No Experience:
I have posted this several times before but it is worth posting here for you again. I've only taken a few deer with the 7-08, but you will love the round -kills really well and the recoil is so mild you can see the impact on the shot.
My brother has been shooting a 7-08 for about ten years now. He takes between 9 - 15 deer a year, all with the 7-08. He switched from the 30-06 and will never go back. Nothing wrong with the 06, but the 7-08 is just as good and much more fun.
He has tried a lot of bullets. He had a really bad experience with the Hornady 139 SST. I was there and witnessed the problem.
He absolutely swears by the 140 Core-lokt. This bullet, though inexpensive, performs exactly as advertised - it doesn't blow up and yet it provides a tremendous amount of energy transfer resulting in very frequent instantaneous kills. I shot a doe head on at about 75 yards with my brothers rifle and still got an exit way back in front of the pelvis. I'd say my brother gets exits about 90 percent of the time, with only the rare head on shot preventing an exit. When he does find a bullet they look picture perfect every time.
I know there are lots of good bullets out there for the 7-08, just wanted to let you know the Core-lokt performs really well. I know it's boring to find something so inexpensive and ordinary to perform so well, but quite simply these bullets are really tough to beat.
Good luck.
