Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Antelope bullet

Going on first antelope hunt this year. For all you experienced guys, what bullet do you like in a 308 win. I know they are not hard to kill but I don’t want to blow up a ton of meat either. Suggestions.

BC, 150 grain Nosler BT.

Ummmm, you could load my dick and kill a antelope...

Because I don't like to loose meat, I use the same bullets to kill antelope as I do to kill elk most times. I like some expansion, but not any "blow-ups" .
But any 30 cal hunting bullet from 125gr and up will work to kill them.

Last years I killed my antelope with a 270 with a 150 grain Round Nose, one with a 140 grain Hornady Flex-Tip from a 300 Savage and one with a 156 grain PPU bullet from my 6.5X54 Mannlicher. All were instant kills and all did very little meat damage.
In the past I have killed them with many different guns and bullets, and none got away, but for me personally I don't like to blow them up much.

Ain’t the minimum bore size .24?

Over 40mm

Thank you. A serious question finally got a serious answer. Makes perfect sense, so maybe just a 150 or 165 Hornady is fine. Trying to avoid the SST and others that seem to create a very big hole

Although I suspect most bullets will work, I am a Barnes fan so my pick would be TTSX or LRX

Never shot at an antelope, YET. But I would think anything that would kill white tail deer would be good. .270 130 grain SGK or 130 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip. However, I'd like to get one in the sights of my .250 Savage with a 115 grain Combined Technologies Ballistic Tip.

Yes BCHunter.
In fact the 165 flat base inner-lock is what my wife uses 100% of the time for her deer and antelope bullet. She shoots a 30-06 at about 2650 FPS with that bullet and with that load in the rifle I made for her, the accuracy she's getting at 100 yards gives her 5 shot groups under MOA. Old fashioned, but I have no complaints so far, and I have used 165 Gr flat base Spire Point Hornady's from various 308s and 30-06 for about 40 years now. My wife Anna is a minimalist when it comes to her hunting guns. She likes guns and has several, but for her hunting she got to a point she wants ONE and so she uses the Mauser in 30-06 for everything, every kind of hunting from antelope does to bull elk, and she will use it for Moose too when we go after them. For deer, antelope, prairie dogs, practice on steel targets, coyotes, wolves, raccoons and skunks and nearly all things that "need to be shot" she uses her 30-06 and that load.

For elk we just load the same weight Nosler Partition, in the same brass with the same powder charge and the groups lay right on top of the Hornady load.

I also have not had a lot of SSTs hold together well in 270, 257 and 8mm, but a friend of mine shot some antelope and deer with 165 gr SSTs from his 308 and I had to admit, the performance with that particular bullet from his 308 (chronographed at 2680) was excellent. I also know 2 men using 30 cal 180 gr SSTs and doing well with with them also. Maybe the 30 cals are a better combination for jacket thickness and core diameter when shot at 308 and 30-06 speeds. Others should chime in here if they have 1st hand info.

I have not used them myself in my .308s, 30-06s and 300 mag just because of the results I got in 257, 270 and 8MM, (Side note, the 170 gr 8MM is just fine for deer and antelope, but comes apart too soon to go as deep as I want an elk bullet to go. I did kill a 5X5 bull with them and got it done, but I won't try them again on elk)

But I will give credit when it's due. From the kills I have seen with that particular 30 cal SST bullet so far, I would not talk you out of using it.

30 caliber Bullets I have used for deer and antelope that I know are good from personal experience: (some were used on elk too)

Winchester Power Points in both 150 and 180 grain.
Hornady 165 and 180 grain Spire Points and also Horandy 150 grain Round Nose.
Sierra 180 grain round nose.
All Nosler Partitions in all weights they make, and Nosler Accubond in 150 165 and 180 grain weights
The OLD Remington Core-Lokt in both 150 and 165, but the newer ones are made with lighter jackets, so I reserve judgement on them. I bought many thousands of them from the 70s and those were really good, but I have seen shots made with those made in the last 20 years and many of them came apart, some on small deer, so I am not willing to recommend the Core-Lokt anymore without more info. Maybe John Barness can tell us more?
Barnes 130 grain and 150 TSX
Speer Grand Slam in 165 grain and also their Gold Dot bonded bullets in 168 grain. ( the Gold Dots were used by 2 friends, not me. I was next to them at the times of the kills and they worked great. I did gut and butcher the deer for them and I'd say the results were perfect.)

Any cup & core bullet in the 150-165 grain class.

Antelope seem to be one of those animals that you really need to keep your bullets out of the eating meat. Seems whatever you use if you hit shoulders high you will lose a lot of meat.

130 ttsx would be a good choice.

Yep. I was told when I was young to keep the bullet off of the shoulders. They already don't have a lot of meat on them, and my family like to eat antelope. I was also told that antelope run for a ways when shot well. It hasn't ever been a problem, given the open country. I haven't been after antelope for several years, but only one out of the dozen or so I've shot or seen shot dropped at the shot (through the ribs, top of heart, double-lung with a 243 and Remington yellow box). My step-brother's first antelope was hit low in the chest, squaring up and pulverizing the heart from about 175 yds with a 243 and Winchester white box. It ran over 400 yds.

Just about any bullet will work just fine, I'm sure. Antelope are thin, so any bullet out of a 308 impacting approximately broadside is going to exit. If I was working up an "antelope" load in 308, I'd pick a soft, rapidly opening 165-168 gr higher-BC bullet because of the likelihood of stiff or varying wind. That's just me. I don't think you could go wrong with ANY pointed, expanding bullet from 110 to 220 grains.

I believe there is one best bullet for each cartridge. For the 308 I used the Hornady 165gr flat base spire point/interlock for years and never a complaint. Someone mentioned a 150gr and in a 300 Savage a 140gr bullet, i'd stay away from any bullet under 165 gr. Not that they won't kill but their lack of weight and higher velocity make them more likely to do much more damage that you seem to want to avoid. If I were going to go with something other than a 165gr, I'd go up to 180gr. Keep mass up and velocity down. If I wanted to go to a lighter bullet, I'd also go down in caliber. 150gr bullet I'd drop to a 7mm but not a magnum. Only time I have ever blown up meat in an animal was when I lusted for velocity and ended up using to light of bullet's. I somehow doubt that if you go to monolithic bullet's you'd have the problem or at lest not as bad. All the magic of monolithic bullet's can be overcome by heavier bullet's and lower velocity. I recall a rabbit I hit with a 22 mag years ago in the shoulder with a 40gr bullet, not HP. Completely destroyed the front of the rabbit. Simply to much velocity. Huge downside to higher velocity and lighter bullet. I strongly suspect that even with a monolithic bullet's the lighter for caliber bullet's will ddo more damage for no other reason than the increase in velocity.

I’ve killed them with everything I hunt deer/elk with (340wby, 300wby, 300wm, 06 and a MZ. If you’re worried about meat loss, stay away from the shoulder. Personally, in 308, I thing 165g Interlocs would meet your criteria perfectly. For what it’s worth, if youR focus is on the meat, get it gutted/skinned and on ice as quick as you can. In my experience, antelope is outstanding if you can cool it down quick enough. We literally hunted with big coolers/ice in the back of the truck. If you don’t, you’ll be missing out on tender delicate meat. It seems to go south a lot quicker than deer.

Indeed, and that was the last thing I was taught about the how-to's of antelope as a teen. Either a huge cooler already iced up, or a creek that we put the skinned carcass into for at least an hour to get it cooled down, or both, since it was generally pretty warm during the antelope hunts.

I use Berger vlds in my 308 for deer and antelope. They have worked on two elk as well. They fly consistent and drop critters in their tracks.

We also use the same as we use for elk, though a bit larger caliber than the .308! Minimal meat waste, and when hit properly.....they promptly expire. For a .308 Win, I’d use a 130 grain or 150 grain Barnes TTSX.....Fast, Accurate, Lethal! memtb

"The OLD Remington Core-Lokt in both 150 and 165, but the newer ones are made with lighter jackets, so I reserve judgement on them. I bought many thousands of them from the 70s and those were really good, but I have seen shots made with those made in the last 20 years and many of them came apart, some on small deer, so I am not willing to recommend the Core-Lokt anymore without more info. Maybe John Barness can tell us more?"

Steve,

Remington apparently quit making the original, thick-walled Core-Lokts around 1990--except the round-nosed version, which still still had the thick jacket walls the last time I sectioned one a few years ago.

They apparently went to a thinner jacket to speed up manufacturing, but they may not even make their own bullets anymore. I know that some of the factory loads in the 1990s featured Hornady Interlocks, because Remington sent me ammo for various projects, and the bullets had a definite "pencil-point" look to them (as Elmer Keith used to call the secant-ogive Hornadys). So I sectioned one, and it had the Interlock ring, but the "Pointed Soft-Point Core-Lokts" that weren't pencil-pointed did not--though they had far thinner jackets than the original PSP Core-Lokts I'd sectioned.

So I contacted the PR guy for Remington, who'd been there many years. He talked to the ammo guys and they admitted the PSP Core-Lokts had been changed. He was pretty upset about the whole thing, partly because they never informed him of the changes, but was near retirement--and did retire not long afterward.

Later I heard a rumor that a separate company was making the PSP "Core-Lokts," instead of Remington, but never followed it up.

As a side-note, Eileen and I have mostly been using monolithics on antelope for quite a while now, because we like the lack of meat destruction. The antelope may go a little farther after the shot than when with lead-cored bullets, but that's not a problem in open country.

Have also used Bergers on antelope, and they don't shoot up much meat either, partly because the delayed expansion results in almost zero meat destruction around the entrance hole. The exit hole is often larger, but if you keep the exit away from the shoulders it's usually about an inch-wide hole through the ribs--and they kill so well the bullet can be placed a hand's width behind and still drop them quickly.

John