Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting 30-06 Mule deer bullet?

I like bullets that hold together for all my big game, but the truth is that most 150 and 165 grain 30 cal bullets do ok on deer. I bought many thousand 150 grain Winchester Power Points and also several thousand Remington Core-Lokts in 150 grain many years ago. My WW bullets are all gone now, but I still have about 2000 of the Core-Lokts left. I have killed deer with both and the Power Points held together better, but both work fine from 308s and 30-06s.

If price (and availability) were not a problem, I'd go to what I thin of as the "Gold-Standard" every time, the Nosler partitions.
But from the kills I have made on deer and antelope (which I can say are MANY) the Core-Lokt 150 grain does kill well, and the old Power Points seemed to give the same wound channels clear through deer as I got with the Nosler Partitions.


A 30-06 is actually more powerful then needed for deer sized game and does well on both elk and moose. So any 150 grain bullet that is not a varmint bullet (some are, despite how they are marketed) do just fine on deer from a 30-06 and for probably 70 years, it's been considered the "standard weight" for deer hunting in the 30-06------ and for very good reasons.

I have used 150s from Remington, Winchester, Speer (Hot Cores, were so-so, the Mag Tips were good and the Grand-Slams were very good) Hornady Inner-Locks (good) RN Inner-Locks (excellent) and SSTs (break up more then I like) Sierra Game kings (break up badly) and Pro-Hunters (which do better, about like the Speer hot-Cores) Nosler Partitions (the best so far) and Nosler Ballistic Tips (mostly good but with a few break-up)

In 165 grains I have used Hornady flat base Inner-locks (good) Hornady Boat tails (break ups every time) Sierra Game Kings (many break-ups) Speer Grand Slams (no problems) Nosler partitions (perfect every time)

In 180 grain I have used Remington Core-lokts in both RN and pointed (never a single problem on a deer) Winchester 180 grain RN (excellent) Hornady Inner-lock in both Spire Points and RN (always perfect results) Sierra RN Pro-hunters (perfect on every deer shot) Nosler partitions (perfect in all cases) Norma Alaskan (perfect )

The overall results from 180s are better then 150s in that so far I have never seen a bad blow-up with a 180, but that is likely because of the lower impact velocity and the fact the heavier bullets exit so if they didn't hold together, the extra weight was enough top exit so seeing the broken bullet was not possible. If I get an exit, the rest of the numbers don't matter.and a bullet holding together is only important for penetration. Once you have exits, nothing else really matters.

BUT, the 180s do not shoot as flat as the 150s and because there are a number of very good 150s to choose from, I still go with 150s for deer and and antelope hunting when using a 30-06.


Here is a buck antelope I killed 2 years ago with a 150 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip. He was facing me straight on, and I hit him at the bottom of the neck, through his heart and the bullet exited from just in front of the rear leg. Range finder said he was 218 yards away. A bang-flop with an exit, lengthwise. I can't say any other bullet could have done much better.
M1 2020 Buck 2 by Steve Zihn, on [bleep]