It is deer season here in Nebraska, and I harvested a big doe yesterday using a .308 Win. handload of 47 grains of W748 and Hornaday 150 gr SST's. While I did kill the deer with one shot, the bullet did not preform as expected. The shot was at 150 yards into the "boiler room", just behind the left front shoulder directly into the lungs and the spine. The bullet did not exit, and completely fragmented. The largest piece of the bullet was about half the size of a dime, and most of the pieces were slivers.

My question is, is this what I should expect using an SST? I am fairly new to reloading and am looking for advice.

My experience with SSTs is with the same bullet, same cartridge, fired from a 15" Encore barrel into the chest of two feral goats at 20 and 60 yards. Both bullets did exactly the same as you described. Seemed like big V-maxes. Cool, but not what I wanted for bigger game. Now I just use them for shooting jackrabbits. My hunting load is now 150 grain BSTs, but I've yet to shoot anything with them.

i was going to try teh sst's in my .308. Im glad you posted! I am using 150 hornady btsp's but have not shot a deer yet.

Wow, I know the SST's fall apart close up but am surprised the fall apart with a 308 at 150 yards. I have had them fall apart too but out of a 300RUM. I figured it was the speed that did it with that gun.

In my experience, the SST is slightly better than the Nozler BT. A little tougher, slower to expand. This year my nephew took a medium sized WI whitetail with his Savage 7mm mag. He was shooting my handload of the 154 SST. The deer was only 35 yds away. The bullet entered the left shoulder, hit the joint, went through the front ribcage, hit the bottom of the spine, went through ribs again and the jacket was laying under the right shoulder blade. A chunk of lead almost made it through, it was laying under the hide at the base of the neck.

Here's the exit under the right shoulder blade and the jacket just about where it was found.



Here's the outside of the entrance, showing the shock damage.



This is the small chunk of lead just visible on the surface of the body.



This is all that could be found of the bullet. The chunck on the left is what was on the body surface in the last pic.



This is the entrance wound on the hide.



Considering that this bullet hit a LOT of bone, it did a real good job. That it penetrated as far as it did, says a lot for it. The lungs were a mass of goo. The deer droped in his tracks, of course.

why not just switch to the interbond, all the benefits of the SST in a tough bonded bullet.

I switched to the SST for a simple reason, they were on sale this summer and I used them for target shooting. I have been on the road alot this year, and didn't have time to load up any other rounds.

They do seem to act like big V-Max bullets! I think I will use the 150 Interbonds next year.