Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles 30-06 and 200 grain Partitions....too much for deer.

I don't see any problems w/ an accurate loading running standard velocity or better. I like to keep things simple and tend to have one loading for everything and the 200PT has a good track record on most everything from a 30cal, even at '06 velocities.

I think the below post from JB pretty much sums up the 200PT from the '06, and I think he does a better job of placing it into words:

"I have used all sorts of bullet weights in the .30-06 from 150 up, but have probably shot more animals with 180's than anything else.

That said, for hunting game bigger than deer the 200 Partition is a little better. Probably a Barnes 180 penetrates as deeply, but it 's hard to beat the 200 Partition for penetration. In fact I have never recovered one.

The only one that's stayed in an animal was when I shot a previously hit raghorn elk (that wasn't falling) at 375 yards right up the wazoo with a .300 Weatherby. The elk fell immediately and rolled down the mountain 75 yards or so. The bullet was somewhere inside him but we didn't find it while field-dressing him, though we didn't sift through everything.

The rest have all sailed right through, including a couple that have gone through deer lengthwise. At .30-06 muzzle velocities they don't kill super-quickly. Lung-shot animals usually go 50-75 yards before keeling over, but they always keel over, and there's always a blood trail. But they don't shoot up much meat either.

The trajectory is for all practical purposes as flat as a 180. In fact most people are surprised as how flat they shoot. When I first started loading the spitzer version in the early 1980's, I had a 22" barreled Ruger 77 that got 2675 with 60 grains of H4831. That may have been a little warm (though I never had any problems, perhaps because I only used the 200's in November in Montana) but all the .30-06's I've had since have gotten 2600+ with H4931 and the 200 Partition. My present "main .30-06" (a NULA Model 24) gets about the same velocity from 59 grains of H4831, but it has a 24" barrel."
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JB

It depends on how many deer you plan on shooting. 32 rounds of ammo will kill a whole herd of deer!

My two cents worth here..I think you'd be OK as long as you didn't hit a shoulder blade or heavy bone...those big old honkin 200 gr Partitions the way they penetrate should punch right on through without too much damage on a lung shot IMO...I load them in a 300 ROY for a buddy of mine and he uses them on deer and elk with no problems but shoots deer in the boiler room only,,works for him!!!

Yep. He will start having conversations with himself now.

For deer you should stick with the 165 or 180 grain Core-Lokt. They can't be beat.

I'd say hunt'em! My backup rifle for both of my mulie hunts this year is a 30-06 loaded with 200gr Partitions...

I think swampy is having fun again!

I guess my only concern was if the 200 was designed differently than the 165 or 180's in being "harder" on the front end. They sure flattened the black bear I shot. As in DRT, didn't move, hit by a train. Just need to zero with a couple. Probably take me down to 28 rounds. Still a decent size herd worth of ammo.

If you've been around many of the old country hardware stores in northern whitetail country you've no doubt seen the stately-loaded 220 RN boxes of ammo on their shelves. Many of the oldtimers ate their venison via that method and would not touch the faster stuff. As goes the 200 Partition, I would imagine a recovery of one versus a deer would be a lot less frequent than a 150 versus the same. It's pretty hard to say anything bad about a 200 when the 180 has worked so well and the 220 has been more of the same.

As Dave would say...

Not the same caliber but the same heavy & slow bullet thought...last year I shot a nice Texas WTail spike sporting a pair of 9+" crooked pencils, with a 9.3x62 and a 2500+ fps Speer 270 gr'er that is noted for their fragility at about 125 yards on a management hunt. Small entry in the slot behind his right front shoulder, and half dollar sized exit wound 2"s behind his left shoulder with ZERO meat damage except for the soup inside. Only surprise was the 35-40' airborne magic carpet ride he got in between impact and touchdown, landing rolled up like a doodle bug.

I'd say use the big PT's and grin at your good fortune.
Ron

i bought 2 boxes of 200 partitions a few years abck for a black bear hunt... worked up loads with one box, loaded the other 50 up for hunting...

used 1 of the 200 grainers on my black bear... 49 left over...
i used them on pronghorn, deer, coyotes, at least one coon, and a few assorted crows and prairie dogs...

it may be that 200s are not necessary, but they work well on everything, so why not???

Yeah they sure shoot good in my 30-06 2755 fps. It's what going down the tube this season.

I don't think that be a problem, Brink... I run 200 gr Speers in my '03-A3 for everything.

"One load kills all"

I see that a couple of people have already brought up some of my older posts with the 200 Partition, so I'll just add a couple of things:

1) No, the heavier Nosler Partitions do NOT use a harder front core than lighter Partitions in any caliber. The lead used in the front core in ALL Nosler Partitions is a very soft alloy (though not pure lead) since the entire point of the front core is to expand easily.

2) The 200-grain .30 caliber Nosler Partition will mostly certainly kill deer-sized animals with lung shots, and does NOT need to be placed in the shoulders, because of the above construction. I have used it from the .30-06 for lung shots on pronghorn, both mule and whitetailed deer, and black bear, and it expanded nicely every time. None of them went over 75 yards, and most went less than 50 yards.