The other thread got me thinking, so I have a question:
Not wanting to start an argument, but asking a legitimate question to those with experience. It seems that many on here detest the SST and many sing the praises of the VLD.
Why the love for Bergers and the hatred for Hornady SST? I've never used a Berger, but have extensive experience with SST's of the 150 gr, 30 cal variety and the 154 gr, 7mm version and a little with the 139 gr, 7mm version on white-tailed deer. In my experience, they do exactly what many on here describe as the ideal performance by making jello of the entire chest cavity. I've personally killed +/-75 deer with a 30-06 SST and have helped drag, load, and skin another 200 deer shot with a 7mmRM SST. These range from 100-275 lbs and from point blank to 400+ yards.
I have seen many, many times when a simple lung shot dumped the deer like it had a semi-truck dropped on it. In fact, I would say dropping in their tracks is more of the rule than the exception when you make any kind of decent center mass shot from about any angle.
The SST probably wouldn't be my first choice for elk or moose, but they sure do a great job on deer in my experience. According to many on this forum, they explode on contact and can't penetrate a deer's shoulder. My experience says they can break 2 shoulders pretty easily and do a lot of damage in between. I would estimate that I had exit holes on 50-70% of the deer that I shot with them. I don't recall a deer ever going far with even a decent shot.
All that being said, I semi-retired the '06 about 5 seasons ago and have been using a 7mm-08 with 120 TTSX more recently which is complete opposite in performance, but shot placement trumps all.
In my limited observations of match bullets on game, terminal performance is more eradicate in the form of almost bullet blow up to little expansion till well into animal creating the large exits.... But by golly, that load could trim the third hair down on a gnats ball sack on the left side though
The SST for me has always been like you stated, I've never had one blow up on entrance but that is where the destruction starts. The accuracy of the sst bullet is one hole, maybe slightly larger than the diameter of the bullet. But that tends to happen when multiple shots pass threw the same hole taking some of the 'fuz' from around the bullet hole.
I had one 162 7mm sst bust both shoulders of a 200 lb black bear 20-ish yards away leaving the muzzle a little over 2800 fps with my .280. At the shot, the bear just folded and rolled down into the creek. I found the bullet under the hide on the opposite side but instead of a lead core in the jacket, it was bone. The lead core and some scapula traded places. Yep, destruction was vast but a bear that close unexpectedly was not planed and the hyper-expanding bullet did very well.
