I'm looking for some advice on the GameKing's performance. I've been handloading them for my 300 WinMag and am getting great accuracy at the range.

The 150 and 180 both perform best a few grains short of max, printing 1MOA or less. I'm trying the 200gr this weekend.
Even the 220 Round Nose does 1MOA.

I have yet to take game with any of these and would like to hear from all of you. Would you trust the performance of these GameKings on game? I would take the 180gr at 3000fps out for elk, the 150 for deer...

For the big bears I've been advised to try the Nosler 220 instead of the Sierra. Seems logical, since that tends to be more up close and personal, with the added potential for a seriously dangerous encounter.

Your opinions will be much appreciated.

I have shot 2 cow elk and one smallish mule deer buck recently, all 3 taken with a 130 grain sierra game king out of a 270 weatherby mag. i could not be happier with the perfromance of these bullets. having been a nosler man for years i was leary about about using the sierra . they shot so well out of my gun i thought i would give them a whirl. they worked perfectly, penetrated well and put all three down quickly. the mule deer took 1 step, one cow just fell upon impact, and the other cow took 5 steps . would i use them on big bears or big bull elk? probably not. would i use 180 grain pills from a 300 winny on the big bears and the like ? hell yes. just my 2 cents

I have two friends who use the 165gr .308 in their .308 Winchesters and think it's perfect for deer. I think the slower rounds and/or longer ranges make them work great. They are just a bit soft for my liking from anything close or high velocity. One of my friends used the above bullet at 2700-2800 fps on a medium whitetail around 75 yards. Head on shot penitrated from chest up into the spine destroying 5 vertibra.

I would not use them on anything much bigger than deer. Also watch those close shots with your 300.
Wonderfuly accurate in my 25/06.

I have used them for years in my 338 Win for moose and big bear, 250 SBT, but the smaller 30 cal SBT tend to not hold up up in heavy game, the 338 and above work well on heavy game, 375 cal 300 SBT, but for lighter game ELK and Deer they should be find as long as you match the weight of the bullet to the game.

[ 01-26-2003, 09:03: Message edited by: Alaska Bush Man ]

Last year I shot a mouflon (corsican) ram with my Ruger 77 II 300 WM, loaded with 165 g. Sierra GK; it was walking away at 220 meters. The shot was slightly downhill; the angle was good to reach the heart and lungs. The impact was in the kidneys area. The ram firs felt, then could painfully run away, since my second shot was low. We had to track it for 1 Kilometer and 4 hours; another guy had to shot it again. While gutting , I could realize that the bullet exploded just below the skin, on the side of the spine, ripping away flesh and spine fragments for the size of a chicken egg; only little fragments of bullet and spine went in the stomach and bowels, making no serious wound. Without the second shot, it was able to survive 2 or 3 more days. I decided to never use again Sierra GK at hunt; they surely work well 95% of times, but I cannot bear a similar episode twice. My actual hunting bullet is Nosler Partition 180 g. �..just my opinion. - Lorenzo

....anyway, I really appreciate .30 cal .220 rn Sierra bullets for driven hunt of boars. I use them in my 300WM cal. Browning BAR. VERY effective bullets for shots under 200 m.- Lorenzo

Gamekings out of a 300 Mag is an explosion with no penetration, maybe passable for deer. I have taken a lot of animals with the 300 Gr. in my 375 H&H, but speed kills these bullets.

I can't say about that bullet at 300 Win. Mag velocity but it is a darn good one at 308 Win. velocities. I have killed several hogs with that bullet at 2725 fps with excellent performace. I have shot the 150 GK and I agree I think it would be to soft for the Win Mag. I have seen coyotes shot with that bullet out of a 300 WSM and the exit holes were softball size. No other hunting bullet will group as tight as the GK's will in my rifles.

Shoot Safe, Shoot Straight.....RiverRat

These are the 2 (GK) bullets I ever recovered from game.
1. 160 7mm (7x64) : 80 m frontal shot on Muntjac (bullet stopped just short of ham);
2. 165 .308 (.300 Win Mag): quartering frontal on Red Stag at 250 m (bullet recovered from hide pouch on opposing flank).

I use Sierra GK's a lot and never had any problems. I've also shot some Wild Boars at varying distances with the .300 WM ProHunter and always had full penetration. For a harder bullet, I would recommend the HPGK (as confirmed by Sierra, it's a surprisingly tough bullet).

I have used them in my 300 Winchester on Kudu and they worked fine. At 2860 they performed ver well

Once again I'll ask: what is anyone doing using a 150 or 165 gr bullet in a 300wm???? The mantra of "speed kills" can also be said to be "speed mains, cripples and causes pointless pain" so that someone can say "my 388 skyrockets shoots a 125gr bullet at 4000fps. Speed kills you know". If you're not using a 200gr or better bullet in a 300, you're not properly using one of the better calibres of today.

what is anyone doing using a 150 or 165 gr bullet in a 300wm????

Beemanbeme,

I've been getting that feeling from this post. Do you also rule out the 180gr options in 300WinMag? A 180gr easily does 3000fps out my 26" barrel. Maybe that's too much for some bullets, but a Nosler should handle that well. And if that 180 affords a bit more reach then why not use it?

I am about to start experiments with a 200gr GameKing and already have some good recipes for the Sierra 220gr RN. If you've got any good ideas for 200 or 220 Noslers, please let me know.

BTW, for paper targets I don't think I'll ever beat my 168Match load, for what it's worth.

For the simple reason that my Blaser shoots the 165 g, with all holes touching. OTOH, my Sendero prefers 180 g and that's what she gets. It's all in my head, I know, but, in terms of accuracy, I just can't bring myself to compromise*.

* speaking of me, my wife uses the words "stubborn" and "overbearing", instead. But then, what do wives understand about rifles

A few years ago I popped a 5x6 Roosevelt bull at about 150 yards quartering away with my 300 win useing 180 Gamekings at about 3100. Two shots about an inch apart, both entered the left ribs hit lung- top of heart- lung and right on out the right shoulder. They didn't pencil or blow up or anything horrible. But the hit wasn't in the paunch, not many bullets can make it through the stomach regaurdless of how inaccurate or expensive. I believe most hunters would be better served with less marketing and more shooting. The ballist/sst type bullet are very fragile and the maga premium are very tough, but the lead core Sierra, Hornady, Speer, Corelock, Power Points are better all around choices.

Hi, Duck:

Take off the war paint. I think the point was light bullet at high velocity. Long-range Kansas deer and antelope (right) would be perfect to a long-range, accurate bullet like the Game King. You see, at long ranges, velocities diminish.

Actually, I helped release a bunch of antelope in the Flint Hills south of Strong City about 20 years ago. Are there any left?

kk

ROFLMAO Duck, if your soddy has any windows in it, look outside. those funny hard things are roads. And they go places. If more kansans knew that, kansas would have a population of zero. This is the first year in the past 16 that I haven't made at least one hunt to Wyoming/Colorado for goats, mulies and/or elk. (I broke my leg. Did shoot a nice 8 point eastern whitetail) According to the sierra book, the "point blank range" for a 150gr bullet @3200fps is 385yds. The same point for a 200gr bullet @2800fps is 350 yds. Can you tell if an animal is 385yds away rather than 350yds????? I doubt it. Also, again from the sierra book, the drop of a 150gr bullet at 400yds, with a 300yd zero, is 9inches. With a 200gr bullet, using a 300yd zero, the drop is 11inches. Two precious inches.
Would you like to talk about carry up???? That is to say, the remaining energy of each bullet or is the foot in your mouth tasting too strong already????
Finally, in those 15 years the longest shot I've taken was 380 yards at an antelope. .280, prone position, bipod, no wind, one shot kill. As a rule, if I can't stalk within 300yds or less, I leave 'em for seed. But then, I'm not afraid of getting out of sight of my truck and cell phone.

I stopped loading anything but Sierra's years ago. For my .308 Win. 110, 125, 165 gr. For my 25.06 Rem 100 and 120 gr. When I get home and start feeding my 300 WSM it will be eating Sierra's.

I've only used them up through elk, no DG. Your bullet selection is consistent with conventional wisdom.

My opinion is that your thought process is very sound.

I doubt that Sierra is afraid of a bear. When I open my 4th Edition Sierra CD there is a big-ass dead bear looking back at me.

Go with what gives you total confidence. If you have any doubt about the Sierra (and I don't) go with the Nosler. There is nothing worse than getting in a shooting situation and start wishing you had done something differently.

Avoid them on anything larger than deer. They do work sometimes, but the problem is they are soft and extremely inconsistent. I had one blow up on an Axis deer at 325 yards, but had a long string of consecutive 1 shot kills before that. I hit one rib and got 5 exit wounds on the Axis, and all pieces were deflected.

That was a long time ago, but I still have people show up to hunt with me with them. Performance is still inconsistent. When they work , they're great, but they blow up too often.

I agree with Greg, and will not use them on anything larger than Deer. I use a 225 grain Gameking for fireforming my .358 STA. It is traveling at an average of 3050 fps, and is very accurate, getting one hole groups when I am capable. I thought, with that accuracy I might try it for hunting. When I tested it in my toughness test, it pulvarized into silver powder, and a few pieces of jacket, as did all other bullets that had no partition of some sort or were not constructed with a solid rear shank like the North Forks or monolithic, like the Barnes X's. I concluded silver powder didn't penetrate well and I didn't want to use them on a charging Brown Bear. I can get the same accuracy with the North Forks, and not be worried about them falling apart. Good shooting.

I was discussing bullets this morning with an old friend of 30 + years. He has hunted in Africa rather extensively. Between us we have taken a lot of big game. His favorite bullet is now the Barnes X. However, we were discussing how fine hunters of 50 - 75 years ago took all kinds of game with Speer, Hornady, Sierra, Remington, and Winchester bullets.

It used to be that Speer had about the best reputation as a big game bullet while Sierra was noted for accuracy and not for heavy game.
I realize that there have been many changes. The old Nosler partition bullet was one of the best ever made and according to one person I know is only equalled by the Barnes X. The current Nosler partitions are not as good as the old in his opinion. He has killed many, many heads of big game in Africa.

Few people can take enough game to be expert. Most of us can only go by our experience, but it is our experience.

As for me, I have found that any standard bullet is plenty good enough for deer size game. It just needs to be accurate enough and not of a varmint weight or design.
For elk size game go with a heavier, strongly constructed bullet such as the heavy Speer or better such as Barnes X or Nosler Partition.

The current premium bullets some of which cost close to $1.00 each are not really necessary. If you go for big bear, then go for the best heavy bullet you can get. Otherwise the old time bullet makers are making great bullets. It will be interesting to see how the newest Hornady interlock bullets perform in heavy game.

Check the Sierra manual's "Rifle Bullets" section and look at the page for those bullets -- they are designed for a muzzle velocity of 2500-3200 fps (taking both weights together) and a range of 150-500 yards. That gives a maximum impact velocity of about 2800 fps. Your .300 Win. Mag. would certainly exceed that at close range ...

I took my mature bull moose with a 225gr Gameking this year in 35Whelen @2560fps muzzle velocity. Quartering away shot at 150yds. Entered just in front of diaphragm and exited far shoulder with nice wound channel. I suppose at higher velocity one might have problems with this bullet, but it hit ribs on both sides, had to pass through quite a bit of moose, and still exited far side shoulder. Can't tell you what the bullet looked like, but the moose looks nice (for a moose) and tastes great. He trotted about 50 yards after the one and only shot. My son took mule deer and antelope this fall with the 130gr gameking in .270Win @2900fps. Both one shot kills, with bullet exiting on both, no big blow up or waste of meat. You asked for performance on game- that's my story.

I think that the bottom line on non-premium bullets is that if you keep the velocity below 3000fps, it will perform admirably. I do not like Sierras because I had 165 grain .308s fail to perform well years ago and I have never loaded them since. I use alot of Hornady bullets and they have always performed well for me. 175 grainers at 2800 from my 7mag have always performed well, but I believe the chance of failure goes up with the velocity on non-premiums. Hornady 165 grainers loaded at 2650 from a short .308 performed perfectly on a cow elk for my son a few years back, but I doubt that it would have held together as well at high velocity.

I am about to start experiments with a 200gr GameKing and already have some good recipes for the Sierra 220gr RN. If you've got any good ideas for 200 or 220 Noslers, please let me know.

BTW, for paper targets I don't think I'll ever beat my 168Match load, for what it's worth.

quote:

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Gonzo:
Have been trying to get my .300 WinMag to group w/200 gr. bullets. Nothing under 1.5 moa until I tried Hodgdon Retumbo powder. Shoots .75moa 5 shot groups with this powder and 200 gr. gamekings. Now if it will just shoot decent w/200 gr Nosler partitions, I'll be happy.

By the way, for long range paper punching, if you like the 168 MK's, you'll love the 190 gr. MK's.

Regards,
hm

hm1996,

Thanks for the advice. I've been thinking about trying Retumbo. I didn't get too far into my testing, but so far the 200gr GameKing looks like a winner.

65gr AA3100 did better than 64gr, but I have some 66 and 67gr loads to try as well. All with WLRM primers.

As for the 190MK, I think I'll stay with the 168 for now. It's a fantastic load with middle of the road velocity. If I'm not going to take game with something I'll opt for the lower recoil of a lighter bullet. Just a personal preference. Tell me more about the advantages of the 190 and I may be convinced.

Gonzo:
Have only used AA powders in pistols, never tried it in rifles. Did try H 4831 SC, IMR 4350, H 450 and IMR 7828 with the 200 gr GK's and in my rifle, the Retumbo was by far the best. Still in the process of adjusting overall length. Thought I might need to go to magnum primers w/Retumbo since even the lightest charge listed is a case full of powder and becomes compressed @ 1 gr. over that, but the Fed. 210 BR primers are getting the job done.

The 168gr MK is great target load at shorter ranges. The 190 gr. MK has better wind-bucking abilities from 600 to 1000 yds. (About 3% less drift @ 600 and 6% less @ 1000 than the 168's.)

Regards,
hm

I have seen them work perfectly, but I have seen them blow completely up on a lot of ocassions...

Elk hunts are not cheap, so you have an investment there. My question is why take a chance with a bullet that costs 10 cents less than a premium...Makes no sence to me.

This year I blew a 120 gr. Sierra up on a smallish whitetail deer in a 25-06, I see them fail all the time in Africa when pushed beyound 3000 FPS at the muzzle..Your Nosler cost you about $7.00 a box more money.... but, the final decision is yours.

Ray (and everyone else),

thanks for all the replies. I wasn't really looking to the Sierra for cost savings. Most important has been the fantastic accuracy I've gotten as a novice handloader. I thought if the Sierra was good enough I'd have lots of good game loads.

I will now start playing with the Nosler stuff and hope accuracy doesn't suffer to badly.

Thanks again for all the input. If you have any Nosler recipes for a 300WinMag i'll take all the advice I can get.

My family has used GameKings for decades, mostly out of 06s. The results are generally good although my dad had several consecutive 165 gr GameKings blow up on deer under 100 yards and almost lost an elk because of one. The bullet blew up on the front leg bone (humerus?) and only a tiny peice made it inside far enough to take out a peice of plumbing on top of the heart. If you do go with them I would go with a 180 gr for deer and stick with Noslers or similar for elk.

Gonzo -- My magic load for the .300 Winny and the 180 grain Nosler Partition or North Fork is from 73 to 78 grains of RL-22 and a Fed 210M primer. Start low and work you way up. For my old beat up post 64 Model 70 it cannot be beat. Good shooting.

FWIW I talked to a fellow last night who hunted plains game in RSA -- he brought a .270 Win. and a .338 Win. Mag. but one of the scope mount screws broke on his .338 so he shot everything (up to kudu and zebra) with the .270 and 130-gr. Game Kings.

He got one shot kills on all but one animal BUT ... most of his shots were 200 yds or so. The one bullet that didn't exit shed its jacket in, of all things, a steenbok at 60 yds.

If your rifles shoot the Game Kings well, I would try something about the same size and shape, such as a Barnes XBT (maybe a step or two lighter) or Swift Scirocco.

John

I use the 200 Gr. Sierra Gameking in my Remington Classic 300 Weatherby. It sets on top of 83.0 Gr. of IMR 7828. The muzzle velocity is 3016 fps out of my 24" barrel. It will shoot sub MOA. The first animal I shot with it was an Elk at 150 yards. The animal was quartering away form me right to left at a 45 running at full speed. I hit him on his left side between the 3rd & 4th rib from the back. The bullet lodged under the right front shoulder. Two steps and it made a one point landing on its nose. Rolled over and never regained its feet. I’m sold on Gamekings. I have also had great success with the 160 Gr. Gameking in my Remington 7MM Mag.on Elk but not nearly effect as the 300. It managed to run 50 feet and crashed into a tree head on. He was dead on his feet. Neither bullet did the urban myth of boat tails shed their jackets.

[ 02-06-2003, 05:22: Message edited by: Oleman ]

I used 200 grain Game Kings in my 300 Win Mag on my first hunt in Africa in 96. The velocity was in the 2850 range. I took a Black Wildebeeste and a Kudu with it. The Black Wildebeeste was shot at 200yds, and ran maybe 35 yds in a circle and piled up. Bullet fully penetrated in heart/lung area. The kudu was 310 yds, and one bullet fully penetrated on the diagonal, in thru the lung and out thru the liver. The other penetrated the lung amidship, and was recovered just under the skin on the off side. Picture perfect mushroom.

I believe that if you shoot at sensible velocities, the heavier Game Kings will work fine. I would echo Ray's observation about Nosler Partition. The 180 Partition is awsome. The new polymer tipped, bonded bullets maybe even better; extremely accurate and very solid. Best of luck and let us hear about your hunt. Ku-dude

I can't thank you all enough. When I started this post I thought there wouldn't be much response.

For all the rest who might visit this post, this is what I've drawn from this discussion, and it will serve me well:

GameKings are best shot at the heavy-for-caliber end of the spectrum. The 200gr at max 2800fps should do well. If you plan to shoot at 150+ yards you can go lighter because at those ranges the velocity will have dropped below the performance limitation.

The premiums are best left for when you know you're going to put a bullet into game at close range and/or high speed.

Pinpoint accuracy is unnecessary in hunting big game, bullet performance is primary over accuracy, caliber or anything esle for that matter....

I'd rather shoot an elk with a 30-30 with good performing bullets than with a 300 Watchamacallit that disrupts a bullets integrity.

I have outlived the old days of constant bullet failure, today we have just too many good bullets to use a bullet that is questionable. Doesn't make since to me to use a Sierra, Hornady, Corelokt, or PP these days, even though they are all good bullets and surly fine for deer and antelope..they do fail on large animals, albiet on rare ocassions however.

Elk are fine animals and deserve the respect of a premium bullet...A elk hunt these days is not cheap and I have seen many ruined hunts due to bullet failure and yes some were with Sierras, 99% were with non premium bullets...

I see no valid reason for using them, just common since IMO...I speak only for myself...