Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Hornady SST's on whitetail???

What are your experiences?

I used a 140 gr SST out of a .260 Rem the last two years to fill some doe tags and they are devastating.
Don't shoot at meat you want to eat.

Used a 150SST out of a 30-06 on a doe this season. 60yds, DRT, no bones hit, complete pass through.

120 SST in 270 winchester was hunted with this past year. 2 deer killed with this bullet loaded at 2950 fps. Hornady designed this SST 120 gr bullet for lower velocities. High shoulder shot peralized deer at 150 yards. Follow up head shot was needed. Large exit hole with massive blood loss.

120 SST in 270 at 260 yards, lower chest hit put deer down. 2nd shot needed.

7mm-08 139 SST one shot kill high lung. Deer traveled 200 yards after hit with no blood trail.

7mm-08 120 SST one lung shot broadside @75 yards. Deer traveled 150 yards with massive internal damage.

7mm-08 162 SST one killing lung shot broad side @ 125 yards, Deer traveled 25 yards. Large holes but little blood trail.

All SST bullets have exited the deer. Contrary to popular thinking, I found the deer hit using 7mm-08 shooting SST bullets traveled much farther than deer hit with SST from 243 Winchester of 270 Winchester. I see no ballistic data to indicate this but that is what I have observed in my hunting.

I did bullet testing by shooting into phone books at 40 yards and this was the result.
243 Winchester 95 gr SST penetrated 5 inches and hole was consistent and straight with only the last 1/2 inch showing bullet break up. Jacket separated and lead did not hold together.
7mm-08 120 SST penetrated 7 inches and lead was flat and separated from jacket. Path of bullet was round and showing signs of bullet breakup in the last inch.
7mm-08 139 soft point interlock penetrated 8 inches with a little lead remaining in the jacket base. Hole was round and straight with some lead fragments in the last 1/2 inch of paper.

Testing a 7mm-08 162 SST bullet showed penetration of 9 inches with some lead still with the base of the jacket. No paper was ripped around the round straight bullet path.

A 270 winchester 120 gr SST penetrated 6 inches with no lead in the jacket base. The hole was straight but paper showed ripping about 2 inches from path of bullet.
A 270 Winchester130 gr Hornady soft point interlock penetrated 6 1/2 inches with some lead still with the jacket. Again the paper was ripped for an inch around the bullet path.

Too explosive for my liking.

I've seen a 95 SST from a .243 Win and a 154 SST from a 7RM used on whitetail and they were too explosive for my tastes.

'06 150 gr Super Performance put big holes especially on exit in several caribou at 300, 200 and 70 yards respectively. Not so much on that head shot on a moose at 30 yards. Recovered that one on far side - or part of it..

These things are designed for 300 yard and out shooting, and/or making big holes. They work well for both purposes, if that is your intent.

All the above were taken over a 2 day span, all were bang/flops.

Mine, too. I tried them, and after the third time of blowing big on-side holes in deer with them, I gave up.

They were accurate as hell, though, and I don't doubt they would work fine at longer range, though I don't typically shoot deer at longer range.

They did work good in my 14" barrel .308 pistol, though....when I could hit something with it. I ain't a pistoleer, it seems.

used a 117 grain in my 257 bob, it was like i shot it with my 300wm, alot of damage.

I've shot a couple deer with .30 cal 165 gr SST out of a .30-06. One was a smaller deer quartering away. I think the SST did not penetrate well. I no longer use them.

Good info, and honest. My compliments, Sir.

About the same as a NBT, maybe a tad softer and not as accurate

IME, the SST is as accurate as the NBT, just too irratic. I've had one pencil thru a WT chest, the deer running a long distance. Another time, a 140 gr. SST blew up a pronghorn cape such that it couldn't be used. And this was from a 6.5-284 at 2,950 fps.

I quit using them and haven't gone back.

DF

U. S.,
My family has had excellent success with SSTs shooting everything from .243/6mm, 25-06, .257 Robts, 7 x 57, 6.5 X 55, 7-08, 308, 30-06. While the sample is smallish, I think I counted 14 whitetail deer, 2 antelope, 2 mule deer, 1 hog, 1 exotic ram. Obviously, none of these animals are large nor are they heavily boned. I admit I do not "push it" with my handloads. All of these kills except for one deer my son-in-law dumped at 245 yards, were well under 200 yards most probably 100. The bullet does do a lot of damage but it's accurate. I butcher my own animals so I don't mind some trimming or losing a little meat for a DRT animal. A commercial processor will surely scrap a LOT more meat than I do.(think entire shoulders/ front half). Thinking I might have unusual "luck" with these less expensive bullets I went to Midway and checked their "reviews". In a quick look at various calibers and out of 200-some comments only a handful were not rated a 4 or 5 out of 5. Please note I am not using SSTs in any magnum rifles and I do not think I would do so.
The antelope shot with the 25-06 did have a recoverable bullet (which I promptly knocked off the water jug where it was sitting) but I remember the core did slip a tad and I doubt more than 35-40% remained. The rest were complete penetration or somewhere in the gut pile. I believe when used in standard calibers at reasonable velocity these bullets perform well. Placement is what counts as always. jm2c

Good info everybody, thank you.

Same here. I very seldom get an exit using them.

One DANDY deer bullet. Lots of bang-flops, mass destruction with pin point accuracy. Deer that did move were easy to follow due to profuse bleeding from large exit holes. I like there performance, but have reservations about there use on larger game such as elk, in calibers below 30 that is...

One average buck shot in the neck broadside with a 7mm 139gr sst with a muzzel vel. of 3000fps at 40ish yards I could see day light threw the neck as we were hanging it to skin. Between my brother, me and a friend, on deer none of us recovered a 139 sst or had one blow up, full penetration.

I put a 7MM 162GR SST 2850 fps from my 280 rem into a large spring black bear '200 lbs' shoulders at 20 odd yards, bang-flop. Upon skinning the beautiful chocolate colored bore, found the bullet jacket again the hide on the opposite side with bone for a core in the jacket, not lead. They swapped places somewhere along the path! Thats the only sst I had recovered from game.

I believe the Btip and the SST are the finest "DEER" bullets on the market today. Very accurate and a good blend of expansion violence/togetherness

Following this thread with interest as I have not used them yet but hope to use the 162 g. SST 7MM bullet in a recently acquired 7MM Rem Mag. (So far the load I'm testing gives about 3030 fps at the muzzle.) That bullet is highly recommended by Nathan Foster of New Zealand for long-range shooting in the 7MM Rem Mag.

Last year I saw a very large bodied mule deer buck near the end of the season at far too long a range (for me). Since then I have been planning his demise! - It will require a 400 plus yard long cross canyon shot if he appears again. So much more practice at 400+ yards is needed as well as a rifle/cartridge combination better suited to the task than the 7X57 with 154 Hornady spire point at 2750 fps in my hands when I first saw him at 600+ yards.

I will continue to monitor this thread and hopefully others will report their experience with the SST.

Been a fan of SST for years. Use 150s in my two .30-06s, 130s in a Savage 116 Weather Warrior .270 Win. Velocity and accuracy are all a man could ask for. Performance on game is a little erratic but we have killed Russian cross feral swine by the literal hundreds and 20 or more WT deer on our property in North Louisiana using SST. Every animal shot has been recovered except 2 large hogs shot at over 300 yards this past fall. In the 2013 fall season I shot a grown WT doe at 417 yards with a .30-06 150SST, she ran maybe 50 feet, the bullet was in 3 pieces under the off-side hide. The next day I got another one at 368 yards which came out the other side. The big pigs seldom have an SST exit but a boiler room shot is invariably fatal with the two exceptions noted which were probably fatal. Lately when I shoot hogs at night I use the only rifle I own with a lighted reticle, an inherited Ruger 77 in .270 Win. Also inherited were 1500 Win (150 grain) Power Points. With 57 grains of IMR7828 they are slow (2730fps) but also very deadly. I am not stuck on SST but would be ok with them being the only bullet available. They live up to Hornady's claim, Accurate Deadly Dependable.