Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Lets talk Whitetail Bullets............

Matt Foley!!

The one load I have for the .300 win mag is the hornady lite custom with the sst bullet....it’s down loaded to .308 levels....but I am thinking about factory accubonds in 180....yet again I bought this rifle because of the rifle and not the caliber.

Sell the Mod 70, keep the Savage for jackrabbits.

Everyone knows you need at least .300 win mag, and preferably a .300 rum to kill a 110 lb Texas buck. The only bullets that don't bounce off whitetails are monolithic vlds that MUST cost you $3-4 each, more would be better.

Then you have to shoot every powder and primer combination possible to get .25 inch group, so you can reliably hit said 110 lb deer at 85 yards, standing broadside, the kill zone being less than 1 inch square.

I shot 8 animals (deer and hogs) this past season with the 150 SST out of my .300 Savage. All died promptly. That bullet worked well for me in that chambering.

Pretty much all of the above, plus some others, notably Partitions.

Been a long time now, I believe, since most Core-Lokts went straight cup and core. The 180gr .30/06 factory stuff I killed my biggest deer with in 1996 failed to penetrate through his shoulders, a far cry from the elk, moose, and bear load, I thought it was. DRT nonetheless. Since I try for the chest just above the heart, bullet choice isn't critical for me.

Mohawk: Was that the 150gr SST specifically designed for the 300 Savage, or was it the "standard" 150gr SST? thanks

The bullet I have been loading in my 300 is a 180 gn Grand Slam. I have only shot Bucks that were 3 or older with them. Every deer I have shot has dropped at the shot and they don't even twitch. They don't bruise up the meat. Even if they hit big bones. A couple of the bucks were moving at a good clip when I shot chasing does and I hit them too far back and they still dropped dead. I have killed a bunch of deer with different guns and bullets and buckshot. Nothing I have used work like these yet.

My initial experience with SSTs was they were way too fragile but they have been re-designed since the early ones with a tougher core and maybe thicker jackets. The SST may be good in the Savage and 308 but I'm not sure I would trust them in the 300, but the improved ones might be fine. I rarely use my 300 for Texas deer but when I do I use the 150 BT as it is a good balance of fast expansion and penetration. It works well for South Texas as there is usually no tracking involved.

If you are talking factory ammo just about all of the standard brands would work. I usually buy Hornaday interlocks if I ever use factory loads. I will use the Remington ammo but the older version of the core lokt was better in my opinion. Federal ammo is usually truer to the advertised velocity and they have a variety of good bullets. The accuracy is usually acceptable to very good. I like to look at what ammo the old time hardware stores carry to see what people are using. If not Remington or Winchester then Hornaday or Federal seem to be the most popular.

Now that is an extreme visual [b]

It was the one designed specifically for the .300 Savage.

It’s hard to go wrong with Hornady, inter-locks.

In my 308 I like 150gr Barnes TTSX, 150gr Accubonds and 150gr Interlock. In my 30-06, I’m shooting 180gr SSTs. All of them will work, as will just about anything else 30caliber. You can honestly use almost any bullet 150-200gr and have performance so similar on deer that you’ll barely notice you’re using a different bullet.

Whitetails at 70 yards?? Don't over think it.

AMEN

What is factory ammo?

I've shot them, and am not a fan. If you want ruined meat, then that would be my pick. Any old cup and core I'll take over a SST.

I'm inclined to go back to the Hornady InterLock myself after stopping an SST in my last whitetail. The best blood trail with the earliest blood on the ground was with a .308 165 grain InterLock bullet. I want an exit every time and while that SST deer was a down right there, I actually prefer a 50 yard tracking job up to a bled out animal than watching one breathing their last right there in front of me. While I like those plastic tip bullets not battering in the magazine during recoil, our deer here are close and bullet shape doesn't matter. I'm sure that the plastic tip promotes earlier expansion. I tried an Accubond on a deer once and I got a larger entrance wound than the exit wound and backtracked it to the first blood and it was farther than I thought that it should have been given the double lung shot placement. My .300 WM deer have all been with 180 grain Nosler Partitions and the exit wounds with those have been small and tracking more difficult. I try not to shoot shoulders if I can help it, but our deer where I hunt show up fast and close and they don't give you much to shoot at for very long. In Texas you may want to drop them where they stand because as I understand it if the brush and pickers don't get you, a snake might.

I probably wouldn't choose any of those bullets for those calibers. But you seem to really like the super performance. Of the bullets you've listed, I'd use the Accubond.

I'd consider a Hornady 150 interlock for the 300 sav. The other two, I'd use a 165 or 168gr bullet.

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This has made my morning.

Over the past 20 years, the bulk of our whitetails have been taken with Hornady IL's in .308 as well as and Remmie PSPCL's. Most of it has been 30-somethings (30-06, 308WIN, 7.62X54R, etc) and I've yet to see a whitetail walk away from a properly delivered bullet of this ilk. I mostly shoot 165 grainers. My sons mostly shoot 150 grainers.

I roll the same way/choices. I still think we could be brothers....:)