Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Hornady 165 SST

I wish they'd get around to building the Interbond again.

I wish they would stop dropping interlocks!

I have used the 150 grain SST loaded mildly out of my 30-06 (2600 fps) on feral hogs and deer. I never had any issues other than if you hit a shoulder it was toast. This seems to happen with any cup and core bullet. It seems to me this bullet was designed to be used for longer shots where velocity has dropped some so it is designed to be a bit soft for the 50 yard hits. First two clues are a bullet designed to have a pretty high BC and a boattail. I have always thought it is odd to expect a bullet made to expand on ribs out past 400 yards also act like a monometal at very close range and cleanly blast through shoulders. The Partition will do this but it doesn't have an especially high BC.

I had a friend who wounded a buck with his 30-06. He said, it was a chip shot, broadside , 60 yds. Right into the front shoulders and all he saw was a puff of hair. He never found it. It was a SST. but I think it was a 150 Gr. Not sure anymore.

I've seen some weird stuff in my hunting career that I would not have otherwise believed. Once I shot a deer which was perfectly broadside in a clear shooting lane with a 180 grain roundnose core-lokt with my '06.....50 or 60 yard shot in the woods. I hit the deer in the crease of the shoulder but the bullet hit a rib and deflected 90 degrees towards the guts and I found it perfectly mushroomed under the hide on the OFFSIDE HAM! Entrance hole tight behind the shoulder right where I aimed.

I essentially was dealing with a gut and liver shot deer that I thought I had double lunged, and my expectation was to find blood all over the woods. He ran well out of sight, got on a dirt road and ran down it about 300 yards without spilling a drop of blood. I looked for a couple of hours down all the trails I could find in briar choked planted pines that I thought the deer may have taken in the general direction I saw him run, not knowing that when he came to the road he ran in the opposite direction....a LONG way! Later I got my Dad to help me look and finally called off the search. Dad said I had missed which was a totally reasonable opinion based on what he was seeing....no deer, no blood, no sign of a hit. But, I had a solid rest on the rail of my climber and a "chip shot" and saw the deer react. I knew I had hit it.

I was despondent over losing the deer which is still the biggest 8 point I have killed to date but I would have felt the same had it been a doe. I strongly considered quitting hunting. I mean come on! If you can't kill a broadside deer with a heavily loaded 30-06 with a solid rest at 50 yards, maybe the sport is not for you right?

Anyway, Dad decides to go on a nature hike, probably because he got tired of hearing my bitching, and he walks down the road the deer took and finds him laying in the middle of it!

That experience caused me to have mercy on people with outlandish tales such as yours and mine. I can tell you that while I was looking for that deer, I was cussing me some core-lokts, 30-06's, life in general, considering the purchase of an elephant gun to deer hunt with and maybe quitting hunting. I'll never forget that day. Nothing but absolute sheer dumb luck found that deer. Had my Dad walked out of the woods with me he would have been buzzard food. My best hunting story to date by far!

Usually, the sad tales of lost deer are caused by a guy who gets feverish, shuts his eyes, flinches, bitch slaps the trigger and misses his "chip shot", but poop can and does occur. When it does, no caliber, bullet, or hunter is immune.

My sst load and my partition load both 165gr. And both over 42.5 gr of imr 4895 hit at almost the exact same point of impact. I'm taking both and will use either I feel are called for.

MM

My 308 and 300 win mag love accubonds and deer hate them

I found the 165 SST to be very explosive. They will kill the hell out of deer but what a mess! The 165 Interlock is my favorite deer bullet.

In my experience, the Amax is tougher than the SST. You will probably be fine from a 308, but avoid bone.

I have had SSTs come apart and not penetrate the offside with broadside lung shots in a 7mm Remington magnum, 30/06 and a 6.5/06. I've had Amax bullets exit from shoulder shots and tough angle shots with my 6.5/06 and 280 AI.

I agree with this but I've never understood why someone would purposely hunt a bullet that needed discerning placement. OTOH, nearly every group I see posted here is easily .5 MOA, so nothing could possibly go awry in the field.