Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Sierra Game-King Lovers...

Jeff.I'm not disputing your point,but think your math is off. To work up a load I figure you would have to buy two boxes of $40 bullets to get a hundred. Maybe shoot 50 of them.Every year,to check zero, I shoot about 15, 5 three shot groups if my sights are off. Then maybe 5 at game ,if I get two elk tags and two deer tags. Some times less,sometimes more. That is considerably more, but granted,you would only have to work up a the load once.

It seems everyone on here that touts the expensive bullets, never says how many times they have encounted one of those not performing.I know darm well it happens. Discount all the stories about Sierras coming apart,etc from guys who chose to push them too fast and I would bet the percentage is about the same of them not peforming as any other bullet. So far as far as I can remeber,on this thread we have had about 4 guys say the Sierra penciled through.Pretty small statistical average.Over the years I have seen a a lot more guys post that about partitions and Barnes bullets.
Sure, shoot a .308 at 400yds and punch through both lungs,and the Sierra might pencil through. So would almost every other bullet on the market.

You guys just don't get it. Every bullet on the market is going to not perform as expected at one time or another. Doesn't matter if you are shooting your own cast bullets or some bullet that cost $2 a pop. I'm still willing to bet most cries of bullet failure are due to chosing the wrong bullets for the job , or poor marksmanship

they are an accurate bullet but when i go hunting i use hornady or noslers

here's a 700 yard hit with a 250 grain gk out of my 338 rum.
entered and exited with massive destruction in between.

my hunting partner hit another with a 338 lm, and took out the opposite shoulder with lots of big bone fragments. bullet was off in the dirt somewhere when it exited. we'll be using them again next year !

Saddlesore

Actually I don't count load work, one round of load work with TSX took shooting a suggested load, 3 shots, was well under MOA in a small 6mm I have, and then I shot about 4 more 3 shot groups, all doing fine. It was zero'd and the only time I"ve shot it since at non game was last year after I somehow realized I'd missed a buck... Couldn't find the limb I had to have hit, but shot it back at the truck, top of a dime sized spot on a bag at one hundred.

Load work can be a few rounds or say a couple of boxes. Not a big deal, its the shooting after that, that I count. Which isn't much shooting in reality generally.

As to no bullet performing, well I've had 100% track record on TSX and now TTSX. Including them doing things that I thought they might not be able to do. I load them for a fair amount of other friends and same results. Thats why I pay for them and am so sold on them. WHat more can I ask about a fast driven 150 in a 300 wtby that hits deer at under 30 yards and does just fine, or a 225 grain X from a 338 win mag that expands twice at 802 yards? Everything in between those parameters has been perfect also.

I cannot say the same for the others. Just what I've seen and its more than a sampling of 4 that didn't expand....

Like I said I shoot the non premiums here and there, and won't practice with premiums, but sure will use em... Used to carry a box of wind resistant bullets around to matches, when it was an important to me 600 yard match IF the weather turned really bad I'd pull out the ones that the projectile itself was about 1.50 each, and fire 22 of them,win the match and drive home.. of course the entry fee, the fuel and time etc... validated to me at least, that winning was the validation.... IE the expense of the bullet helped solve the situation.

I've said it before and will again and live by it, when its time to hunt where you can and will pass up the wrong shots, use what you want, I do it all the time. When its a must do situation, then run the premium bullets.

The other side to it is that I prefer the non destruction of meat via the premium bullets, but as I age I also value the ability to make sure they are dead above all first...

And yep, bullet/arrow placement is always the FIRST thing to worry about... much like my soapbox thing on scopes... give me the best scope I can afford.... if I have a cheap scope but good binocs, (assuming late or early) and can find with binocs but not see well enough to shoot.... AND give me a cheap single shot gun,with great scope other than the reverse.. can't shoot what you can't see. Put it in the right place first, then generally most bullets work.

I only recovered 3 bullets in over 3 decades of hunting big game. Here they are, all Sierra GK BTSP and all resulting from fontal shots with bullets penetrating from bow to stern.


From let to right :
- 7x64, 160 GK,80 m on Muntjac, bullet recovered from ham, 181% expansion - 48 % retained weight ;
- .300 Win Mag, 165 GK, 250 m on red stag, bullet recovered from hide pouch on opposing flank, 204% expansion - 78% retained weight ;
- .30-06, 165 GK, 150 m on roebuck, bullet recovered from hide pouch on opposing flank, 256% expansion - 59% retained weight.

All bullets were used within their envelope of performance and behaved excellently. If a high velocity bullet is wanted, go to the Sierra GK HPBT, which is a true, hard, magnum bullet. An extra bonus is that both bullets are interchangeable and, when loaded the same, shoot to the same POI.

Thanks Andre!

I didn't know the difference between bullet types in the Sierra Game-King line-up...
So my choices are SPBT and HPBT...correct?

Well I buy Ray's "silly nonsense." Particularly when using something that on the light side or on a bad angle shot.
You can make all the fun you want of him or me. But if a going away shot is all you have, you need something that will work reliably.
Yeah, I know. It doesn't matter on deer.... Until you hit one wrong or it simply doesn't know he's dead.
I've got no problem using bullets like the GK's as long as the cartriage is a bit more than the 6mm/.25's on deer. For bigger stuff, it's the premiums just because they give me an edge. E

If you "have" to take a "going away" shot, there is no bullet I can think of (in a proper caliber) which won't break the pelvis. If you think you can't place the bullet well enough to do that, I would suggest that even a "copper enema" may not reliably accomplish what it is you want done.

The point is fellas that this is a free country. You can use any bullet you want. Heck some even use Matchkings for Pete's sake (God knows why).
As for me I will not use what I deem to be a substandard bullet. We are expressing opinions here, not trying to sway people from using anything they want to use.

I think many folks confuse what bullets can or cannot do and Sierra's products are sometimes wrongly singled out as "inferior" when, in reality, they are scarcely different in how the work from Interlockeds and Ballistic Tips. They aren't GameKings, but I really preferred many of the now discontinued round or semi-round Pro-Hunters to the round nosed bullets Hornady still offers; and the latter aren't bad bullets either.

Truth be told, there are few hunting bullets (none I can think of) that a decent hunter can't make work, assuming a reasonable bullet choice is made.

So my choices are SPBT and HPBT...correct?
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Looking for a general purpose bullet, we might put it that way, indeed.

What many of us seem to forget is that bullets, all of them, are nothing but a compromise between penetration and expansion (we could add accuracy to make it even more interesting and or confusing...). Too soft a bullet will give superb expansion but might fail to penetrate deep enough. Too hard, a bullet will penetrate lengthwise, making pencil holes.

I suggest therefore that the case of the perfect bullet be linked with another myth, i.e. the universal rifle/caliber, in order to guarantee many more years of our ongoing discussions...

Yes, that's true. You need to shoot over the stomach as well. I've hit bucks too far back, either from not enough lead or the bullet being deflected by brush and broken the femur on two occassions. With the femur broken, he isn't going far or very fast. If you get the femoral artery, he can bleed out from that alone. All in all, it's nice to have one that will consistantly reach all the way up the animal.
BTW, a shot to the liver kills very well.
It boils down to what you insist on in bullet performance and where you draw the line between selecting a cup and core or some premium. E

Not my experience at all with premiums. Maybe cup and core bullets, but I haven't seen it.
What matters the most with most cup and core bullets is impact velocity. If it's too low, they don't open much or at all. I had a buddy finish off a 3 yr.old buck with a neck shot at 300 yds. with a .300 Savage. The 150 gr. Sierra broke the neck, ok, but didn't expand to any noticable degree. Good thing it hit just right.
Pushed too fast and they come apart. The small buck I killed with a 7mm magnum at 300 yds., was hit in the very top of the back. Too high to hit ther spine. Ripped a gash about four inches wide as it came apart. Even at 300 yds., the 140 gr. Sierra was still moving a little too fast.
In contrast, the Nosler Partitions I've used under similar circumstances have always held together, penetrated and expanded very rapidly. Even at really close ranges, like 40 ft. with muzzle velocities of 3400 fps., as well as over 400 yds. and muzzle velocxites of only 2680 fps. In both instances, the bullets went all the way through and left very good wound channels. Odviously a much wider range of performance. E

While we are on the subject of cup cores where do the Speer Hot Cores line up? Not the mag tip or grand slam, just regular ol hot cores.

tougher, softer, less/more reliable then GKs for deer size game at nominal speeds? less then 3K... I really like the looks and on paper performance of the 145 and 160 in my 7x.

Ive used the 130gr .277 and the 110gr .277 and both worked well on antelope and deer. The 130's out of a 270 win @ 3100FPS did leave some very large exit wounds. The 110gr out of a 6.8 SPC contender did very well @ 2500 FPS...although the core did seperate from the jacket on the only one i recoved..but dead is dead.

The 145 Hot Core out of a 280 and the 120 in a 25/06 have been my fovorites for decades. Very reliable performance on deer. "Course they are a C&C bullet so you can't push at 3400fps and expect perfect performance. I'd rate them a little thougher than the GameKings...about on par with the Hornady Interlocks.

I really like the 145 flat base version in my 7X57. Seems to stop them very quick and have never recovered a bullet. Not taking questionable shots as where I am hunting there are plenty of deer and plenty of time...

The two gamekings I use the most are the 150gn in my 7x57 (2708fps) and the 165gn HPBT in my.30-06 (2874fps). The 7mm 150gn often doesn't exit on pigs and one deer but kills them all the same. I'd like to load another bullet in the 7x57 but the Sierras just outshoot anything else I have tried.

150 gr '06 GK70 yards, yearling caribou. '09. Entrance wound. Exit wound at base of neck about the same. They expand immediately, and tend to blow all the way through. But I have no experience with them hitting major bone.

Nearly all that "blood shot" meat in this picture was saved by trimming out the membranes on and between muscle layers- wasn't nearly as bad as it looks here. It seldom is, with any bullet. Sierra GK work fine, and are generally highly accurate. My .338 WM will shoot @1" groups with Sierra GK handloads- at 200 yards. But since I hardly ever get a shot at over 100 yards, I use Hornady handloads or factory loads - most any brand shoots well enough....

I prefer Hornady or Rem Corelokts in my handloads, but I have a chit-pot full of Sierra bullets on hand to load, and feel no qualms about using them.

one of the best bullet ever made for 7mm-08 in 140 and in 160 gr for my 7mmRM.... just need to be use at medium to long range...