Sorry if you've seen this elswhere. Please only answere if you meet the criteria. Don't . I would like your experiences with 165 and 150gn 308cal bullets on deer or deer size game. Either shoulder, lung/heart, slight quartering shots or a combination of is what I want. I'm talking about shots at deer where you have the chance to make the shot you want. I want bullet performance on these types of shots, not neck, head, THSs. I would like the terminal speed to be between 2100-2600fps. Thanks, and again don't , capt david

I've used both the 150 and 165's at those speeds and in all your scenario's, primarily from a 308 Win but also a 30-06. On deer, I frankly never saw any difference. The biggest whitetail went around 240 lbs live weight. Not gigantic, but plenty big. The 150 Speer punched both shoulders, breaking bone, and exited. Ditto 150 ballistic tips. On gigantic trophy Mule Deer I might be more inclined towards a 165 but I doubt it would make any real difference...

I've shot a bunch of Texas whitetails, plus mule deer with 150 gr. Hornady Inter-Locts out of the 30-06. MV was a little over 2900 fps. (not exactly your criteria velocity), but nevertheless, this combination was always a bomb.

I know a bunch of guys in Texas who load 165s to 2700 fps. and 150s at 2800 fps. out of the 308 Win., and they don't use anything else for whitetails. They all swear by their rifles and loads.

The last mule deer I took with my 150 gr. '06 load was here in Oregon several years ago. He was down a mountainside looking up at me from about 200 yds. out on the horizontal range, the angle was so steep I had to aim at the bottom of his brisket for the shot, but when that 150 Hornady hit him, he went down instantly and rolled backwards on his back with all feet in the air. Good kill!

If I'm hunting with the 30-06, which I seldom do anymore, I like premium 180s at 2700 fps. or better for anything bigger than deer. For deer I like any accurate 150 at somewhere between 2900 and 3000 fps.

To me, 165s are neither fish nor foul.........

AD

The velocity you are asking about it whst I load to in my BLR and I have seen no difference, other than less recoil, in performance when compared to full power loads. I have taken several deer between 125 and 180# with both the 165 Corelokts and 150 Sierras and have never recovered one. Shots have been heart/lung, shoulder, quarter away and quarter to. I don't take THS. I will say that I lost one deer that I shot with that combo and the 165 corelokt with a full frontal shot. Deer raised up, flipped over backwards and when I got there (150 yards) he had gotten the creek and was gone. Only mishap I have had under the conditions you described.

Hope it is helpful.

Thanks for the info so far. Allen, it meets my criteria, because I'm looking for terminal, not muzzle velocity. I'm also very intrested in how the diffrent brands/type bullets perform. For example, Size of exit hole(if one) how did it perform after hitting bone &etc. any 'autopcy' is of intrest to me. If you have examples please share. thanks all, capt david

I've shot 2 deer with 165gr Ballistic tips at near 2800fps (muzzle) from a 26" barrel rifle, one at about 90yds and the other at about 130yds. Both were heart/lung shots. Both humped up ran 10 or so yards and fell over, kicked once or twice and were dead.
Shot another with 165gr partition (2600fps, 18" barrel) at 34yds, it ran forwards 20 yards and fell dead.
The Partition hit seemed to cause slightly less mush and had a clean exit wound. The partition shoots extremely well in my Scouts and in general it's what I would prefer. I liked the 165 Ballistic tip in my 26" rifle because it matched the trajectory of my Silhouette load that at the time I was shooting a lot of. Either will kill em dead. I would think you'd want the Partition if you like to take out a shoulder and the Ballistic tip if you like to avoid the shoulders and make only heart/lung shots.............DJ

I've shot over 50 Whitetails with 165 grain bullets (Sierra 165 sbt) from distances of 20 feet to 137 yards using either a 30-06 or 308 wichester at 2600 fps. I aim for the shoulder joint and have never recovered a bullet on the offside. In all but one case, where I did not lead enough on a moving deer, the deer dropped within 20 feet of impact. The offside shoulder exit wound is generally softball size and "hamburger". The deer that I misjudged on last fall ran 600 yards before laying down and expiring. I was very lucky to find it in the area I hunt, it is an old farm grown over the last 40 years. I have never used the 150 grain bullet but have had identical results to the 165 grain bullet with a 180 grain bullet.

Without bringing up a sore sobject, Just how far back did you shoot that deer? capt david

Too many deer to count with the 150 gr. Sierra Pro-hunter in the 30-06, although they didn't call it that way back then. Muzzle velocity was probably around 2850 to 2900 FPS estimated. Meat damage was more than I cared to see, so I went to the 180 gr. Sierra Pro-hunter. That was probably around 1970. That was when I moved to Nevada, and that 9.5 pound Springfield 1903 seem to gain too much weight come hunting season.
I then went to the .308 anf back to 150 gr. Sierra P-Hs, but again, they were still more destructive of eating meat to suit me. I will admit though that they were very accurate and did allow me to take the longest shot on a mule deer I've ever had to take. A witnessed 427 paces. This was paced off by three people including myself and then averaged. I haven't a clue on the muzzle velocity from the Remington 660. I finally compromised on the Speer 165 gr. Hot-core for the .308 for most of my deer hunting in that rifle (Sorry Allen Day ) as well as several other .308 rifles I have. My pet rifle is a Ruger 77 RSI, the one with a Mannlicher style stock. It's a really fussy gun as to what it will shoot and the only reasonable load gives only 2550 FPS from it's 18.5" barrel. The same load gives 2610 from a 22" barrel. Of the deer I've taken with that rifle (the RSI) only one bullet has been recovered. All the rest were complete pass throughs on broadside or slighly shallow quartering shots. The one recoverd bullet was shot at a deer 250 yards out slightly uphill. Distance was laser measured BTW. The bullet hit the deer in the middle of the chest as it was facing me, angled upward to hit the spine, then off the spine to cut ribs on one side, right side IIRC, then angled back down to stop against the left back leg bone breaking it. A perfect mushroom and about 65 percent retained weight. Interpolating from Speer's tables, I'd estimate the striking velocity to be about 2000-2050 FPS. Seems to me that if it was that slow, it's wouldn't have done the work it did, but I'm not going to argue with success.
Whatever you do, don't shoot a deer at 35 feet in the chest with a 150 gr. Sierra P-H from a 30-06. A bit messy, but it only took a few snips with the knife to finish the gutting job. Tine hole going in and the other side was one great big hole. The innards were totally untouched, but hanging out on the ground. All I literally had to do was cut the anus clear and the windpipe and it literally all fell out. FWIW, that was the last time I used a 150 gr. 30 caliber on anything.
Paul B.

I am going to step a little outside your
parameters with my .308 cal experience.

I have a 130 gr. Barnes XBT load, that I developed
for my .308 Win chambered Savage Striker.
The average MV, as measured by my chrony,
is 2775 FPS, out of a 14" barrel. It is loaded
to the max, with W748.

Of the three northern whitetails, taken with
this round, all three dropped in their tracks,
or staggered a few yards, and tipped over.
Two were shoulder shots, and one was a
quartering towards. All three shots exited,
at ranges from 50 feet to 75 yards. The
autopsy showed a .30 cal hole entering
the hide, a significant amount of tissue,
and bone, damage under the hide, vitals
that were turned to jelly, and a differing
exit hole. On the shoulder shots, one hole
looked like a jelly bean, from an obvious
tumbling bullet, and one was a ragged, about
.45 cal. hole. On the quartering towards
shot, the exit hole, was in the soft tissue
at about the point of the liver, and was about
3 inches of ragged hole, with shoulder bone
shards hanging out of it. The vitals on this
one were really a mix of bone, and blood
pudding. Like a previous posters conclusion,
along with his 150 gr. experience, I would
say that this combination produces too much
damage, for most hunting situations. In my
case, the load, and firearm are used in
trophy managed, high hunter density areas,
where I want immediate kills, at the expense
of some meat loss. More "Bang Flop"!

I do use a 150 gr Hornady Spire Point, in my
.308 Win chambered BAR. and in my sample
of one management deer taken with this
new rifle, I did not have nearly the tissue
damage as the 130 gr. Barnes loads. But
this shoulder shot trotting doe did travel
about 75 yards before expiring. This
deer was shot trotting at 65 yards, and this
load was measured at 2950 FPS out of the 20"
barrel of the BAR. It was a .30 cal hole in,
about a 6" wound channel through the
vitals, and about a .45 cal exit hole, with
one broken rib on the far side.

I do favor light for caliber bullets, with
fairly tough construction, driven at the
upper end of the MV range. This gives me
flatter shooting rounds, for hunting situations
where hold over is something that enters
your mind after one has pulled the trigger.
I do not take shots under 50 yards that
do not offer a bone hit going in.

Squeeze

Last fall I shot a little blacktail spike through the ribs at 80 yards with a Remington factory 150-gr. PSPCL in my 308. MV was 2,700, so impact velocity was mprobably at the upper end of the range you specify. I found him 15 yards from the deep hoof prints he made then the bullet hit him. The exit was the size of a quarter and the heart and lungs were wrecked.


Okie John

I have shot a lot of game with the .308 and it kills like a 06, 270 or any other medium caliber rifle...It always leaves a good blood trail as most 30 calibers do...My old deer and elk rifle is a 99F Savage in .308 I use it for hunting horseback..Its killed a number of elk and many deer with 150, 165 and 180 gr. bullets..

I really like the cheap to buy in bulk, Remington RN Corelokt 180 gr. bullets on elk and deer..it is an awesome bullet at about 2600 FPS....The 150, 165 gr. Noslers are another favorite.

My .308Win. is in a Browning Micro-medallion with a short, light 20" barrel that has a 1 in 12" twist. It doesn't handle the 180gr bullets and sometimes not even the 165gr. Put a 150gr. Sierra SBT or a Nosler 125gr. Balistic Tip in it, and you're singing a different tune. The Nosler is the only deer size bullet I can exceed 3000fps with, and it does an excellent job. The Sierra 150gr. SBT is no slouch either. Both are good killers. Best wishes.

Cal - Monreal

My 308 is an accurate 22 inch barreled Mauser 98 and I load it with 50 grains of WC852 under the 150 grain Speer hotcor spitzer. I have loaded the same bullet in the 30-06 to aproximatly the same velocity (2850 fps) and can say the loads are utterly reliable on whitetails and mule deer out to 350 yards, always making large exit holes. Speer bullets are vastly underated. All shots were thru the chest generally avoiding the shoulder. Lots of internal damage.

Gidday guys,

I agree with rickt300 that the Speer Hotcors are under rated along with the corelocts. Most especially the hotcors. In regular nonmagnum calibres they perform the most consistantly of all the bullets I have used in my past 30 years of reloading and hunting.

Great expansion, great penetration and weight retention. They are like the 30-06, so competent and consistent that they are overlooked as being boring. They are too competent for their own good. Not flashy enough like the partitions, failsafes, SSTs etc.

These flashy projectiles remind me of the fishing lures that are designed to catch the fisherman and not the fish. The exception being the Nosler balistic tip.

A 150/165gr Speer hotcor, Rem Coreloct, or Nosler BT put in the boiler room of a deer/wapiti sized animal is going to drop it faster and more consistantly than any of the more expensive "premium" bullets when fired from a 308 or 30-06. This is because they are designed to open up at medium velocities but hold together and penetrate doing the damage needed to ensure consistant 1 shot kills breaking bone where necessary.

Consistant performance over the years is what does it for me.

Happy Hunting

Hamish

quote:

Speer bullets are vastly underated.

I agree the 9.3 270 gr speer gets canned regularly but it's always the same crowd talking about it's pefromance on cape buff not fair really it's a pig & deer bullet and for that it's great, speer would have put a tunston rod in it or made it as a grand slam if they'd intended it for buff. Many examples on this board are related to heavy dangerous game which probably the majority don't shoot.