Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Worst bullets for Killin game

I’ve had good luck with 350 AFrames, 350 and 400gr Kodiaks, and the 350 Speer which is my preference for cost reasons. Only drawback to the Speer is that it’s too long to fit in a Marlin unless seated with the ogive in the case mouth. I shoot an 1886 and it handles them fine when crimped in the cannulure.

Were I to start using it again down here for deer I’d give any of the 300gr HPs a hard look. I have a bunch of old stock Rem 300s and they’re very accurate, they’re very soft too but on deer that would be fine.

For me bullets fired out of a muzzleloader.

X 10,000

Thanks TheKid!

Appreciate the response.

While my Tikka is a 260 and not a Creedmoor, it dotes on the 136/139gr Scenars. I've had nothing but great performance out of them on critters (pronghorn and deer) and haven't caught one yet. Might be worth a consideration.

The worst bullets I ever experienced was a box of Winchester silvertip 170's in 30-30 about 20 years ago, before they thankfully quit making them. I shot a mulie and a whitetail with them, both were through the lungs on an easy broadside shot at about 50ish yards or so. The first shot on the whitetail buck shredded the lungs but none of the fragments made it through the offside ribcage. The one on the mulie blew up only one lung and left the other lung basically undamaged. The one lung was shredded enough that the deer dropped in a reasonable distance but that was the last I used them on deer I just shot them up for practice. The last deer I got with the 30-30 I used the Win power max bonded and that performed much more like I expected, a nice big hole through and through.

All these were on whitetail deer.

Barnes .270, 150gr X-bullet
Hornady .25, 120gr.HP
T/C .50, 370gr..Maxi-ball
.50cal. roundball

The last one ran 250yds. and was lost til the next day

And I killed a Bull Moose with 170 Silvertips in my 30-30 18 years ago and they held together and penetrated well. Perfect mushroom with almost full weight retention

Anything out of a muzzleloader and the early Monolithic Barnes, also Sierra MK, aren't worth doggy poop one coyotes. I don't know how the new Barnes are because there are lots better.

About 9 pages before Speer showed up.

Y'all can relax. I am not any competition for Speer 'hunting' bullets.

P Poor results in Alabama on WT, 270 W 130 bt.

2008, 2009, 2010 several ** not just ONE ** Arkansas WT from @ 80 yds------out to 402 yds. 300 WM, 180 HC......never again.
Yes, deer Died......bullets did NOT perform well.

Jerry

Bullets made by Jabby Steve wHorenady... never buying those poison pills again

Remington Bronze point. Beautiful bullet. Starting load accurate as I worked up groups grew. Used the starting load. .270W 130 gr. 2750 fps. Buck facing away, good rest about 50 yard. Blew a chunk of meat out about fist sized. Next shot as he ran shoulder, same deal, did not break the bone but some frags in the lungs. Next shot Texas heart shot and another hunk of meat gone. A mile later caught him as he lay gasping in a creek. Head shot worked. I guess thats why the quit making them. Got some for sale..

I agree with disliking Core Lokts. My brother shot a small buck and the bullet completely blew up on impact, no penetration whatsoever. That was 7mm REM.

An inaccurate one

Worst in what sense?
1.) Least reliable in terms of putting game down with 1 shot? The more frangible Varmint bullets would always be a poor choice in this respect & are not recommended for big & or medium game for good reason.

2.) Most destructive in terms of destroying meat. Suppose I do have some less than desirable experience here. The more frangible hunting bullets are perhaps less than desirable in terms of preserving table-fair.

3.) Worst in terms of being most effective from any angle, Then the Barnes mono bullets would be considered to be considered among the best options IMHO.

To me this is nearly always not only about the bullets chosen, but about how they are employed. There are simply a lot of good to great hunting bullets to choose from. Our responsibility as hunters are to understand not only, the bullets capability , but our own ability to deliver that bullet in the situation at hand proficiently, or not with the needed reliability. Sometimes we need to employ self control & hold off for a better shot or simply pass on a poor shot choice.

Frankly I am often disheartened to hear accounts of pissed off hunters blaming what they call poor bullet performance on what actually may be more accurately be described as poor bullet employment. Expecting to be lucky on a poor percentage shot is probably best described as un-ethical hunter behavior IMHO.

Most plastic tip bullets don’t kill near as well as good old lead tip bullets. I try to stay away from them. I hate sat and ballistictips

I ask this in a friendly way, but WTF?

I have nothing against "good old lead tip bullets" and use a good number myself, but Ballistic Tips, AMaxes and SSTs have been very fine deer/pig bullets for me and mine.

Bad experience’s or??

Can't say I've ever had a bullet "failure". I've lost 2 deer due to poor placement. One was a 300Win/200 Partition on a whitetail buck @ ~150ish yds. Clipped him across the front on the move and he buckled. I quit shooting assuming he'd tip over, nope, he got a 2nd wind and ran off leaving not enough blood-trail to follow once he went out of sight. Looked for better than 1/2 day and just couldn't find him.

2nd was a whitetail doe, 257Wby/100TSX @ ~250yds and I hit her too far back. She got into a full section of standing corn and we never did find her.

Neither case stopped me from using the same bullet on the same critters for a good long while after the losses. I can't blame anyone but me for those deals. I once asked a gunsmith I used a fair amount if he could build me a rifle that would still be accurate if I jerked the trigger and peeked over the scope as I was firing? That got a pretty good chuckle out of him. I know I'm guilty of the "Jerk/Peek" when I get into a bunch of shotgunning and don't get behind a rifle for a while. It's OK, I'm human, I make mistakes and have shortcomings.

That out of the way, there are a couple of bullets I don't use due to what I've seen from recovered projectiles.

Dad kept an expanded and separated Sierra .277 130gn BT core/jacket. You could dump the jacket out of the core, I can't recall what deer or how far it came out of. Would've been shot @ ~3000fps from a 270Win.

Cousin shot a whitetail w/140gn NBT Fed Premium ammo from a 20" 7-08 in which the same thing happened while butchering, found the jacket and core. I shot a pile of deer from the late 80's through the early 2000's w/.277 140NBT's @ ~2850fps without losing any animals but did lose quite a few front quarters to bloodshot.

.277 150 ABLR didn't "fail" really. I shot a bull elk @ ~125yds. He was almost dead on, just slightly quartered and steeply downhill, I was aiming to stick the bullet just inside the on-side front quarter. My heartbeat lifted the crosshairs a bit and the bull dipped his head to take a step up/forward as the trigger broke and I hit him just behind the ear @ the head/neck junction. The bull went down in a heap, nary a wiggle. I found the slug on the off-side @ the shoulder/neck junction. The core/jacket were still together but went from 150gn to 55gn. I used the bullet on several deer after that and got pass-throughs and good vital damage, about what I'd expect from that bullet. However, despite a fair amount of practice and attention to getting rifles capable to 600+ yds, I still shoot way more animals @ 200yds and under than I do @ 400yds+ and as such, a "splash" is more likely than a failure to expand.

In fairly "controlled" situations on occasion I've used bullets "out of their class". I've taken a few deer w/223 and 50 V-max and 22-250/75 A-max but they've been "gimme" shots and that's what I had in my hands at the time.

I am a big fan of the TSX. I've killed way more animals w/that projectile in various weights/calibers than all the rest combined. For me the affinity has come due to them always being fairly easy to attain accuracy as well as mind-numbing consistency from .243 85's up through .308 200's and a whole bunch in-between. Caliber in, golf-ball sized out, soup in-between. I've recovered a few out of elk and 1 moose and mostly they look like text-book expansions, I have lost a few petals on occasion but most retain all 4 and look great.

I killed my first bull moose at about 75 yards using the same caliber/bullet. Double lunged, no bullet retention. He had no idea where the shot came from, and ran toward me, dying about 15 yards to my left, in a clump of spruce in an otherwise scattered tree area.

I won't ever us e30-06 Fed Hi-Shoks on game again tho. I don't hunt 50 lb meat animals, which with their instant expansion, seems to be what they are designed for. A ram and a moose taken a few days apart, convinced me of that.