Wanted: average bullet for deer

06 April 2008, 20:43

I'm fairly new to shooting and just starting down the road of reloading. It is important to point out that I live in the UK and so access to components is variable to difficult. I'm reloading for a 308, changing the rifle is not an option as it would take at least 12 months to do the paper work.

I've read a lot about premium bullets and in time I might get around to reloading some partitions or similar. However, as most of my shooting is done on the range and as I might get 3 or 4 shots at deer in a year I got to thinking. Deer aren't hard to kill and it would be nice to shoot only one bullet to start with. Once I gain experience and practise then I can mess about with other options.

With this in mind would anyone care to suggest a relatively inexpensive bullet that would give me acceptable performance on deer and be a useful test bed for my first steps in reloading for game? I'm probably looking for something in the 150 - 165 grain range. Just looking at Midway UK I see Winchester Power-Points, Speer Hot-Cor, Sierra Pro-Hunter and Remington Core-Lokt as examples that are all in a similar price range and that I suspect will do the job well on deer. All comments and advice gratefully received but remember that I'm just looking for something average that will do my job.

Currently under the supervision of my mentor I'm loading 110 grain V-Max as a plinking round just because they were actually available and on hand. A round for deer will be my next experiment hence the question.

06 April 2008, 20:51

kraky

For me the sierra pro hunter and the hornady spire points are very accurate and will get the job done on deer. Cor locks and win power points are good bullets but they are kind of made with bulk reloading in mind and just don't seem to be as accurate for me.

06 April 2008, 21:12

mho

quote:
Originally posted by caorach:
I see Winchester Power-Points, Speer Hot-Cor, Sierra Pro-Hunter and Remington Core-Lokt

Whatever will shoot in your rifle, and it is kind of hard to predict what that might be...

In general, though, I agree with Kraky's recommendations for the Sierras or the Hornadys. Nosler Ballistic Tips often shoot really well, and they are not too pricey and will kill deer from a .308.

- mike

06 April 2008, 21:15

acsteele

Any of the bullets listed will certainly do the job on deer. I have had great luck with speer hot-core and hornadys. Because they are inexpensive, you can try both, and go with the most accurate.

Good luck, and enjoy yourself!

06 April 2008, 21:19

tnekkcc

What is the lightest boat tail deer bullet in .308?
130 gr TSX BT?

06 April 2008, 21:24

mstarling

I prefer the 165 gr bullet for the .308 for use on deer. Doesn't do as much meat damage as lighter bullets. Have had good success with bulk Remington Core-Lokt bullets on deer ... cheap enough to practice with and reasonably accurate.

They are not Nosler Partitions but don't need to be.

06 April 2008, 22:18

ac_doc

i dont think there is a 308 bullet that wont kill a deer.

06 April 2008, 22:30

ac_doc

i have killed them with soft points, ballistic tips, hollow points, and cant say one will kill faster than onother, i guess you would wanna use whatever your gun shoots best exept fmj unless u wanna shoot them in the head

06 April 2008, 22:35

ireload2

The plain vanilla Remington Core-Loks and Hornady bullets work great. No reason for premium anything on animals under 200 lbs.

06 April 2008, 23:34

Gerry

cao....

Good, query giving the wide spectrum of Deer in the UK and their varying sizes.

The .308 Win. with a 150 or 165. gr. vanilla-flavored bullet will handle even the largest UK Red Stag and certainly smaller Deer quite handily and given the .308 Win. isn't the speediest cartridge compared to the various .300 Whizz-Bangs offered today. A 150 gr. Nosler Ballistic Tip would be fine and offer extremely good accuracy too boot but they tend to the spendy side when doing alot of practice shooting. They are, though on the short list of my "ususal suspects" for wringing out the accuracy potential in a new rifle and would be more than aqdequate for your intended shooting and range of Deer.

Those particular bullets aside some of my other accurate .308 loads have included Remington Bronze Points, Sierra's Pro-Hunter & Game Kings in pretty much every .308" ilk they offer in 150-165 gr. range, especially the 165 gr. HPBT's Game Kings.

Have fun making your choice and developing loads. Don't forget to shoot those bullets up - at every opportunity - that's what they're made for.....

07 April 2008, 00:56

wildboar

quote:
Originally posted by caorach:
.... changing the rifle is not an option as it would take at least 12 months to do the paper work....

I must stop to complain about italian gun laws!

Anyway, as for your question, I would slightly prefer Hornady Interlocks over the Sierras; 150-165gr. seems to me a good choice.

07 April 2008, 01:08

Doc

Speer, Sierra, or Hornady. Their quality control is better than that of the Remington or Winchester bullets. However, inside of 200 yards, accuracy is less of a concern.

I'd load a 165 grain bullet and keep it at medium speeds, as all of the above mentioned bullets open up just fine. No need to push them at max unless that is where accuracy is.

07 April 2008, 03:02

fredj338

quote:
Originally posted by mstarling:
I prefer the 165 gr bullet for the .308 for use on deer. Doesn't do as much meat damage as lighter bullets. Have had good success with bulk Remington Core-Lokt bullets on deer ... cheap enough to practice with and reasonably accurate.

They are not Nosler Partitions but don't need to be.

Bingo! CHoose almost any of the brand name bullets in a heavier wt. & you are good to go for deer IMO. Or load a lighter bullet down so impact vel. are below 2700fps or so. That seems to be the magic number where bullets start to fragment.

07 April 2008, 03:04

RaySendero

165 Sierra GameKing

07 April 2008, 03:38

jeffeosso

sd of .250 or so, and have fun... 150s are going to pop like a cherry bomb

07 April 2008, 07:10

Snellstrom

150, 165, or 180 grain Sierra. I'm sure the Speers and Hornadays would be fine too but my experience with the Sierra's in a 30/06 for Deer, Elk, Antelope, Bighorn Sheep and Mtn. Goat has been stellar. Your .308 should not be much different, If it were me I'd look to the 165 first but whichever your rifle likes will likely dispatch any deer on the planet quite adequately.
Sierra's have a very accurate reputation and there Match Bullets have won more than any other brand (so I've read).

07 April 2008, 07:25

Boxhead

The majority of my deer, by a long shot, have fallen to the 165 gr Hornady Spire point from a 308 Win. They worked well even when I needed a bit more penetration than a simple broadside lung shot would require. AND they have always been accurate regardless of caliber I have shot them from.

07 April 2008, 07:25

Ol` Joe

Hornady bullets in 6.5, 7mm and 30 cal have dropped deer very well for me and my brother.

07 April 2008, 19:13

tsturm

quote:
Originally posted by caorach:
I'm fairly new to shooting and just starting down the road of reloading. It is important to point out that I live in the UK and so access to components is variable to difficult. I'm reloading for a 308, changing the rifle is not an option as it would take at least 12 months to do the paper work.

I've read a lot about premium bullets and in time I might get around to reloading some partitions or similar. However, as most of my shooting is done on the range and as I might get 3 or 4 shots at deer in a year I got to thinking. Deer aren't hard to kill and it would be nice to shoot only one bullet to start with. Once I gain experience and practise then I can mess about with other options.

With this in mind would anyone care to suggest a relatively inexpensive bullet that would give me acceptable performance on deer and be a useful test bed for my first steps in reloading for game? I'm probably looking for something in the 150 - 165 grain range. Just looking at Midway UK I see Winchester Power-Points, Speer Hot-Cor, Sierra Pro-Hunter and Remington Core-Lokt as examples that are all in a similar price range and that I suspect will do the job well on deer. All comments and advice gratefully received but remember that I'm just looking for something average that will do my job.

Currently under the supervision of my mentor I'm loading 110 grain V-Max as a plinking round just because they were actually available and on hand. A round for deer will be my next experiment hence the question.

The Rem corlok above or Hornady 150-165 interlocks will be/are great deer bullets!!

07 April 2008, 22:21

Reloader

Deer are not hard to penetrate, so just about any plain jain CNC bullet will do the job. I like HDY ILs and NBTs. Both are accurate and hold together fine for deer.

Good Luck

Reloader

07 April 2008, 23:46

vines

deer size game. i use standered speer b.t. or sierra b.t. some times hornady interlock what ever i get my best accurace. like ireload2 said, no premium bullets, some may have a too thick of a jacket and will not mushroom good on thin skin game

08 April 2008, 13:20

Tim1

Hi Caorach,

I think in the UK the cheapest bullets you're likely to find will be either Sierras or Hornadys. I have no experience of the latter in .308 but generally they seem to perform accurately in other calibres and Mike Norris of Brock & Norris pretty much swears by them.

I do have direct experience with Sierra Gamekings which is what I'm using at the moment out of my Sako and you'll probably find that one of those seated on top of between 46 and 48 grns of Vit 140 will work well. (I think 47 grns is about book max). If you fancy paying about twice as much for your bullet a Ballistic Tip will also perform well with Vit 140. It will have exactly the same effect on deer as the Sierra but will look smarter in your ammo box.

For UK deer you won't need anything else.

Good luck,

Tim

08 April 2008, 18:04

Rick R

It's interesting that you're in the UK looking for a plain vanilla bullet to do it all and everyone is suggesting US made bullets. When we discuss similar bullets for practice and deer on this side of the pond someone always brings up the Privi Partizan, Lapua or S&B brands as being economical.

Are the European bullets available in the UK or are you missing out on that too?

09 April 2008, 16:27

Tim1

Rick,

I think the Privis are only available as cartridges. They may be available as components but I'd probably be grey by the time they arrived. Sellier & Bellot are the same. Lapua Scenars are available as components but I'm not sure how much they are as I don't use them.

Regards,

Tim

09 April 2008, 19:18

stillbeeman

I haven't any experience with Sierras as a game bullet but I do have considerable with Hornadys and they are an utterly reliable performer in 165grs. The same is true with Core Lokts.
The only 30 calibres I've used in 150grs were Core Lokts from a .300 Savage. I was very satisfied with them.

10 April 2008, 06:23

kudude

All the bullets mentioned will kill deer. The question is what range will you be shooting at and whether you are meat hunting. If you are close and hunting for meat, I'd use a heavier bullet (180gr) in a round nose. Inside 200yds, this will kill deer quite well and it won't mess up a lot of meat. Velocity will be about 2600fps; at 2.6"@100yds it will be about 2"low at 200yds and still have about 1500ftlbs of energy. Kudude

PS: If you are shooting at distance (+200yds), use the 165 in a Hornady, CoreLoc or PowerPoint. k-d

10 April 2008, 21:08

caorach

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to pass on their experience and knowledge. It would have taken me 200 years of shooting at deer 3 or 4 times per year to gain the knowledge you have all passed to me.

With that in mind I will take a look at the bullets suggested. As you all know load development is a slow process and it is even slower here in the UK where there are significant restrictions on supply of bullets, primers, powder and ammo. The general concensus seems to be to go for 165 grain so that is probably where I will start and I will focus on Sierra, Hornady and Speer and see what shoots in my rifle.

To be honest I think I'm lucky in that my rifle will put 6 rounds (3 round mag so 2 mags worth) of the cheap mil surplus stuff into an inch at 100 yards, most people I know can't get them to shoot much better than 2 - 3 inches and some can't better 4 - 6 inches. Some Federal and Remington hunting ammo in 150 and 165 grain weights that i was able to get hold of also behaved in a similar way. Hopefully on Saturday I will get to shoot my "plinking" load, my first reloads, at a target to see how they go.

I must say this is a fun voyage of discovery despite the hurdles the antis and administration put in the way and the knowledge I've gained on AR has saved me a lot of time and money.

11 April 2008, 09:31

kudude

If that ammo is shooting well for you, I'd suggest that you carefully measure the seating depth with a collimator and use that for your hunting load, and chronograph the military load and use that velocity. You might even consider pulling some bullets and reload the case with your hunting bullet. Kudude

12 April 2008, 03:40

Hot Core

quote:
Originally posted by caorach:
... I'm reloading for a 308, changing the rifle is not an option

Hey Caorach, Certainly no need to even consider changing the rifle as you have an absolutely excellent Deer Cartridge. An argument could easily be made for it being the "Best" Deer Cartridge currently available.

quote:
...I've read a lot about premium bullets and in time I might get around to reloading some partitions or similar. However, as most of my shooting is done on the range and as I might get 3 or 4 shots at deer in a year I got to thinking. Deer aren't hard to kill and it would be nice to shoot only one bullet to start with. Once I gain experience and practise then I can mess about with other options.

No doubt that Partitions are Legendary Bullets, but you are correct that there is no need to spend double the money and get half the Bullets just to practice with - or to Kill Deer.

quote:
... I'm probably looking for something in the 150 - 165 grain range. ...Winchester Power-Points, Speer Hot-Cor, Sierra Pro-Hunter and Remington Core-Lokt ...I suspect will do the job well on deer. ...

You have gotten a good handle on the situation. Any of those will make fine Bambi Blasters as well as those from Hornady and Nosler.

The biggest problem I see is your being able to get various Bullets to try. It would be nice if we could say just buy 1000 Xyzw Bullets and you are good to go. Only problem is that "occasionally" a rifle just doesn't like a specific Bullet. It may shoot great in a different rifle, but shoot patterns in the rifle we want it to work in.

If your "Mentor" has a stash of Bullets in 0.308" Diameter that are 150gr-165gr, perhaps he would let you "buy" a few of his to try. If they shoot well, then the two of you could go in together and split an order, or you would at least know if that Lot worked well in your rifle.

No need for an expensive Bullet to Kill Deer.

Good Hunting and clean 1-shot Kills.