Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Best .308 bullet weight for whitetail

I agree that the .30-30 and .35 Rem Core-Lokt are good bullets simply because both are designed for very narrow velocity windows. Before I began handloading I shot several deer and a black bear with 170 grainers in .30-30 all one shot kills.

Lately I�ve been loading for several friends at .30-06 velocities and have been using rather rapidly expanding bullets such as Hornady SST and Nosler BTs, but because of dense woods the shots are always under 100 yards and often closer to 50 yards I�ve loaded 165 grains for penetration in case bone is encountered. For .308 velocities, especially when shots will be at least 100 yards I�d drop down to 150 grains or lighter depending on construction.

The 150gr Nosler Ballistic Tips shot great and killed lots of deer out of 2 different stainless 700 Mountain Guide rifles I owned.

Nosler has the .30 cal Ballistic Tips in 125gr, 150gr, 165gr, 168gr, & 180gr to choose from.

The 125gr NBT's kill deer very effectively out to 200 yards in a reduced recoil load using H4895.

Been using this load for the past couple years with my 13 y/o in his 700 .308 rifle and they just plain work without beating up the young/small stature shooter that may be slightly recoil sensitive.

The BT's are relatively inexpensive, perform well, most .308's shoot them very accurately, what's not to like?

Seems to me that just about any bullet will work on deer. I've killed 'em expensive bullets & I've killed 'em with less expensive bullets. They all ended up dead.

I'm using 165 grain accubonds