What bullet would you hunting reloaders out there use for whitetail? Nosler 100gr Partition Tip, Sierra Gameking 100gr spitzer boattail, or Speer 100gr. boattail soft point in 25/06?

Both are pretty much overkill if you limit yourself to 300 yards.
My 300 Win. Mag. works pretty good except that I have to be careful where I aim because of the potential for ruined meat. I doubt that the 7mm with the same bullet weight would be any better or worse.
One time I made the mistake of not being careful when shooting a nice fat fork horn that was walking. The shot hit right about the ball joint where the legs and shoulder join and shattered all the bones and exited on the far side. Better than half the shoulder and leg meat was inedible. Now I try to do head shots for meat deer. Some guys do a neck shot to break the spine, but I have more confidence in seeing the head explode.

If bruising is a concern then go with the Nosler and its not nearly as destructive..the Speer is a good bullet and the Sierras are softer and more explosive...

I would prefer the 120 or 117 gr. bullets, as they are less explosive, but the deer will run a bit more as a general rule..

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Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com

I use the Nosler Ballistic Tip 100 grain and hit 'em in the lungs. 100 plus and counting and none have went anywhere.
Sometime I have to be patient and wait for the shot, but the results are spectacular.

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To be old and wise.....first you have to be young and stupid!

Gotta go to the Sierra there. It is soft and expands quickly, dropping deer sized game quick. I hate tracking. However, I don't use it.

By throwing in a Hornady InterLock, you get a bullet somewhere between the Sierra and the Nosler. Which is where I go for deer projectiles. I have no real experience with the Speer, but haven't heard any negatives, nor positives. That might be a positive statement all on its own.

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Live Free! Madison, Jefferson and all the boys paid for it, and so did our very own fathers.

My vote is Speer flat bases.

Speer flat bases have a BC equal to Hornady boat tails, and the lead is bonded to the jacket. Sierra lead is not bonded to the jacket. Hornady's bullet design does crimp the lead to the jacket, but puts less weight forward, and more backward, reducing case capacity. The best combination of muzzle velocity, BC, and core-jacket bonding is Speer, as far as I have been ablet to tell.

Nosler Partitions are awesome, and perfect for elk. I don't think you will need them for deer.

I've used The Nosler Bal Tip in 100 and 115 grain. Sierra 100 grain and, Speer 100 and 120 grain. After around 3 years of switching around I settled on the Speer 100 grain BT two years ago. Very accurate and deadly on Whitetail.......MD

Denton,
Speer is a great bullet, but I do not believe they are bonded core bullets..Hot core is simlpy put melted lead poured into a cup and swaged...no bonding.

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Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com

Ray...

I guess I'm not quite exactly understanding your comment. Filling a copper jacket with molten lead will cause the lead core to be 'soldered' to the jacket. That's what I'm calling 'bonded'.

Speer boat tails are made by forcing a cold slug of lead into the jacket, like most other bullets. Speer Hot-Cors (flat base) are made by the pouring process you mention. From Speer's literature: "Speer fills the jacket with 825 degree molten lead, creating a fused bond that is nearly impossible to separate."

Of course, you have to bear in mind that I have previously "bit" on any number of manufacturer's claims... curious to see if this one works out.

Soldering is a complex task. If you pour lead into a copper jacket, and the jacket is clean and hot the lead will bond very well. If the jacket is too cold, or is allowed to form an oxide layer when heated the bond would be poor to non existant.

I doubt it would be very hard for the Speer manf. engineers to ensure that a good bond is achieved, though. All they'd have to do is do the pouring in an oxygen free env. and the heat of the lead should be enough to get the jacket up to a bonding temperature.

Might be an interesting question to post to the Speer guys and post here.

From Speer Web page:

Speer fills the copper jacket with 825�F molten lead, creating a fused bond that is nearly impossible to separate.

The only way you will fuse two metals together properly is with the use of solder, Speer is spreading hype and the will separate when driven at the higher velocities such as the RUM, Wby and stw velocities....

Woodleigh, Northfork, Swift are bonded core, Speer is not, that's advertising hype in my opinion and very misleading. I do believe the hot core is better than standard bullets form the standpoint that it eliminates the voids that are sometimes found in standard bullets, maybe...

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Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com

Thanks for the response. Now you've got me curious. I think I'll email Speer, and see if I can get an anwer to post.

Ray, I'd believe about anything you told me, just based on experience, but I have to disagree on this one.

I did put a query into Speer, but in the meantime, did an experiment of my own.

First, I found a couple of pre-1976 pennies, which are copper (newer ones are copper clad zinc). Then I got out a thermocouple, an oxy/MAP torch, and a few #8 shot pellets. I cleaned the pennies up with a stainless brush, and set the torch as low as I could. The shot melted, and "wet" the bottom penny, just like solder does. Then I put the other clean penny in the puddle, and heated it until they fused. (At this point, I sort of overheated things... thermocouple was headed above 1100 F, and melted the Teflon coating near the tip... oh well.) Even being that clumsy, and heating the top penny to red hot (forming oxide), I still got quite a good bond between the pennies. The lead "wicked" around the edge, just like solder. When I pulled them apart, it was the lead that broke, not the lead-copper bond.

So my conclusion is that doing the manufacturing process they describe forms a strong bond between the lead and the copper, as though they were soldered. Perhaps this is because lead and copper are so chemically similar, and can bond when other metals might not.

Well, Ray, maybe I should have given you more credit. Here's Speer's reply:

The Hot Cor design was developed through expansion testing. Conventional
cold swaged bullets, when fired into water show considerable core slippage,
including total core jacket separation. The Hot Cor bullets, under the same
tests, showed (and show) much less core slippage and little tendency to
totally separate. Given tat no flux is used while pouring the lead into the
jacket, I could not state a true solder joint is obtained, but the
difference in core slippage indicates something more than the cold swaged
process.

So, bottom line, the Hot Cor is not a "bonded" core bullet in the accepted
sense, but does show greater ability to stay together than cold swaged
bullets.

I'm not aware of the Hot Cor ever being billed as a bonded core.

Guy Neill
CCI-Speer Technical Services

If you have a very close shot an ordinary bullet may fail to penetrate far enough to anchor the deer. If you are going to pass up straight away shots and close shots then use that caliber.

I don't use small bullets for woods hunting for that reason. For long range any of those bullets should be fine.

For small bores on game bullets like the Nosler Partition are a help.

I use the Speer 100gr. flat base bullet in the .25/06. It works. The only one that I can show you looks like one for the ad dept.BTW The core /jacket are together. Can't believe deer are tougher than they are here in the great state of Washington.

The topic about bonded bullets is very interesting. I now know about how they make the Speer "Hot-Core" bullets, but how does Woodleigh and Swift bond their bullets?

Getting back to the original topic, last year I shot several whitetails in Wisconsin and Mississippi with a 165 grain Ballistic Tip in 30-06. Range was anywhere from 60 to 120 yards, size 90 to 125 pounds. One shot that stands out was at a 100 pound animal facing almost directly at me at about 75 yards, angling ever so slightly to my right. The bullet went in just right of center at the sternum, through heart, lungs, took out sections of 3 ribs on the opposite side, and then stayed inside the lower body cavity. There were pieces of jacket lodged in the heart lining, but I never found the bullet and it did not exit. This deer fell toward the left of where it was standing, like it had been shoved over and there was actually urine and feces on the ground behind it. The fact that there were such large pieces of ribs gone tells me that the bullet did not come completely apart. Did the Nosler literally shoot the piss out of this deer or was that just a nervous reaction to being shot?

Slancey,

If it happened while the deer was standing I would think it is as you suspect. If the deer fell over first then it was more of a nervous reaction.

Welcome to the forums here, by the way!

I'm a longtime fan of the Nosler partitions. I've shot plenty of other bullets through deer (BTs, SSTs, Grand Slams, Game Kings etc) But I always find myself going back to the Partition.
Some people will say it costs too much, or is overdesigned for the job or doesn't shoot quarter MOA groups. And while all of these positions may have a modicrum of validity they have no real merit.
I love the partition not for what it can do under normal classic chest shots. But for what it can do when that less than ideal shot presents itself. And example would be a quartering shot with lots of bone structure to penetrate. Its under these conditions that the bullet gives me the utmost confidence that it is up to the task.
Is it needed for a 90lb doe? Certainly not. But what about ole Mr. Mossyhorns? You never know when one or the other will show up do you?
The cost is such a small difference its not worth the trouble to write about it. A box of 50 will set you back anywhere from $20-$30 depending on what and where you buy em. About .50 a shot on average. If you can't afford that you need to be working a second job not spending time hunting and shooting. The accuracy, while admittedly not as good as other bullets, is more than adeqaute for the task at hand and nobody has ever been able to prove to me that they could shoot well enough under field conditions to tell the difference. As a master class HO rifle competitor I know I can't!
In high velocity guns like the 25-06, I feel a Partition makes the most sense of any bullet out there. The bullets simply DO NOT fail... They will shed their front section core. But that rear section ALWAYS keeps going.