Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Good cheaper bullet for deer

Have been shooting 165 grain Gamekings in my .308 for about 30 years and have accounted for scores of deer. Almost all of them shot under 50 yards, most front high shoulder shots. Have never had one go more a couple steps. Always leaves a good amount of blood. Can't speak from experience about the 150 grain Gamekings but wouldn't think they would be too much different performance.

Nosler B-tip, Sierra gameking, Hornady interlock, Barnes X, all have worked well for me. Whatever your rifle shoots best will be your best bullet for deer

My first concern when choosing a bullet for whitetails is how consistent will they pattern..... can i find a load which shoots small enough groups for my hunting situation----east central Minnesota brush.

Have tried Speer, Hornady, Remington, Sierra, and Nosler in different rifles.

when I find a consistent load for a rifle i stick with it.

Hornady Interlocks, 150 gr work very well in my '59 Savage 99..... 300 Savage featherweight. Not a very hot load, but it is consistent ... about 1+ MOA. Not gonna change that load unless I have to.

The 130 Interlocks shoot really well in my pre-64 Model 70 270. MOA. Formerly used Partitions, but when I ran out, switched to the Hornady. No regrets.

Find a bullet weight/ brand & load which shoot well in your rifle. there are a lot of good choices. Hornady certainly is one of them.

Any cup & core in the 26-2800fps range at impact will be just fine unless it’s directed poorly.

I consider Hornady Interloks the non-premium price, just about premium bullet and for deer that means the optimal combination. Killed several deer , pigs, and three cow elk with Hornady Interloks. Never a complaint.

I always kinda chuckle when I hear about bullets "blowing up" on the shoulder or "pencilling thru" and the animal was unrecovered. The first thought that comes to mind is..."based on what actual evidence" and "your denial of poor shot placement is not evidence"

Hornady SST are the most underrated and under used bullet. They flat out perform, however most pass them by believing they don’t penetrate and over expand, which is BS. I use 165 grains exclusively, most are pass throughs on deer. 150s would be fine as well. The 165s however are calibrated for my 308 Win having a drop compensation scope out to 700 yards. They flat out shock and awe deer, just as intended. Another luxury is relatively high BC and excellent accuracy. They perform in the 308 Win like they were made for that chamber and velocity range. Not terribly expensive and easy to find on shelves. For long distance work on antelope and mule deer the 168 gr A-Max is another good one.

The Hornady Interlock is a favorite of mine, regardless of caliber.

My uncle had always hunted with a pre-64 243 that he used nothing but the cheapest Winchester Super-X PSP style bullets. I believe that they were 100gr variety. He shot whitetail and mule deer, antelope, goats and occasionally an elk when he would draw a tag. We hunted outside of Van Horn when all of us cousins were just boys thru our teens. He would shimmy up in a Mesquite and shoot his limit at distances we thought impossible, he'd carry a few extras in a shirt pocket, but generally used just what he loaded in the rifle.

I would be willing to bet, that a soft point style bullet has accounted for the greatest majority of game animals, probably 3 to 1 of its closest competitor.

I agree. 90% of the time, you don't know that it's poor bullet performance unless you can examine the deer. If you can examine the deer, it is a dead deer, so...

Yep. if John Nosler were a better shot, he wouldn't have invented the Partition.

No longer made but I shoot 165gr and 180gr Speer Deep Shocks. In my opinion, the best cup and core ever made. Bought just under 3000 of them when everybody was getting rid of them. Still got a couple of thosand and along with a couple of thousand of 150gr Partition Golds I"m set for life.

George

I tend to gravitate toward Sierras for no good reason except I never seem to have a problem getting them to shoot well. I've used tSGK's in .224 65 grain, 6mm 100 grain, 6.5 130 grain and Pro Hunter and SGK's in.308 150 and 165 grain for killing deer with no problems. This year I went to the HPBT 130 6.5 and 165 .308 for the first time. It was easy to get sub-moa in both 6.5X55 and .308 with those bullets. I didn't end up using the .308, but I did kill one deer with the 6.5 HPBT SGK. Nothing spectacular to tell, just a one shot, short run dead deer. I've also used other bullets for killing deer, the OP being about .308 I'd add I've used the 150 and 165 grain NBT quite a bit in .308 and some 150 Speers back in the 80's (not sure now which one.) They all work like they should.

Way back when I shot only factory, or when time prevented me from loading my own, I shot mostly Core Lokts or Winchester PPs. They killed fine, but were never particularly accurate. After that, I generally loaded Sierra PHs or Gamekings, especially the 165gr BTHP, a killer-diller for sure, but pretty brutal at the ranges I often shot stuff. Now I buy BT or Partition blems when they go on sale, but don’t think it makes much difference on scrawny WV eating deer.

I use different stuff for fun, but a .308 is hard to beat IMO.

I never had any problems getting CLs to shoot respectably. Here are a couple of inexpensively made groups, fashioned from 150 and 180 grain Remington CLs shot at 100 yd. I think some of it has to do with when they were made. They still make both as components, but the price gap has narrowed. You can often get Hot Cors or Interlocks for almost the same money.



These are fired from a 30-303 barrel. The targets below are 180 grain CLs. Re 17 and Re 15 did very well. These groups were made "cold". That is, I didn't monkey with the seating depth. And really, I won't bother. I rarely shoot past 300 yards except at the range. For me at least, this is good enough.

Your avitar pic is creepy Steve.

"Yep. if John Nosler were a better shot, he wouldn't have invented the Partition."

Now that's funny!

Buckshot77;
Good evening to you sir, I hope the day was good to you and you're well.

I'll add my vote for the Hornady Interlocks.

We've used the .308" 150gr in a .308 Carbine for a good double handful of BC whitetail and mulie bucks with complete satisfaction.

As an aside, we've also used Interlocks in .257", .264", .277", .284", assorted .308" weights other than 150gr and .338" on mulie and whitetail bucks as well as a few black bears, a California Bighorn and a moose.

The ones we recovered were typically at least double the diameter of the original bullet and I want to say between 50% and 60% of the original weight - usually.

They work fine and I had to hunt with Hornady Interlocks for the remainder of my hunting days I'd not feel handicapped one bit.

Hopefully that was helpful to you or someone out there. Good luck with your hunts whichever bullets you go with.

Dwayne

Sure - but they taste better if you kill'em w/ woke Cutting Edge Bullets.


Just sayin'.




GR

I've used Game Kings, Pro Hunters, Interlocks, SST's, Core Lokts, Power Points, Silvertips, Fusions, Power Shoks and probably a few I don't remember right off hand. Tough to find a .30 caliber bullet of 150 gr. or more that won't kill the shyt out of deer. I haven't found one that doesn't work yet.

My experience is about the same. I’ve shot 150 Sierra pro hunters, hornady IL, 150 partitions and BT’s, Remington C-L from my 308… I settled on the hornady because it was the cheapest and very accurate and killed the $hit out of every deer I ever shot. Not sure any 150 soft point in 308 is a bad bullet for deer.

I shot four deer with 150 grain interlocks out of a 308 last year. Bang flop, bang flop, bang flop, bang flop