I am looking for light hunting (not varmint) bullets for my 6x45 that are reasonably priced. My rifle likes 85gr Partitions and should do well with Sierra's Gamekings, but what is there in the 70 to 80 grain department to push the velocity a bit?
I would be hunting mainly springbok and mountain reedbuck-sized animals with it.
www.graaffreinetsafaris.co.za

You might want to give 55 gr Nosler BT's a shot, I shoot them out of my Rem 600 6x45mm for coyotes 35-40lbs. and they penetrate almost too well, most exit. The bullet is constructed for 243Win. velocities and seems to act more like a game bullet at 6x45mm velocities, I'm running them about 3300fps.

375 win

Thanks for the tip and if I did go to the BT Varmints, I would rather try the 70 or 80 grainers.
I would still be concerned about their construction, though, as they may be needed on bigger animals.
Anyone tried them on small deer?

The lighter bullets in 6mm at the velocities of the 6X45 might surprise you.

The last buck I shot with my 6X45 was with a 70 grain Hornady.......and yes the box was marked "SX"!!!!!

I like the little round but wouldn't go much more than the 70 grain bullets I'm now using for "big" game. At .243 win velocities that bullet might have made a bad mess of the entrance area and the deer walk away injured.....but it sure did a job on him this time!

I have some partiality to the 80 grain Ballistic Tip, and the 75 grain Hornady HP...

either one will take an American deer at 6 x 45 velocities as demonstrated by Vapo here...

The 75 grain VMAx wouldn't be a bad choice either....

Having used the 75g Vmax shooting Goats here in NZ I would not personally recommend using it on anything larger. I have shot a few of them with this projectile and never had an exit wound or any blood trail - it is often difficult to find where the animal has been hit.

+1 on the 75 HP doing the job though or Speer do an 80g hot core which has been working well for me

quote:

Originally posted by Karoo:
Thanks for the tip and if I did go to the BT Varmints, I would rather try the 70 or 80 grainers.
I would still be concerned about their construction, though, as they may be needed on bigger animals.
Anyone tried them on small deer?

I've taken a couple of smaller mule deer bucks with my .243 using Nosler BT's in the 55 grain version at 4050 fps and it acts like lightening. That velocity makes the trajectory very very flat and the bullet performance is indeed impressive. The last deer I shot was around 225 yards and the bullets hit in the chest from a frontal shot and it was all over.

Beware there will be those on this board that will condem you for using this bullet on deer as it contradicts their opinion not the experience of others who have successfully taken deer with this load. Good luck.

I've got a retired 6mm ppc bench gun but, with it's 1:14" twist, I never expected I could take a whitetail with it. This discussion; however, has me rethinking that. about the same velocity potential as a 6x45 with 70 gr., don't you think?

The 6mm-.223 and 6 PPC are very similar in ballistic performance.

I have used the 6mm-.223 (6x45) to take a good bit of game, mostly from 14-15" Contender barrels. My favorite bullet has been the 80 grain Sierra Single Shot Pistol offering, which has been discontinued for a while now. However, the 80 grain Varminter Blitz performs similarly, and the 80 grain Nosler is proving its mettle as well.

From rifle-length barrels with the additional attendant velocity, the Speer 80 grainer, a tad tougher than the aforementioned projectiles, shines in the 6x45 and similar cartridges.

Ian-For your 1:14 twist, the Hornady 70 grain SP is worth a try. The SX version will work, but it's a tad fragile from a rifle-length 6x45 for my liking. The 75 grain Hornady HP that Seafire mentioned performs very well also.

Karoo,

If you're looking for reasonable price combined w/good terminal performance & accuracy in your 6x47 try the 6mm Speer 85 gr. Spitzer Boattails.

I now also use Nosler 85 gr. Partitions exclusively but like many others here, just had to keep fiddling with an already winning combination.....why did I change? Became a bullet snob me thinks.

Since you mentioned small Deer; I used these Speers for many years as my "Go To" load for European Roe Deer and they performed excellently every time as long as I did my part.

The Nosler Ballistic Tips, despite their extremely rapid expansion, penetrate surprisingly deeply. This is due to the solid base of jacket material which holds together a bit like a "mini partition" to provide additional penetration after the front section has fragmented. I have a friend who loads 70 grain BTips for 100 lb whitetails in his wife's .243. She has never had anything other than a one-shot kill and broadsides through the thorax always penetrate completely.

I would feel a bit more confident in the 80gr BTip, but for whitetail-sized game either bullet is dependably fatal.

I have had good success in a 6X47 with the 85gr SpeerBT. Since you want a 70 or 80 gr bullet, the Speer 80 gr Hot Core is listed as a big game bullet. It should perform well at 6X45 velocities.

70gr hornday sp
80gr ballistic tip
85gr sierra BTHP
85gr speer BTSP


Of these the 85gr BTSP is my favourite. I've shot a lot of small to big white tail sized deer with it - it works REALLY well indeed at the speeds you can get. Are you starting to see a trend in this thread. IMHO it's better than the 80gr hot core as it is very aerodynamic too.

One of the recent threads had a guy defending shooting a zebra in the head at 300 yards with a 223....

quote:

Originally posted by Stonecreek:
The Nosler Ballistic Tips, despite their extremely rapid expansion, penetrate surprisingly deeply. This is due to the solid base of jacket material which holds together a bit like a "mini partition" to provide additional penetration after the front section has fragmented. I have a friend who loads 70 grain BTips for 100 lb whitetails in his wife's .243. She has never had anything other than a one-shot kill and broadsides through the thorax always penetrate completely.

I would feel a bit more confident in the 80gr BTip, but for whitetail-sized game either bullet is dependably fatal.

That's interesting experience you have there with your friend's reloading and shooting of the 70 grain BT's. I've been looking at working up a load for my .243 with a 70 grain load at higher velocities and was debating between the Nosler BT's and the Sierra HPBT match.

I've used the Speer Hot-core in 80 grain in my .243 with great success on whitetail deer.

Bobby - I appreciate the advice... ordering the 70 and 75 gr. Hornadys right now. I actually have a box of the 80 gr. single shot pistol bullets, and I might just get lucky and be able to stablize them too.

quote:

That's interesting experience you have there with your friend's reloading and shooting of the 70 grain BT's. I've been looking at working up a load for my .243 with a 70 grain load at higher velocities and was debating between the Nosler BT's and the Sierra HPBT match.

I don't necessarily recommend varmint bullets for deer (and have loaded the game version 90 gr BTip for my .244), but all of the comparisons I've seen in both test media and live game is that the fast-expanding Ballistic Tip ends up penetrating just slightly deeper than most conventional cup-and-core bullets of simliar weight and caliber. This is despite its rather impressively fast expansion, which some people decry as destructive of meat (which is somewhat ironic in that it is tissue destruction which kills the animal). That solid base just keeps driving deeper than most expect. It's not a Swift A-frame, but don't count on it staying inside of any medium-framed game animal on a broadside.

I have shot a lot of Mule Deer, Whitetail deer, hogs, Javalina, and African plainsgame with my old 6x45, a custom L-461 Sako I built about 25 or 30 years ago..My grandson still hunts deer with it exclusively. I don't recall him ever shooting a deer twice, they just dropped.

The best bullets I have used are the 75 Gr. Barnes X, out of production now but you might find some around..But you live in So. Africa and GS Customs makes a 75 gr. monolithic HP an its a real killer of big game...You can run them out at 2900 to 3000 FPS...