Fortune conspired to give Andrew the next shot, too. I was hunting for a scimitar oryx, but I had told Andrew that when he got there he could take a hog because he had never shot one before. Late on the second day, I delivered on that promise when a nice, 80-pound boar worked its way out of the brush.

The hog was 100 yards from us, facing away. Andrew placed a 180-grain E-Tip through the boar's spine, just in front of the tail. The bullet traveled through the pig, devastating the spine and everything in between before exiting just ahead of the left shoulder. Ordinarily, an 80-pound pig isn't much of a bullet test, but a hog's heavy spine is notoriously hard on bullets. Despite penetrating several inches of the thickest part of the spine, the E-Tip showed no signs of fragmenting.

The last shot was another bit of bad luck for me. Kevin offered me the next shot, but I insisted on a coin flip. Kevin won, and it wasn't long before we finally caught up with the herd of oryx we'd been chasing for 2 1/2 days. Kevin skulked off into the cedar thickets while we watched and waited.

Kevin snuck to within about 125 yards before the herd spotted him. The herd bull had just turned to run when Kevin shot it a bit behind the left shoulder. The 300-pound bull was already in motion at the shot, which probably explained why it managed to run 40 yards before piling up in a heap, mid-stride.

A postmortem revealed tremendous internal damage. Both lungs were destroyed, and the off shoulder, which was not quite tough enough to catch the E-Tip, was shattered. The exit wound was about the size of a half-dollar.

Winchester E-Tip Offerings
Cartridge	Bullet Weight (grs.)	Muzzle Velocity (fps)
.308	180	2620
.30-06	180	2750
.300 WSM	180	3010
.300 Win. Mag.	180	2950

Time ran out before I could catch up with the herd in order to take a bull of my own, but I headed back to Houston with a pretty good feel for the E-Tip's capabilities.

I look at a lot of factors when testing a new bullet: penetration, the size of the exit wound, the presence or absence of bullet fragments in the wound channel, the size of the wound channel, the weight of the recovered bullet, and the animal's reaction. These all help me evaluate a bullet's performance. I've tested a lot of bullets over the years, and I have to say the E-Tip performed admirably in every respect. However, I don't know that the E-Tip is any better than some other top-of-the-line bullets, like Winchester's XP3. The XP3 is a fine bullet, so that's not a knock on the E-Tip. Rather, it's a testament to the engineering skill that went into making a solid-copper bullet perform as well as one of the best lead-core bullets on the market.

When you combine that great performance with the E-Tip's environmentally friendly construction, you end up with a first-rate bullet that is as effective on game as it is at shooting down another avenue of attack on our hunting rights. For that, I think we all owe Nosler and Winchester a hearty "thank you."