrance:
Exit:
Exit up close...hard to say this was "explosive":
Shot a bull in Montana at 376 yards and didnt recover any bullets, but did recover one from a Montana mule deer on a hard quartering shot. Found the bullet under the hide on the off-side, shot was 120 yards.
Picture of a cow elk with what I found to be normal bullet performance from the 160 accubonds, a 50-cent pieces sized exit, shot was 211 yards, exit side:
For my last elk in AZ, I shot a nice 6 point at 620 yards. The first shot put him down, but I shot him 2 more times in his bed, recovered the bullets on the off-side.
Picture of the 3 bullets I recovered:
From left, one from the box, 2 from the 6 point at 620, the final one from the mule deer at 120 yards:
While 9 animals isnt the end all, so far I've been more than happy with the accubonds and didnt experience any of the things I was concerned about...and have read about. I think they're a quality bullet at a decent price.
YMMV.