Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Anyone Using 6.5 120's or 130's on Deer?

I’ve had really good results from the 129gr Interlock and the 130gr Accubond. My personal favorite is the 130gr Berger Hunting VLD.

If wanting a mono and not shooting past 300 or so, I’d probably pick the 100gr TTSX over the 120. Impact velocity matters with the monos. Anything farther and I’d be looking at the 127gr LRX.

John

I load and shoot the 130 Accubond and the 130 Swift Scirocco in a 6.5 Swede and they are both devastating on game. I've taken several whitetails, hogs and feral sheep with both bullets and everything had been boom/whop/thud. I see not reason why those bullets wouldn't work well in the Creedmoor.

Very true.

I've been hunting with the 147ELD for the last couple years and been very happy with its performance on deer and elk.

But this year I got to witness a friend shooting his Alberta WT buck with the 127LRX. ~100 meters, maybe a little under. Shot #1, full frontal. Penetrated stem to stern, left a ~2" exit just above the tail. Deer went down hard, spinning 180, but was making some noise about getting up. So the hunter put shot #2 stern to stem- broke several ribs, passed thru/along the spine/busted front shoulder and came to rest against the skin. Bullet looked like it came out of a Barnes promotion piece. I'll have to put a picture up.

I'm going to try out the 127 for myself next year.

Pretty tough to argue with that!

I’m glad I don’t have to field dress that one!!

My father length wised one front to back with a 300 Win. mag and a 165 grain Sierra. Innards were a bit messy on that one.

I did the same with a 30-06 and 165gr core-lokts. Dropped and pulled itself about 10yds on the ground. Picked its head up and I shot it in the neck.

When I walked up to it, the guys were hanging out the pelvis. It was a bit sporty in there. Lol

It actually wasn't too bad at all. Both bullets missed the abdominal cavity because of the shot angles. The deer was shot from slightly below, so the first bullet entered the brisket, skipped above the guts, and exited beside the spine right near the iliac crest. The second bullet entered the back near the diaphragm and came to rest under the skin just below the jaw.

my preference in my couple 260 rems is the 120 bt.until it fails on me thats what i'll shoot in them. when/if the 120 bt fails to do what i require i'll switch to the 125 partition or 130 accubond and won't check up. all that said the 120 bt is about as good a combo for speed/accuracy and on game performance there is in the 6.5mm realm imho. the 129 interlock ain't no snoozer either but alas...................big H has seen to NOT factory load the 129 interlock in my fav 260 rem.
good luck picking projectiles,
Big Ed

I am very happy with the 130AB. Accurate and deadly on deer with my 260REM.

Not sure what you're hunting, but also look at the 100gr TTSX

Shooting 6.5X55. Shot some whitetails with 120NBT. After seeing the effects of the 100TTSX I'm switching to it. Got some loaded with IMR 4451. Accurate, fast, clean.

Jim

The 100 TTSX at 3100 from my .260 is one of my favorite bullets for deer and pigs. Farthest shot with so far has been 212 yards and dropped where it stood and did not even twitch. The 120 TTSX works equally well and have not noticed any difference between them in terminal performance.

Aalf - what do you use in the 47? What bbl length and speed? Thanks.

FWIW, my go to for a long time has been the 130 AB in 6.5......but a mono 100, or most conventional 120-130s, designed for hunting, or PROVEN for hunting, gets the job done.

Mono's need speed, so keep them high at ranges used, and I'd go for bone if using a mono. After the 130 AB, my pick for deer would be 120 BT, 125 PT (not needed) but a good one none the less, the 129 SP is a LONG Time proven bullet. 120 Corelokts have dumped some for me from the Swede. Many people use them with great results, but for me to say 400 yds, I think a good 120-130 is plenty BC, SD, and mass for deer. On the Berger 130s, heard nothing but great things, and they are very accurate. That said, even the 100 BT is a killer on deer to modest ranges, though I would always pick a 120 BT over it. The Barnes is one exception in 100 gr if using at closer ranges where impact speed is high.

I bought a box of this stuff and it put three shots into under half an inch at 100m. I shot two fallow does last year with it and the good old, ever reliable Hornady SP knocked the snot out of them. I worked up some handloads with the same 129gn Hornady SP and they shoot a bit over half an inch, but I haven't been able to match that group with the Whitetail ammo. However, I am currently loading the 130gn Sierra Game Changer with H4350 but have only taken a middle sized pig with it. The GC fully penetrated.

The OP got it right with the 120 - 130gn bullet weights. There are a bunch of good bullets in that weight and to me that was the weights I had in mind when I put the 6.5 CM barrel on. If I want to shoot a 140gn bullet I'll take a 7mm. One that nobody mentions is the RWS 127gn Cone Point. I'm loading that in my 6.5x55 and it groups very well at around 2 800fps. It also kills very well.

I used Speer 120 hot cores for a few years with success, now use 140 Hornady interlocks and 140 Partisions, in my Swede
Deer ain't hard to kill.

I re-worded my post to clarify, that was with my 6.5x47....130's at 2820.

Buck was shot at around 225 yards, typical double lung 75 yards death run.

130 Accubond in our 6.5’s. First bullet I tried and they were extremely accurate and worked great so I stopped there.

Anyone have experience with the 120 Speer Gold Dot?