sierra 175 gr HPBT or hornady 162 gr A-MAX for 7mm rem mag

[quentin9595]

what one would you recommend for long range shooting and hunting deer, elk and black bear and what one stays together the best. thanks

 

[Antelope_Sniper]

For long range hunting, I'd recommend the 160gr AB.

 

[Jerry 919]

160 grain Nosler AccuBond at 3000 FPS will consistently perform on any animal you name.

Jerry 919

 

[Divernhunter]

Hornady A-max bullets are target not hunting bullets. Nosler 140gr PAR have worked well for us even on elk. But I do understand the use of a heavier bullet for elk. The 160's just shot thru without opening on small deer for us. The 140 PAR works great on all deer and pronghorns and have never lost an elk either.

 

[Antelope_Sniper]

Driven hunter is right about the heavy partitions just punching through on deer. I've seen the 175gr part do it many a time. When I younger I almost got tired of a killing deer with the old solid base, or BT bullets, that had first been wounded with an overweight 7mm PART. Don't have that problem with the AB. :grin:

 

[Desert Fox]

You can't go wrong with either one which ever your rifle wants. Both have almost identical BC number, .625 for A-Max and .608 for the 175 grain Sierra MK.

They're both target bullet and you know what that means! Lot's of Longrange hunter use both bullet for hunting with great success. They swears by them, but we seldom hear failures either. Unless you shoot further than 600 yards, You will best served with either Ballistic Tips or AccuBond.

 

[JD338]

The 7mm 160 re AB is a long range game bullet capable of taking anything from mice to moose.
I used a 160 gr AB at 3000 fps in my 280 AI on this little buck and had plenty of expansion.

JD338

 

[FOTIS]

160 AB for me. Used it from the 7mm rem mag stw and rum.

 

[quentin9595]

ok thank you for all the information and help

 

[remingtonman_25_06]

I've got a little bit of experience with the 162g amax and 168g and 180g vld's from my 7 mag on deer. I wouldn't use the 162g amax again, they are very very soft and act way worse then a ballistic tip. They are just a complete bomb. Killed my farthest buck to date 790 yards with the 162g amax though, but it was behind the shoulder and at close to 800 yards, even slowed down that much, it did A LOT of damage. My friend used the 168g amax from an 06 and shot a buck around 150 yards and it just blew up. If you use them, I would definately stay off the shoulder and I'd try to stay away from closer shots where velocity is still high.

THe 168g vld has a mixed report for me. Its did ok on one buck at about 150-200 behind the shoulder, exited with about 2" hole. But the other buck at 618 yards was shot in the shoulder which dropped the buck but he was still alive. That 1st bullet never exited. I had to finsih him off with a neck shot.

The next year I used the 180g vld to take a buck at 100 yards. I wacked him 2 times, once in the shoulder and once behind the shoulder before he finally expired. There was no sign of expansion. Bullets went all the way through and exited, but they were .284" exit holes.

Based on those experiences, I would say they are risky to use, but you will never know for yourself unless you try them. If your mind is already made up, yoru going to shoot them reguardless.

I would lean towards a plastic tip hunting bullet such as the AB, NBT, Interbond, SST, Scirocco. They have high enough BC's for hunting bullets and will still shoot out to 800 yards pretty easy.

 

[DrMike]

Good report, Remingtonman. There is no substitute for experience, and we should all listen to experience, though we are likely to try it for ourselves. However, we can't say we weren't informed.

 

[quentin9595]

have any of you had any experience with the 140 gr nosler ballistic tip with the 7mm rem mag on deer and elk and how did they perform?

 

[remingtonman_25_06]

140g nbt is a great deer bullet, but it wouldn't be my 1st choice for elk. If you wanted to use the nbt for both deer and elk, I would use the 150g nbt. 10g dont seem like much, but its got a higher SD and it will penetrate further then the 140g on elk. Still not my #1 deer/elk bullet.

I would go with the 160g AB, or 162g SST myself if one wanted a deer/elk bullet for the 7 mag. I am going to work on some 162g SST's when I'm finished with my 140g nbt's.

 

[Divernhunter]

With the 140gr BT I(and friends) have shot a number of pronghorns and small deer. They worked well. They also worked well on badger and PD's. For larger deer(Mule deer) and elk I would not use the 140gr BT but the 140gr PAR has worked very well for all sized deer, pronghorns and elk. The PAR has done excellent work for myself and friends. I push all my hunting loads hot so if you load down the BT may work on larger deer but I would still not use a 140gr BT on elk. I have not used the bonded bullet or the no-lead bullet yet.