My sons first rifle is a Ruger 77 in 7x57. I free floated barrel and bedded action into stock and now got it to shoot pretty good without the flyers I was getting before bedding. It shoots 5 shot groups now, of 1.5in or so if I do my part, which before bedding it would be some shots touching and another 3in away, sometimes 1st shot sometimes 3rd shot, but I digress. He's tired of me playing with it and wants it back. He moved to North Dakota and this will be his "deer rifle". So before I see him next, I wanted to work up a good load for him for deer. I kinda settled on 140gr bullets as a comprimise between velocity and weight.
Bullets on hand are: Nosler 140gr Partions, Sierra Pro-Hunter 140gr flat base spitzers, and Speer 145gr Hot-Cor flat base spitzers.
For me its a no-brainer to just go with the Partitions....but as I do final load development and find the Speers for example shoot really well I may want to send him those.
So...looking for real world experience of these bullets on deer sized game. Shoot thrus, no expansion, etc.
Velocity probably around 2700 fps.
Powders I been using are: IMR4895, H414, and RE19, but I did just get a pound of IMR4451 Enduran to try, thinking temp insensitivity in North Dakota might be a good thing.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
