My son shot his first deer this past weekend. He shot a Mule Doe at about 70 yards away.

He wanted to use my 06 and it was loaded with 150gr Hornady SST's and 60 grs of H4350. The bullet entered the left shoulder and destroyed the heart, exited the right shoulder and broke several ribs along the way. The exit wound was the size of a silver dollar. I did not recover the bullet. The doe did not move and merely collapsed where it stood.

We were hunting the missouri river and saw a ton of whitetail. Our partner saw a five point whitetail, but didn't shoot.

Sounds like the results that I got with the last two I shot with 168 nosler j4 only they left a 2 inch exit hole.

I'll let you know how the 154 SST's do in my 7mm RM. I'm headed to Missouri this weekend for a deer hunt.

I�VE SHOT BOTH THE 139 AND 154 SST IN MY 7 RM, BASICALLY ON GOATS.

WITH A WELL PLACED SHOT, INSTANTANEOUS KILLS HAVE BEEN THE RULE, BUT I HAVE NEVER SEEN EXIT HOLE EXCEPT FOR A SMALL ANIMAL SHOT AT 300 YARDS, PRBABLY BECAUSE OF THE REDUCED VELOCITY AT THE TIME OF IMPACT.

I HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO RECOVER ANY BULLET.

I WOULD NOT USE THEM ON ANIMALS HEAVIER THAN 120 POUNDS.

I shoot the 139 SST and 71.7 gr. of H4831 out of my 7mm STW. My experience is that it has great stopping power. I shot a fully mature, rutting, 5x5 whitetail last year, and at 200 yards, he didn't take 1 or 2 steps, he dropped like a rock. Hit him in the chest and exited. Found out this round is also good on coyotes...shot a $50 coyote 2 days ago, and the rest is history.

Well no luck in Missouri. This weekend is opener for Oklahoma though.

Awesome results! Congrats to your boy!

Last year my 18 year old son shot his first Mule deer with a 280 Rem and 139gr SST @ 3080fps. I was getting 3" to 4" groups at 300 yards with this load. He shot the buck at about 10 yards just a little high behind the shoulder (broad side) Dropped instantly with total penetration. Had a good laugh about all of the work put into getting the gun to shoot so well and him shooting the deer so close to us. Great bullet for deer.

I had pretty much the same results this year on a 4x3 Manitoba whitetailed buck. I was shooting a 300 win mag with Hornady rolled 150gr SST's. The buck was broadside at 175 yards. The shot was tight behind the front shoulder 4" up from the brisket line. Upon entrance, expansion was quick, the bullet squarely struck a rib. It punctured both lungs and the upper half of the heart. There was little more the jello in the upper cavity. The bullet shattered the opposite shoulder, but did not exist the body. Unfortunately, I was unable to recover the bullet, or any portion there of. The buck ran 30' and piled up.

As a point of reference, the buck had a dressed weight of 189lbs, according to the butcher.

I shot a white tailed doe this weekend that weighed 130 pounds. I was using factory loaded .308 150 grain sst's.
She was facing me and the shot entered the left shoulder and broke 3 ribs(created a good lime size hole in the rib cage) and proceeded to tear up part of the heart. It was found by the last rib in the hide on the other side of the doe. It did not exit. Appears to have lost some of its jacket but did form a mushroom. I will weigh it to see how much weight was retained.
She ran about 75 yards and dropped. The fact that there was no exit wound would have left me having a hard time trying to find her because there was no blood trail. The bullet did the internal damage that afforded me the luxury of not having ot do that, but I would have preferred an exit wound.
Shot was at 50 yards

[ 11-23-2003, 17:28: Message edited by: 308_TIKKA ]