I recently purchased a .308 Win barrel for deer hunting and wanted your optinion on these bullets for such game. I do not reload, so I'm resorting to factory ammo. I've been trying various ammo and wanted to move on to others. I was going to try the Federal Premium 150 grain Ballistic Tips and Hornady's "Light Magnum" 150 grain Super Shock Tip (SST), but don't know anything about their effectiveness on deer. For those who use one of these bullets for such hunting, can you help me? Are Hornady's SST bullets good?

Thanks for any replies

Both of those bullets are good. You don't have to go to the light magnum rounds to kill deer with a 308 win however.....the standard rounds have more than enough poop to do the job.

Any 150 or 165 grain bullet in a factory .308 will be fine for deer.....corelokt, sure shock, power point or whatever.

I use hornady SST's in my 7mm-08 and find they work really well indeed, i've used the 139, 154 and the 162 grainers and all work very well, they are accurate and best of all cheaper than balistic tips.

The only concern I would have using SST's is if I was using a magnum and launching them at speed, then they may over expand at short ranges, at 308 launch speeds they should work a treat at all ranges.

quote:

Originally posted by vapodog:
Both of those bullets are good. You don't have to go to the light magnum rounds to kill deer with a 308 win however.....the standard rounds have more than enough poop to do the job.

Any 150 or 165 grain bullet in a factory .308 will be fine for deer.....corelokt, sure shock, power point or whatever.

+1 on that, ANY 308Win 150-165 grain hunting bullet that hits where you aim will kill deer.

Yeh I know. The ballistics on paper caught my attention. Hornady also offers the "light magnum" in a spire point bullet as well. The only thing I can't get out of my head about the spire point bullet was when I was in RSA last year and a gentleman was shooting plainsgame with a .378 Weatherby Magnum loaded with spire points and a gemsbok was lost and a kudu was tracked for two days and when they finally recovered it, the bullet had only penetrated seven inches. Long story short, he was not allowed to use the .378 anymore with spire point bullets. Will the plastic tipped bullets explode upon impact as well?

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Will the plastic tipped bullets explode upon impact as well?

The plastic tips improve the aerodynamics of the bullet and help to start the expansion.....and there is where their function ends.....(except to improve sales as they just look great and we're suckers for them.)

After that the thickness of the jacket and in some cases bonding of the lead core to the jacket control the rate of expansion and that has a lot to do with penetration.

Those bullets will work great on deer. However for bigger game try Federals 165 Trophy Bonded Bearclaws or Federals 180 Nosler Partition.

You said you got a new barrell??? What rifle are you using?

Remington loads the Swift Scirocco (SP?) in 150 and 165 grains. These are bonded bullets. Any preference in weight? I don't know if there would be any difference in felt recoil.

NE 450 No2, you will probably recognize me as "Craig" somewhere else. Blaser R93

Craig
A most excellent choice in rifles.
My wife and I have taken deer with the Federal 150 Ballistic Tip, I have taken deer with the 165 Hornady Light Mag, and we have both taken deer and wild pigs with the Winchester 168 gr Ballistic Silvertip, all with excellent results.
However my favorite all time factory load is the Federal 165 gr Trophy Bonded Bearclaw. It works on all game from bobcat to 275lb+ pigs as well as black bear.
For really BIg big game the Federal factory 180 Nosler Partition is hard to beat.

quote:

the bullet had only penetrated seven inches. Long story short, he was not allowed to use the .378 anymore with spire point bullets. Will the plastic tipped bullets explode upon impact as well?

No, plastic tip bullets will not explode when launched at 308 velocities, they only overexpand/explode and dont penetrate if they ipact at speeds above about 2800 fps, these bullets are designed to work between about 1700 and 2800 FPS, outside of this velocity range they will under expand(below 1700 fps)or overexpand(above 2800 fps). However they will work well at long range where velocity has dropped off.

These bullets launched from magnums like the 378 weatherby will often fail to penetrate far at short to medium ranges because they are travelling above 2800 fps.

From a 308 a 150 or 165 grain bullet would be travelling below 2800 fps when it hits the target so it should work well and I think they are a good choice for the 308.

I shot a good sized pig from the rear using a 162 grain hornady SST from my 7mm-08 and the bullet penetrated all the way through him and out his chest, it travelled about 3 feet.

quote:

Originally posted by N E 450 No2:
Craig
A most excellent choice in rifles.
My wife and I have taken deer with the Federal 150 Ballistic Tip, I have taken deer with the 165 Hornady Light Mag, and we have both taken deer and wild pigs with the Winchester 168 gr Ballistic Silvertip, all with excellent results.
However my favorite all time factory load is the Federal 165 gr Trophy Bonded Bearclaw. It works on all game from bobcat to 275lb+ pigs as well as black bear.
For really BIg big game the Federal factory 180 Nosler Partition is hard to beat.

I can understand you perfectly,..... I also use the factory Federal 165 grs. Trophy Bonded, but in the "high energy" variation, that unfortunately seems to be no longer on their product list. I have chronoed it with 2760 fps out of my short barreled Steyr Tactical stainless (20"). Shot everything with it up to very large red stag (400+ pounds) with ease ...

sorry, doubled post.....

sniper66
I have used the High Energy 165 TB and the 180 Nosler Partition, as well as the standard loads. All of them have performed real well.

I just got a few boxes of factory Federal 150 Barnes X bullet.
I plan to try them out on wild pigs in the next few months.
I have a Canadian goat/black bear hunt planned next year that I will use my Blaser K 95 Stutzen in 308 on.
I will use what ever ammo shoots best at 300 yards, but I lean toward the 165 TB.

I really like the Accubond bullet for deer. Seems as the perfect design and bullet jacket thickness for deer which promotes good bullet performance.

I ordered one box of Federal Premium 150 grain Ballistic Tips and one box of Federal Premium 165 grain Sierra Gamekings to try. I wish I could try the Accubonds, but no one loads them commercially that I can find. I know Federal loads other cartridges with the Accubonds, but not the .308 Win. Nobody mentioned Remington's Swift Scirocco loads. Is this not a good bullet?

I handload the Swift Scirocco in my 300 Ultra Mag and it is very accurate and deadly for me. I have heard others say they don't get the accuracy but I've not had that problem. I will tell you that the retained weight hasn't been what Swift says it would be but the bullets have worked well for me. I will continue to use them in my Ultra Mag.

If you shoot to the correct spot what you propose will work splendidly. My all around favorite is the 165 weight and then adjust the bullet construction to suit the game intended. I have found the 180 Nosler partition in this cartridge to be a little to hard, or lacking in expansion. It may have been a particular lot of bullets, but it cost me.

I have used a .308 for 90% of my deer hunting. Buy a box of plain old 150gr winchester power points. If they shoot well from your rifle then use them it's all you need for deer. You can buy 2 boxes of them for the price of one box of light mag. Then you can practice more, we all need that.

Totally agree on the Win 150 gr. PP's... were I running a 308 with factory fodder for deer sized stuff that's what I'd be using.

quote:

Totally agree on the Win 150 gr. PP's... were I running a 308 with factory fodder for deer sized stuff that's what I'd be using.

Yes another good choice for the 308.

Most bullets work well from a 308 because its moderate launch velocity is within the design envelope (1700 to 2800 fps)of most bullets.

So find one that shoots well in your rifle and go shoot some deer.

Gidday Guys,

I am tying myself in knots trying to figure out what the deer in North America eat.

It must be something fantastic to make them grow armour plating that they need such tough bullets to knock them over. If we tried those sorts of bullets on our deer down here we would find that we get a lot of pass through shots with little or no expansion.

We find that the standard bullets (NBT hotcores coreloct etc) cause a much more lethal wounds on our thin skinned deer.

Maybe someone should do a study on what causes NA deer to be so tough and start feeding it to our troops to make them bulletproof too!

Happy Hunting

Hamish

quote:

Gidday Guys,

I am tying myself in knots trying to figure out what the deer in North America eat.

It must be something fantastic to make them grow armour plating that they need such tough bullets to knock them over. If we tried those sorts of bullets on our deer down here we would find that we get a lot of pass through shots with little or no expansion.

We find that the standard bullets (NBT hotcores coreloct etc) cause a much more lethal wounds on our thin skinned deer.

Maybe someone should do a study on what causes NA deer to be so tough and start feeding it to our troops to make them bulletproof too!

Happy Hunting

Hamish

Amen Brother

Reloader

I agree with those that said 150 Win PPs. Thats what they were designed for. For deer and pigs(except really large boars), this is hard to beat. I use my 308 as a loaner. I reload, but when I loan the rifle, I recomend the PPs. My second choice is 165 SSTs, only because they perform better on the pigs that we shoot.

On deer you can't beat the core lokt in 165grs. I've always got better accuracy out of the core lokt,then the Power points.

I made it out to the range today to try the 150 grain NBT bullets and the 165 grain Sierra GameKings both in the factory Federal Premium loadings. For some reason my rifle doesn't like the 150 grain bullets as much as the 165 grain bullets. Their groups and I've shot the Barnes TSX and NBT in 150 grain are recognizably larger than the 165 grain groups. The Sierra GameKings shot extremely well, so I'm going to practice with these for a little while and consider taking them on my upcoming deer hunt. Does anyone else hunt successfully with the Sierra GameKing bullet?

I have shot several deer with the 165 HPBT Sierra Gameking in the 308 in reloads over 39.5gr of IMR 3031.
I used this load for several years for deer and for antelope. I even killed an antelope at @550 yards, and several at 300 to 350.
I also used this load for Metallic Silhouette Matches and Sniper Matches.
Many friends have used the Lead pointed spitzer with excellent results. the HPBT is reported by Sierra to be a littls tougher bullet than the Spitzer.

You will have no problems on any deer with that load.
I have shot that factory load in some of my 308's I just have not killed game with it.
My reload is milder, I expect the Federal 165 Sierra load would be excellent.

I used to shoot the 150 grain bullets in .308 but have come to prefer the 165s and they come close to the same POI as the 168 grain target loads I often shoot from the same rifles.

From a 20" Remington LTR the 165 grain Hornady SST runs 2725 fps with 46 grains of WW748. 45.0, 45.5 and 46.0 grains all shoot fantastic groups down in the .35-.45 MOA range but as soon as the gun was loaded with 46.5 and 47.0 grains groups over doubled in size. This is using Federal cases and CCI Benchrest primers.

I plan to use this bullet on deer and antelope but would probably go over to the same bullet in the Accubond line if hunting black bear.

As to Hamish's "bullet-proof deer", one of NE450s partners told me of a mule deer he shot in the shoulder at short range...and it didn't go down...didn't even phase the deer. He was lucky to get a second shot off and kill the deer and when skinned out the first bullet (I believe was a .270 Winchester using Remington CorLoc) was found fully expanded on the shoulder bone. I found a beautiful 8 point buck one time and could not determine the cause of death. Once gutted it was discovered that some one had taken the "Texas Heart Shot" and there was a 1/2 moon out of the anus. The bullet didn't even make the diaphram. When the deer was taken back to camp it was discovered that a hunter in another party had shot at the deer at dusk the previous evening as it jumped a fence. From where he shot the deer to where I found it ON TOP OF THE MASA was 7 miles as the crow flies... Another .270 using Winchester SilverTip ammo...130 grain I believe. I have shot the lenght of one deer using a .280 Remington with 140 grain Nosler Petitions...the bullet was found under the skin on the rump having been shot in the chest at a slight angle. I would rather pay a little more money for a bullet that I knew was going to expand and penetrate as not all shots are your classic broadside into the lungs...

Bob

I would use whatever shoots best in your rifle. My Micro-Medallion likes 150 grain bullets in front of 45.5 grains of Re15, or the factory WW 150s. The Rem ADL likes the 165 bullets better with 45 grains of the same Re15. Any 308 bullet will put any deer down if the shot is taken responsibly.

The only thing RJM proved is that the 270 sucks as a deer round.

The interbond and the sst both work well.several deer have fell for me using those bullets and the price ain't bad
Wayles