i was planning to use some of this ammunition this year for deer. does anynoe have any experience with this ammunition and this specific bullet? the bullet is 150 grains and, i assume, it is called a starfire bullet. it looks like a Barnes-X with a flat nose. it has a very large hollow point in it. anyway, any advice will be appreciated.

That is the bullet I will let my grandson use on his elk this year as it is basically a BarnesX and will have a lot of penitration in his 30-30 carbine.

I have friend with a marlin 30-30 that I reloaded the same bullet for. HIs gun is a decent shooter for a 30-30--about 1-3/4" groups with a 3-9 scope and factory fodder at 100 yds. Went to the barnes bullet and it is now more accurate than ever. Seems to shoot 5 shot 1.25" groups pretty easy. We tried several powders and all shot really well.

RAY--don't know if you loaded any yet but for me they seat quite hard. I wound up using a neck turning mandrel to open the case a bit and that made seating smooth with about the same neck tension as felt with normal rifle reloading. Of course we then crimped.

To me the bullet just seems a bit "oversized" and that is possible why it is so accurate. It may just get a great "bite" into the rifling as it goes down the barrel.

Terminal performance on whitetail has been really excellent. My friend has probably shot 8 deer--always an exit wound and they do not go far after being hit. During practice we found some bullets in the sand at the end of the shooting range--They all weighed about 90% of new with a mushroom head and a long shank to "drive it through".

End of story--I THINK YOU'LL LIKE THEM!!

I shot a deer at about 35 to 40 yards with the Starfire load out of a Winchester Trapper 30-30. I hit him behind the shoulder and he ran about 30 to 35 yards. The blood trail looked like it had been poured out of a 5 gal bucket for about 25 yards, then it totally stopped. The deer was about 10 to 15 yards away. When he was cleaned there was no blood in him. That load works almost too good.
I think it would also be a good load for wild pigs and black bear over bait in the 30-30.