Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles 6mm hunters, what are your favorite bullets?

Deer and pigs are the biggest game I hunt. Sako L57 in .243 and Remington 660 in 6mm Remington. 95gr NBT kills them stone dead. No bullet, twist rate, SD, velocity, or other quality can make them any deader.

Well. all I hunt are ground squirrels. In 6mm I prefer Barnes 62 grain Varmint Grenade fired through my self-built Savage Precision Target Action with a Brux 1:8" twist barrel, and Sharp Shooter Supply pillar bedded stock. Surprisingly, Oregon squirrels feeding on wet alfalfa completely disappeared when hit - vaporized with a little tunnel blown up behind them. Here is the load, I can usually keep it under .5" if I ain't shaking too bad:

Can extreme speed over power a low specific gravity mono on a WT? Wouldn't have thought so until this happened.

I've posted this picture before. Several years ago, this doe was chest shot at a hundred with the 80 TTSX at 3,600 fps out of a .240. Huge blast effect on the external chest wall, double hands full of blood clots at the skinning shed. Small entrance and exit wounds with min internal chest damage (penciled thru). Slow death, ran a long way. Here is a photo.

My question, does one need to balance speed and bullet construction regarding game being hunted? And, in some applications, ya reckon there's a velocity ceiling on certain mons's? Is it a low specific gravity bullet moving too fast for that application? Not sure.

Anyway, after one WT kill like this, I moved to another .240 load, this time, the 100 NPT over MRP. The 80 TTSX load was very accurate, the 100 NPT load actually more accurate and with much more desirable terminal performance. In fact the 100 NPT was the most accurate load for that gun and I tried a number of combos.

DF

Having used the 6mm to kill a few truck loads of critters large and small thick skinned and heavy skinned, I think the light super fast bullets no matter how accurate they are, are not as effective as a hunting bullet as the slower heavier fast twist, 105gr to 112gr. at around 2900 fps to 3000 fps, I have never seen good results with small super fast bullets, unless your shooting prairie Dogs. YMMV Rio7

Your experience speaks volumes.

I agree.

DF

Petals blew off before breaking through into chest cavity? Doesn't seem likely but stranger things have happened.

Not sure. There weren’t satellite wounds around the entrance or exit chest wounds as there were when I chest shot a WT with a Shock Hammer bullet out of my .358 Win.

Generally spun off fragments make their own wounds. Not seeing any doesn’t mean that didn’t happen.

It seemed to me too much energy was dissipated outside the chest wall not leaving much left to transverse the chest cavity.

DF

I have killed several deer with a .243 Win using 100 grain Winchester Power Point Factory Ammo. I killed 3 last year with Barnes 80 grain TTSX and the results were very good. Two DRT and one ran all of 20 yards.

Clifford

Right now I shoot three 6s each one is intended for a difference purpose. I do the barrel break in with Rem 80 gr bulk bullets and I also use those to shoot varmints, not much penetration at around 3,200. Do a one side penetration, explode and no pass through on a yote size critter. The yote hits the ground, DRT, which is what is desired any time you are near livestock.
I am going to switch to 105s for larger critters and hogs with the AR in 24 Varmint and a thermal where I have an area with a clear background. However, our hogs have disappeared again, they will return.

Bullet choices matter, shot placement even more so. Some bullet choices may be more forgiving than others. If you show unwavering self-control in shot angle & shot placement your bullet options will be wider. Monolithic Bonded & Partitions will be the bullets that may be more forgiving if shot angles are less than optimal. Not that I recommend anything other than optimal shot choices.

I haven't had a failure using the Barnes 95gr LRX. Seems to cover all bases for a hunting bullet.

Good choice. Speed?

DF

3160fps out of a .243 7.5, 22" barrel. There was room left for more but I found what I was looking for and quit.

I used the 70 NBT out of a 6 Remington on quite a few coyotes and other varmints. Then we started using it on bigger stuff. Son killed a antelope with it at 200ish yards. A mature WT buck at 30-40 yards. He went 2 feet, right to the ground. Shot was frontal into the chest. A couple wolves and a lion too. One of the wolves was 40 yards.

Not a real big sample but the 70 NBT at some blazing impact velocities is a killer.

To the original question...

Speer 85 grain boat tail soft point. In a standard .243 Win.
Its accurate and very cheap to buy.

works every time.
I dont run it hot either.

Best
HeavyD

108eldm

That'd be the one I am most interested in. Between 2800 and 2900 fps from a 6mm ARC

For years I hunted with 100g Hornady btsps in a 6mm. Between my brother and I we probably had a dozen one shot kills with that old lot of interlocks. I've also been very impressed with the 100g partition and the berger 105 vld hunting.

My last 6mm kill was with a 108 eld in my fieldcraft 6 Creedmoor. It worked very well but it was over 400 yards and my muzzle velocity was only 2910 to start. I recovered that bullet under the skin in the offside shoulder and it was a nice mushroom of about .5" diameter and I think still weighed a bit over 80 grains.

Bb

Whatever is the most accurate in your rifle. I like 95 nosler bt, hornady 100 gr. Interlock, 100 sierra game king. No need to spend a lot of money on premium bullets for deer less than 200 yds.

Surprising that no one has mention the Speer 100 grain Grand Slam. I guess it's just not sexy enough for the times.
Somebody must use them though they stayed sold out for a long time. Just received 150 in the mail today. I'm going to work up a load with them for a NIB 1991 Model 70 Sporter that should be here today.
I used to use the Speer 105gr. spitzer but sadly it's no longer made. 42.0grains of IMR 4350 was a straight out killer from my Sportsman 78 Remington.