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I've hunted Blacktail and bear in California and whitetail and bear in Pa. I have two go to rifles, a Remington 700 chambered in 280 Rem wearing a 4x12 VX II Leupold firing a 140 gr SGK over Varget and a Savage 99f chambered in 308 win wearing a 2x7 VX II Leupold with 168 gr SGK over Varget.

My shots have been from 25 feet to 300 yards and I've never recovered a bullet, complete pass through heart/double lung, some quartering shots. Most have an entry the size of a quarter and exit bigger than my fist. Most are DRT and the longest travel after shot has been 25 yards.

Why SGKs? They're cheap, they're accurate and they work.

Why Varget? It produces good velocity with negligible velocity variance, has consistent sub MOA accuracy in my rifles and it's temperature stable, that's important for me. In the Cascades I could be hunting in 100 degrees one week and 30s the next. Pa doesn't have the same temperature swings but I will be reloading in a nice warm house and could be hunting in 70 to 0 degree temps. You never know. Varget removes that variable.