Stuck with a Savage 99 that has a 1-14" twist, any recommendation on acceptable bullets for deer hunting? The 100's keyhole, as would be expected.

Here are two pix of targets I shot with two different Rifles in 250 Savage. The loads are on the targets and each different load shoots well enough for Deer hunting. The bullets are the 90 grain Sierra HPBT's.

quote:

Originally posted by Ketchikan:
Stuck with a Savage 99 that has a 1-14" twist, any recommendation on acceptable bullets for deer hunting? The 100's keyhole, as would be expected.

87gr Speer Hot Core!

DMB-

Those are some VERY nice groups!

In addition to what DMB and olarmy have noted, the 87 grain Hornady does very well, and if it will stabilize, the 85 grain BT is a good choice also.

Running any of these at 2900-2950 fps will give you a good, flat-shooting load -- and a velocity level in which the bullet will penetrate more than sufficiently.

I used both the 85 grain BT and 87 grain Hornady in a 15" XP-100 in .250 Savage and a 14" .257 JDJ Contender barrel for a number of years with very good results.

quote:

The bullets are the 90 grain Sierra HPBT's.

They kill deer too. A fine small .257 caliber hunting bullet

Bobby T.,
Thank you.

Rolltop,
Those bullets are far more accurate than most other light weight 25 cal bullets I've tried. But, I never tried the Hornady bullet Bobby suggests.
Speer's 87 grain bullets, two of them, are also very accurate.

Another vote for the 90gr. Sierra HPBT. It kills deer with authority.

Stepchild

Just to think about...when the .250 Savage had a lot of factory loaded 100 gr. ammo available 30 or 40 years ago, I used some factory-stuffed 100 gr.Rem Core-lokt fodder in it.

Those bullets didn't keyhole in any of my Model 99's,probably because the Core-lokts I'm referring to were RN bullets with flat bases. Probably as short as, or even shorter than, the 90 gr. Sierras. And of course, it is the length of the bullet that dictates the twist required, not the weight of it.

They also had a very adequate trajectory for 200 yard deer shooting without having to hold over the deer. So, if you ever run across any RN flat-based 100 gr. .25 bullets, you might wanta give them a try in your rifle, just for grins.

My old 1-14 twist M99 likes RL-15 with the 87gr. Speer Hot Core. The 100 Speer Hot Core is fairly short and will do 1.5" in my rifle with Ramshot Big Game