Target bullets for deer

[Charlie-NY]

On game terminal performance is more important that bullet box labels. Remember - today's Berger "hunting" bullets were yesterday's "target" bullets. Same bullet with a new designation.

In an older Hornady reloading manual they recommended their A-Max target bullet for thin skinned biggame. It proved to be an excellent whitetail bullet IME.

With longrange hunting all the rage lately, many shooters are looking for bullets that are the MOST accurate and have the HIGHEST BC. That is what compels them to test/use "target" bullets for hunting game at extended ranges.

 

[jimbires]

the AccuBond longrange is a soft bullet . I've put a ring around the ogive by seating them with to much neck tension , or a compressed loads . this bullet is probably a good all around choice , "IF" you can get them to shoot accurately , a lot of guys have problems .

there are known good killing target bullets on the market . the Hornady A-max is one . the Berger hunting bullets use thinner jackets than the Berger target bullets . target guys had problems with the thin jackets on the original bullets , so Berger relabeled them to hunting and put thicker jackets on the target bullets .

I think guys get to caught up in marketing . they get talked into using bullets that are probably counter productive to getting good results . I really do believe you can have to tough of a bullet . from my own experience to tough of a bullet does kill , but it slows the process . it seems the destruction isn't there , as compared to the damage caused by a softer bullet .

if a guy matches his bullet to his situation he will have much better results . use , velocity , distance , and game hunted to help with bullet choice .

I've probably killed more game with a plain ole Hornady interlock bullet than all other bullets combined . I'm glad I can hunt with lead bullets , I'm not a fan of mono's .

I still think marketing is what drives some of these choices .

I still wonder about ;
the guy that needs a heavy duty , high weight retention , bonded ,or mono metal , bullet for hunting deer that weigh 100 - 140 pounds , what bullet would he ever feel was good enough to hunt elk, moose , or big bear .

the guy that doesn't hunt beyond 100 or 200 yards , but needs high BC bullets .

the guy that turns his nose up at a bullet without a plastic tip .

 

[RiverRider]

I think it really just depends. If you're expecting impact velocities of 3200 fps, you need a tougher bullet and a mono may be just the ticket. If you have to shoot a mono, then choose a lighter one for your caliber and drive it as fast as you can accurately. If your cartridge can't drive the bullet to get you impact velocities greater than 2000 fps, then you should choose a "softer" bullet. Then there are the circumstances that fall in the middle of all that. Matching velocity to the bullet is the key, IMO. If you find your chosen bullet doesn't penetrate to your satisfaction, slow it down a bit and it might do a lot better due to reduced expansion. There are all kinds of angles.

 

[Guy Miner]

Use common sense though, don’t set out after a rinoceropotamus with VLD’s.

Excellent advice!

A rinoceropotamus must be some kind of rough, tough character of a critter....

Guy

 

[Guy Miner]

Hunting bullet discussions are always interesting. I'm glad this one was dredged up from a couple of years ago.

We all want to make accurate shots and quick kills. There's more than one way to do that, for sure.

Regards, Guy

 

[jimbires]

I'm sure there are horror stories out there on probably every bullet made . I have to wonder about shot placement , on the ones that got away .

 

[ShadeTree]

Didn't read through all this, but agree with Jim's assessment above on this page.

My line of thoughts when talking deer bullets, is if it's light than I want it tougher, if heavy, then soft. In between there are plenty of standard C&C bullets that do better than premium bullets on deer in my opinion, for the reasons Jim stated above.

And light and tough doesn't really mean premium either. An example is the 85 gr Sierra HPBT in 6mm. Pretty easy to get that bullet over 3000 with even a mild load and hotter loads will run well above that, yet it typically exits while expanding very nicely in my limited experience using it.

Examples of slightly heavy to heavy for deer, but being soft are the 165 and 180 BTSP Speer's in .308. Pretty much any BT in the Speer's are soft. Makes an effective combo. Enough weight that they aren't bombs close up, but soft enough to be quite effective way out there. I've used the 165's, haven't tried the 180's yet, but a guy gave me a box just a few wks ago so that might change.

 

[PJGunner]

Over a lot of years, I did most of my hunting with the 30-06. Mosyly deer hunting and used the 150 gr. Siera Pro-hunter. mangled up some meat but the deer went nowhere. A friend talked me into trying a 180 gr. bullet as they don't mess up meat as much so went with them again, using Sierra's Pro-hunter. IN 1973, getting older, not to mention a heavy chain smoker at the time I went for a lighter rifle. I bought a Remington 660 in .308 and loaded my ammo with the 150 gr. Pro-hunter. That's what I had on hand. Well more messed up meat but at least the rifle didn't break my arches down at 9,500 feet mean sea level.
After the move to Arizona I bought a rifle that sold cheap because the previous owner couldn't find a load he could hunt with. Took two years working at it off and on but I found I could push a 165 gr, Speer Hot Core to 2550 FPS and it killed deer just fine with reasonable meat loss. Been using that load for deer ever since and if range was reasonable I wouldn't hesitate to use it on elk. FWIW, change any component to that load and accuracy is gone. Go from the Speer bullet to a Sierra and patterns, not groups. Change the brass of primer and same thing. Funny thing is I got two more of tha rifle,the Rugr M77 RSI all in .308 Win. for the same reason. They don't shoot. The load that worker in rifle number one works just fine in the other two. Damnedest thing I've evr seen in all my years of shooting and reloading.
Paul B.

 

[TackDriver284]

I have learned from experiences from other hunters on what bullets they had a bad experience with and which bullet they liked the most. I had a bad experience once where I hunted an Impala with a 7 STW using the 140 Ballistic Tips at a range of 75 yards, the muzzle velocity was in the 3400 fps range, and hitting the lungs broadside will do just fine, but the impala was a little quartered away, and aimed under the last rib to ensure an exit on the far right shoulder, but the bullet exploded on impact with a shallow wound but succumbed after a lengthy track. I just use some common sense after that bad experience and stick with the bullet that can handle certain velocities for the game you are hunting. Example, during the shortage,,,,I decided if I can use the 178 ELD-M in a .308 on a whitetail because I ran out of the ELD-X and Ballistic Tips, I won't use a ELD M in a .300 Mag due to high velocity compared to a .308 which has somewhat of a 450-500 fps difference. Of course I prefer the ELD-X with a thicker jacket over the ELD-M. This past January, I hunted with an 180 AccuBond in the .300 Mag and the bullet almost traveled the entire length of a red stag cow from neck / shoulder junction to the rear hams at a muzzle velocity of 3165 fps, and I'm sure a 178 ELD-M will not do what the AccuBond did due to the structure of the bullet and velocity. I never used mono copper bullets on any of the game I shoot because its not ideal for the game I'm hunting for. Bullets I mostly use are the Ballistic Tips / ELD X for deer sized game and Accubonds for the tougher nilgai sized game. The ELD-M I would use if they are heavy weights on deer sized game such as the 147's in the 6.5 Creed / 6.5 x 284 or the 178 in the .308 , since I only shoot through the lungs and stay off bones . I won't mind using premium lead tipped bullets either but I would not use Sierra Matchkings or any hollow point bullet for game hunting except for those coyote critters. Never tried the VLD Hunt Bergers since most cup and core bullets work well for me, and I don't hunt past 500 yards where high BC makes any difference to me. I have stopped buying target bullets lately, its not worth my time since I do not use them for hunting.

 

[KinleyWater]

I'm sure there are horror stories out there on probably every bullet made . I have to wonder about shot placement , on the ones that got away .

I just want to second this, and add just a little of my own. Last fall, I shot a deer with a 200 grain Interlock at 100 yards (+/-); killed the deer very dead (if you can kill something more than just regular dead) but the exit and the entrance were the same size. To my eye, it looked like it had blown the front part of the bullet up (perhaps when striking bone) and the shank had been all that went off the offside. Then a number of weeks back, I shot my spring bear and the bullet, a 250 grain HotCor seemed to hold together a little too well.

I think the point I am trying to get at is that we read, we experience, different results under different circumstances with bullets designed and marketed explicitly as hunting bullets. It should come as no surprise then, that some bullets designed and marketed as target bullets will give various results in the field against game.

And, please - make sure using a target-type bullet is permissible under your local game laws.

 

[xphunter]

Like many, I have used a number of different bullets for game.
At one time I used Berger's, but I have stopped that a number of years ago. For me personally, they were not consistent enough.
I have used A-Max's and ELD-M's on deer and antelope sized game with great success for about the last 15 years or so.
I also know from hundred's of animals killed the 107 SMK out of a 6XC, and it does a great job of killing. My friend is not a fan of Berger's on game or other SMK's on game, but loves the 107.
Those that understand about the A-Max working great on both game and people, might make a note that the ELD-M seems to open a little bit faster than the A-Max, all other things being equal.

 

[noslerpartition]

With classic match bullets, I would fear that the tiny hollow point might not be enough for expansion from time to time.
With a tipped one that should not happen.
Since I have to hunt lead free, I will never know...

 

[Joec7651]

I'm sure there are horror stories out there on probably every bullet made . I have to wonder about shot placement , on the ones that got away .

Jim this is where my mind goes every single time I see where a bullet exploded due to a rogue rain drop and didn’t make it to the target. Or “I hit the animal perfectly” but it just walked off never to be seen again. I can honestly say that every single time an unexplainable occurrence has taken place when I’ve been hunting, the unexplainable occurrence (flinch) took place between my ears. Never had a bullet “fail” when I put it where it needed to go.

 

[hunter24605]

Jim this is where my mind goes every single time I see where a bullet exploded due to a rogue rain drop and didn’t make it to the target. Or “I hit the animal perfectly” but it just walked off never to be seen again. I can honestly say that every single time an unexplainable occurrence has taken place when I’ve been hunting, the unexplainable occurrence (flinch) took place between my ears. Never had a bullet “fail” when I put it where it needed to go.

There's the rub, you generally don't get all the relevant information when a "failure" happens. I've seen it many times on forums if you follow the thread long enough, sometimes you'll find out the bullet was over stressed or, in the case of hard mono's, too low velocity for relaible expansion...And like you said the "I hit it perfect and never recovered it" I always wonder; if they never recovered it, how do they know it was a perfect hit? We've all had those shots we felt good about, but turned out to be poorly placed. But sometimes there are absolute failures. I tend to use a little more bullet than is needed, like an AccuBond or partiton for deer and black bear, just because sometimes things don't go as planed, and and $.75 is a cheap insurance policy.

 

[xphunter]

There's the rub, you generally don't get all the relevant information when a "failure" happens. I've seen it many times on forums if you follow the thread long enough, sometimes you'll find out the bullet was over stressed or, in the case of hard mono's, too low velocity for relaible expansion...And like you said the "I hit it perfect and never recovered it" I always wonder; if they never recovered it, how do they know it was a perfect hit? We've all had those shots we felt good about, but turned out to be poorly placed.

So many good points.
Your last couple of sentences resonates with me very strongly when I hear these kind of comments made by others.

 

[PJGunner]

I guess this would be a case of, the bullet worked too well or something like that. I was doing a casual late morning deer hunt. Even had a couple of the neighborhood kids tagging along. We really didn't expect to see anything, more a case of getting out and a nice fall hike with the possibility of taking a deer. As we walked along a nice forked horn that had been hiding next to the trail finally jumped up broadside to me. I literally shot from the hip and it would not surprise me if the muzzle of my .308 wasn't more then maybe 6" from the deer when the shot went off. The deer bounded off over the top of the ridge and went about twenty feet before expiring. That bullet made about a three inch entrance would and blew out the entire off side. Easiest deer I ever cleaned. The exit showed the skin looking like a large triagular flap. No heart, lungs, liver anything left inside. Just had to reach in and cut the windpipe and remove the anus and it was done. Lost all the ribs on that side as well. The bullet was the Sierra Pro-Hunter 150 grain moving out at an estimated 2700+ FPS from the 20" barrel. I switched to 180 gr. Sierras soon after that.
Paul B.

 

[Guy Miner]

With classic match bullets, I would fear that the tiny hollow point might not be enough for expansion from time to time.
With a tipped one that should not happen.
Since I have to hunt lead free, I will never know...

Which lead-free bullets do you favor for your hunting?

Thanks, Guy

 

[xphunter]

For me Barnes LRX or Hammer’s

 

[wvbuckbuster]

Which lead-free bullets do you favor for your hunting?

Thanks, Guy

I've only tried the Nosler E-Tip 150gr in a 30-06 and Barnes TTX 85gr in .243Win. Both worked just didn't open up like I was used to with lead bullets, and I understand why. Might give the new Hornady a try if I go unleaded again. Son Ben has used the Nosler, Barnes and old Hornady GMX. Think he liked the Hornady the best, so far. Dan.

 

[DrMike]

I've only tried the Nosler E-Tip 150gr in a 30-06 and Barnes TTX 85gr in .243Win. Both worked just didn't open up like I was used to with lead bullets, and I understand why. Might give the new Hornady a try if I go unleaded again. Son Ben has used the Nosler, Barnes and old Hornady GMX. Think he liked the Hornady the best, so far. Dan.

Interesting observation. I favour the E-Tip and TSX. I never had great success with the GMX. Accuracy was there, but terminal performance wasn't impressive.