Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Hornady Superformance

I decided to try the Hornady Superformance 150 gr SST. in 30/06 this year. Shot a deer at approx. 90 yds. high shoulder, maybe 2" posterior. The deer dropped right there. Thinking it was a bang flop I relaxed and what I thought was the dying quivers turned into spinning around and eventually getting up and running off. I was very surprised to say the least.

I went to where deer originally dropped to find a very small amount of blood and no blood trail going the way he went. He only went about 40 yds or so but had he gone 100 yds its possible I may not have found him since he was in thick young planted pines. There was and entrance and exit wound.

Anyone else have lack of blood or not putting deer down?

Shot a buck in 2017 with the Superformance in 6.5x55 140 SSTs and the same distance as yours and it was a complete pass through lung shot. Cactus behind the buck was covered in blood. Buck ran a few steps and piled up.

I bet low through the chest behind the leg would have been bloodier than high chest behind the shoulder.

Welcome to the Fire.

DF

Yep, my experience too !

Numerous deer, .243 95gr SST &/or 25-06 117gr SST, both at over 3100fps will paint what ever is beyond them red, on broadside heart / lung shots.

As MathMan says, lower 1/3rd of cavity, behind the shoulder.

Thanks Dirtfarmer. Seems like an active and friendly forum.

I'm betting one deer tells us not much. But when I was shooting factory loads regular Hornady shot more accurately than Superperformance in 3 different calibers, .270W,308W, and .30-06.

Welcome to the forum 'Bama. I am a member of a number of hunting/shooting forums. This is my favorite. It is very active and most folks are friendly. Some can be adversarial, but that's life. When you dressed the deer, what kind of condition were the heart and lungs in?

Heart was intact. Lungs were gone. The bullet did it’s job. Was more concerned about lack of blood. I have shot deer with ML with SST’s and they left much larger exit than the superformance SST. Hopefully I will get to try another one out tomorrow.

I found the superformance 150 SST to be very accurate sub 1” groups at 100 yards. But every rifle shoots differently.

I use Superperformance 165 grains in my .308.
Bought a 20 round box a few years ago and have 10 rounds left - took 9 animals (shot one hog twice to shut him up) including a coyote, cow elk, 600 pound feral sow , an axis doe, etc.
Buddy was watching cow elk at 200 yards and saw the blood and particle spray exit the off side.- cow walked 40 yards and died - they do not go far with a double lung shot.

This ammo is my go-to-killlz -all.

I have shot maybe 10 caribou and one moose with the '06 150 SP factory loads, at ranges from 40 yards or so to 433 range finder yardage on caribou. The only bullet recovered was to the head of a bull moose at about 30 yards. Very nice mushroom, but seperated a bit from the jacket. Fit nicely back together. The SP in my rifle is only marginally more accurate than most any other factory load I have tried, including Corelokts and Hornady regular factory ammo in 150, and 180 ( Corelokts or Fed blue-box - I forget which) . Significant differences in POI, however, at 300 yards. All get about 1 inch groups at that range, in that particular rifle, with a good solid rest. Can't complain....

It seems to me two or three things determne how those SSt's perform: what they hit (bone or flesh) , how fast they are going when they do hit (range/mv dependent), and resistence by mass or density, I suppose. I think close range (higher velocity) , a larger animal, or a significant density of flesh results in greater expansion - i.e. passage through the lung area without hitting bone will show less expansion than shooting an animal broadside through the ass muscle mass without bone hit, at the same range, even though the distance through is about the same.. I do not recommend the latter... Hitting bone of course will make the SST expansion (or destruction) greater than not hitting bone , as it does with all non-solid bullets.

A couple examples- two caribou at 300 yards and 433 yards respectively, shot about 15 seconds apart through the chest cavities (double lunged) just behind the shoulder, showed bullet wounds about what I would expect from a Corelokt, many of which I have used. Neither hit a rib going in, one hit a rib going out. Dime size entries, quarter and 50c sized exit wounds - the larger one being on the 433 yard animal, rib hit on exit. After breaking a rib and exiting the rib cage , it created a larger wound through the fleshy part of the front leg. Blood everywhere on both hits! It looked like someone sprayed the snow with buckets of blood. The velocity at that range of course had dropped off considerably from the 3100mv advertised, and the density of the body there is less than with muscle mass. I'm likely getting that 3100mv too, through a 27 inch long barrel..

Several caribou shot inside 100 yards had soft-ball to nerf ball sized exit wounds, as well as large (say silver dollar size) entry wounds. One embaressing shot at 200 yards through both hams (no bone hit), had an tangerine size entry, softball sized exit.

I would say your lack of blood trail was an anomaly, possibly encouraged by that high hit. I'm guessing it hit no bone, either? Every animal and every shot is different, tho many are similar. Every once in awhile, strange things happen outside the norm.

I have a few boxes of that same ammo sitting in the cabinet. I have heard so many mixed reviews that I don't want to experiment on some poor deer with it when corelockt, federal blue box, winchester exp and powerpoints all do the job reliably. I have shot it thru an armour sandwich comprised of 3/8 plate, 1/2 plywood and 1/2 plate and it penetrates 2 out of the 3 and puts a serious bump on the 1/2 plate

Your lack of blood was likely due to the high shoulder shot. In my experience the SST is a bullet that when used properly performs great. Broadside double lung shots are devastating with them.

Most of the problems I've read about have to do with when things didn't go perfectly. Heavy bone was hit, the shot angle wasn't good, etc. If you're taking broadside shots, just put it in the bottom half of the chest and watch the deer die.

There's something to be said for a bullet that performs when conditions aren't perfect. That being said, I like the superformamce loads for whitetail. I think they do exactly what they were designed to do.

-Jake

Not always...

Sorta like eating chicken wings, you eat the meat, spit out he bones...

Not too hard to tell the difference...

DF

My son shot a doe with his 30-06 loaded with a 165gr Hornady flat based bullet. The distance was close to 100 yards and the hit was a double lung shot just above the heart. She ran about 80 yards before we found any blood. Looking at the damage done I would have thought there would have been a blood trail.

I think people expect too much consistency animal to animal, situation to situation.

My father shot a deer broadside with a 26" barreled 270 Winchester using a 130 grain Ballistic Tip from the 100 count box era. 60 grains H4831. The range was something like 150 yards and given the particulars the impact speed was pretty high. The bullet basically blew pureed chest contents out the far side into a wide swath of red. Nevertheless, the deer managed to run over 100 yards.

In contrast, he had a couple of deer tip right over with chest shots from a 30 Herrett handgun. (Think mild 30-30 ballistics if you aren't familiar with the 30 Herrett.)

What Mathman said. Plus, we shooters tend to accept as certain things that are based on a very small sample.

Yep, anecdotal isn't statistical, for sure.

Anecdotal example: my yard is flat, my neighbor's yard is flat. If you put all the flat yards side by side, you can postulate a flat earth....

Much of the anecdotal terminal performance and gun performance accounts have certain characteristics of a flat earth scenario...

And, back in the days of the Spanish Inquisition, people were actually tortured and killed for thinking otherwise. And, we think discussions here on the Fire are sometimes heated...

Those roots run deep...

DF

deep thoughts dirt. i welcome another fellow southern boy here as well. i too think that with the high shoulder shot it doesn't bleed profusely until blood gets close to the holes. immediate drop at the shot leads to believe you were close to the spine.
Big Ed