Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Which Bullet????

In my .30 cals I am a huge fan of the 180 grain Speer Grand Slam. Always makes two holes. I'd assume the rest of the GS family would perform similarly.

Nosler doesn't make a 110 ballistic tip. Just 100gr and 115gr...

I don't shoot the TTSX in either .257 or 7mm, I shoot them in .243 and .308 and haven't had your issue. That's why I recommended them, but I like partitions as well. Berger dumps them better than a lot of bullets from what I've been around, but I've never been happy with the amount of bloodshot meat the Berger produces.

Good thing you shot him, deer with a problem like that would never have survived the winter!

I am partial to Nosler Ballistic Tips for this, but I’ve found the Accubond to work well for deer in my .300 Winchester, too. Shoot em in the shoulder with either bullet, and tracking won’t be a problem, they die right where you shoot them.

90% of the stuff I hunt, exotics up to red deer, whitetails and hogs , most under 200lbs, but some bigger, I use my 7x57 with 150 partitions. If you reload, load that. If not, almost OTC ammo will perform the same. capt david

If one wants a blood trail it's a fairly simple thing to create. Shoot'em where they bleed and make two holes. It ain't rocket science.

You don't need any special bullet to do the job. I would stay away from Ballistic Tips in brush though. My favorite deer bullet is the Nosler Accubond. I had a mishap where I hit a small tree (several inches in diameter) on its way to a buck and it still killed the him cleanly. I don't know if you can get factory ammo with AccuBonds in those calibers though. I use Barnes TTSX in my 25-06 but would switch to Accubond is I found them.

The tree (back side after 165 gr. Accubond from 308 Win):



The buck:

Apparently, you can get 110 grain Accubonds for the 25-06.

For the 25-06 100 grain NBT.

Theeck huge deer and not just because of the size of the young man in the photo. Good use of ammo collecting fire wood and then using the log stand to hang the deer. Multitasking.

Interesting the range of opinions. I think the heavy bullet recommendations are from stalking and still hunters and the light frangible or partially fragmenting bullet choice is from the stand hunters which there is a lot of in Texas.

I use 140gr TSX in my 7x57 and 100 TSX in my 25-06. I have killed several deer with the 100gr NBT, but blood trails were non existent on two separate occasions with a rib cage hit. I have a pile of 110 NAB that I bought to use in a 257 AI, but sold rifle before ever trying them out. I would think they would be the ticket too.

That was probably, the albino, haemophiliac Dink winner !

nosler partition or hornady interlock in either caliber will get your desired results. agree with the others if you want DRT then high shoulder but both of the projectiles I recommended should get 2 holes the majority of the time. Nosler accubond is also never a bad idea. Depends on whether you wanna pay "premium" or not.
good luck,
Big Ed

[bleep] happens, doesn't it?
That's why I moved from Foster slugs to Brenneke's. Killed a deer just like that with Brenneke's.

Thanks Tejano: I posted the pick to show it was no frail little thing that the bullet killed. I was surprised the bullet held together well enough and still had the energy to kill it cleanly. I was sold on Accubonds after that.

I pulled the same stunt with a little bit smaller tree and a lot smaller buck using a 30-06 and 150 grain core-lokt. I shot and the deer ran a short way and keeled over. I did not know I hit a tree until I went up to the deer and could not find a hole in it anywhere. I went back to get my climber and saw the tree I shot. When I cleaned the deer, I found that three pretty good sized shards from the bullet hit the deer just right in the lungs and killed him about as quick as a good hit....sort of like a load of buckshot.

110 Accubond in the 25-06, 140 Accubond in the 7mm

I’d use the 120 NBT in the 7x57. It’s a devastating bullet in the 7mm-08 and would be the same out of the older cartridge.

For the 25-06 I’d just load 120 Partitions and not worry about hitting a deer at 20 yards or 450.

The 150 grain Ballistic Tip in the 7x57. I have shot a bunch of deer with this bullet and they all went through leaving a big enough hole to leak but most of the time deer went right down or were found inside of 30 yards. Muzzle velocity was 2600 fps and nothing was shot at more than 250 yards. Took a heck of a bunch of feral hogs using this bullet too and recovered exactly one from a huge pig.