I just took a decent size mule deer at roughly 125 yards using a 30-06 and handloads of Hornady 150 grain SST.

The shot was side chest and centered missing the heart.

The deer leaped, turned and fell over after moving less than 10 feet.

The entrance hole on the inside of the rib cage was the size of a quarter and the exit hole on the opposite side of the rib cage was the size of a tennis ball. The bullet was not recovered as it exited.

Incredibly little meat damage due to bullet placement as the deer gave me an impossible to miss shot square on the rib cage.

In this particular case, I'd rate the bullet performance perfect.....as good as it gets!

I just busted a little 7 pt Missouri whitetail with the 150 SST last saturday. The shot was only about 25 yards. Bullet performance was excellent in my case as well. I shot him high in the right lung, bullet angled down (I was 25' up a tree)through the deer's body and took out the left lung made a 1.5" exit plus a couple secondary exits from rib fragments. I could see the blood trail from my stand. He went about 100yds but most of it was downhill at about a 45 angle. Deer was dead within 2-3 seconds(watched him fall).

quote:

Originally posted by vapodog:
I just took a decent size mule deer at roughly 125 yards using a 30-06 and handloads of Hornady 150 grain SST.

The shot was side chest and centered missing the heart.

The deer leaped, turned and fell over after moving less than 10 feet.

The entrance hole on the inside of the rib cage was the size of a quarter and the exit hole on the opposite side of the rib cage was the size of a tennis ball. The bullet was not recovered as it exited.

Incredibly little meat damage due to bullet placement as the deer gave me an impossible to miss shot square on the rib cage.

In this particular case, I'd rate the bullet performance perfect.....as good as it gets!

What you mean it didnt bounce off. I've thought about trying some of these. Thanks for the report.

quote:

Originally posted by Jarrod:

quote:

Originally posted by vapodog:
I just took a decent size mule deer at roughly 125 yards using a 30-06 and handloads of Hornady 150 grain SST.

The shot was side chest and centered missing the heart.

The deer leaped, turned and fell over after moving less than 10 feet.

The entrance hole on the inside of the rib cage was the size of a quarter and the exit hole on the opposite side of the rib cage was the size of a tennis ball. The bullet was not recovered as it exited.

Incredibly little meat damage due to bullet placement as the deer gave me an impossible to miss shot square on the rib cage.

In this particular case, I'd rate the bullet performance perfect.....as good as it gets!

What you mean it didnt bounce off. I've thought about trying some of these. Thanks for the report.

I have shot one mule deer in AZ and a tahr and chamois in NZ with a .300 SAUM using this bullet and it worked great.

I shot a large whitetail two weeks ago with the 165 SST in my 300 WM at 175 yards. I hit both lungs about 2 inches above center of the chest. He dropped right away and didn't move. 1/2" entrance, and 2.5" exit. This is the fourth deer i've taken with this bullet. It has worked well for me everytime.

Shot two antelope and a pretty fair-sized muley in Wyoming this year with 129 grain SSTs in my 6.5X55 with performance just like vapo described. When I first tried 150s in my .308 several years ago I thought they behaved like big Vmaxes, but I think Hornady has gotten things figured out. They're as good a "conventional" bullet as I've used. They're my standard in the Swede now.

I took a better than 200 Lb deer this year with a 140 Gr SST out of a 6.5 handgun and had similar results, bang flop, and entrance and exit wounds as described above. This was at about 75 yards offhand, with considerably less velocity than a rifle would produce - 2533 fps 10 feet fron the muzzle.

With a BC of .521 and capable of expansion down to 1,400 fps, but still remaining in tact on a 25 yard water test, which a Nosler partition didn't at the same velocity and distance, and penetrating into the 5th one gallon milk jug of water out of the same 13 inch barreled handgun, what's not to like about Hornady's SST bullets?...Rusty.

Dessertram, that had been my impression of 130gr SST's out of my 270, I ended up using them on PD's along with the NBT's I had on hand. I haven't tried either since I had trouble with them.

Glad you had good results w/ them.

I thought they were descent bullets until I had several fail to exit on shots that should have easily exited. No blood at all. Luckily we found most of the deer when they failed to exit. I loaded some for a cousin's 300WM and he hated them. He shot a small doe crossing a ROW one evening and hit here right through the guts and the bullet failed to exit. The last straw was after I shot a 10pt through the lungs at 100 yards w/ a 150 sst at 2950 MV and it failed to exit, I shoved them to the back of the bullet bin. They are great for foulers and paper punching but, I found them too much of a gamble on deer sized game. IMO the NBTs hold together much better if you want a good expander.

Good Luck

Reloader

I have had super luck with these bullets. Here's one of my experiences.
30-06 w/165 gr SST's over 55.0 gr of IMR 4350
Hit a mulie doe running away at 175-200 yds. Perfect Texas heart shot right through the B-hole.
Ruined maybe 1/2 pund of meat combined on both hams.
Bullet lodged under the left shoulder. Retained 117 gr of weight (71%) and mushroomed perfectly to .584. It was pretty.
I figured it penetrated well over 24" of visceral cavity. It wasn't fun to field dress, but cleaned up nicely.
Just my .02 cents. I love the SST's.

Bill C