Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Antelope bullet

Yes BCHunter.
In fact the 165 flat base inner-lock is what my wife uses 100% of the time for her deer and antelope bullet. She shoots a 30-06 at about 2650 FPS with that bullet and with that load in the rifle I made for her, the accuracy she's getting at 100 yards gives her 5 shot groups under MOA. Old fashioned, but I have no complaints so far, and I have used 165 Gr flat base Spire Point Hornady's from various 308s and 30-06 for about 40 years now. My wife Anna is a minimalist when it comes to her hunting guns. She likes guns and has several, but for her hunting she got to a point she wants ONE and so she uses the Mauser in 30-06 for everything, every kind of hunting from antelope does to bull elk, and she will use it for Moose too when we go after them. For deer, antelope, prairie dogs, practice on steel targets, coyotes, wolves, raccoons and skunks and nearly all things that "need to be shot" she uses her 30-06 and that load.

For elk we just load the same weight Nosler Partition, in the same brass with the same powder charge and the groups lay right on top of the Hornady load.

I also have not had a lot of SSTs hold together well in 270, 257 and 8mm, but a friend of mine shot some antelope and deer with 165 gr SSTs from his 308 and I had to admit, the performance with that particular bullet from his 308 (chronographed at 2680) was excellent. I also know 2 men using 30 cal 180 gr SSTs and doing well with with them also. Maybe the 30 cals are a better combination for jacket thickness and core diameter when shot at 308 and 30-06 speeds. Others should chime in here if they have 1st hand info.

I have not used them myself in my .308s, 30-06s and 300 mag just because of the results I got in 257, 270 and 8MM, (Side note, the 170 gr 8MM is just fine for deer and antelope, but comes apart too soon to go as deep as I want an elk bullet to go. I did kill a 5X5 bull with them and got it done, but I won't try them again on elk)

But I will give credit when it's due. From the kills I have seen with that particular 30 cal SST bullet so far, I would not talk you out of using it.

30 caliber Bullets I have used for deer and antelope that I know are good from personal experience: (some were used on elk too)

Winchester Power Points in both 150 and 180 grain.
Hornady 165 and 180 grain Spire Points and also Horandy 150 grain Round Nose.
Sierra 180 grain round nose.
All Nosler Partitions in all weights they make, and Nosler Accubond in 150 165 and 180 grain weights
The OLD Remington Core-Lokt in both 150 and 165, but the newer ones are made with lighter jackets, so I reserve judgement on them. I bought many thousands of them from the 70s and those were really good, but I have seen shots made with those made in the last 20 years and many of them came apart, some on small deer, so I am not willing to recommend the Core-Lokt anymore without more info. Maybe John Barness can tell us more?
Barnes 130 grain and 150 TSX
Speer Grand Slam in 165 grain and also their Gold Dot bonded bullets in 168 grain. ( the Gold Dots were used by 2 friends, not me. I was next to them at the times of the kills and they worked great. I did gut and butcher the deer for them and I'd say the results were perfect.)