Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting NORMA AMMO

I just thought I'd throw this out there. I hunt whitetails in north Louisiana with an A-Bolt .300WSM. The best ammo I've found is the 180 grain Norma ORYX. I shot six deer last year. Five of the hit the ground immediately. The sixth was shot with a 180 grain Remington scirroco II, and he ran about 150 yards before he realized his heart was gone. The first five were shot with the Norma ORYX. All of them were heart shot too. The thing that really set me on fire for Norma was the number 4 and 5 deer. Both were mature does. Thing is, they were standing perfectly side by side eatin corn when I shot. The bullet went through both shoulders of the first deer and right behind the shoulders of the second. Both of em hit the ground where they had stood! I found the bullet just under the skin of the second deer. Perfect mushroom! Just like in the advertisements! I know it wasn't the most ethical shot, but I also know what ammo I'll be buyin from now on!

What do the Normas do on paper? Well that depends alot on you and your rifle. My A-Bolt actually shoots these better than anything else I've tried. 3/4" 3 shot groups and ever once in a while, a half inch group will put me on cloud nine. That's why I had to shoot the sixth deer with rem. ammo, I ran out of the Normas.

Anyway, I get them from Midway USA. I don't think I'll ever buy anything else for my .300.

Those bonded Oryx bullets are very good. I have dug a bunch of them out of dead moose (not mine, but the guys I hunt with so there were a variety of calibres: 6.5 x 55, .308, .30-06, 9.3 x 62...)

Even when a bullet has hit a big leg bone, none of the bullets have broken up so far.

John

They are great bullets. I just want to know why they have to be so danged expensive!

I bought a bunch of the Norma Oryx in .308 Win/180 gr when a distributor was selling them for $10 a box. I used some in Zim shooting leopard bait (impala and warthog), and they work very nicely.

jim

I think that someone here is missing the point.

Whitetail deer are thin skinned game and do not require a bonded type bullet nor a Magnum caliber to kill them.

Anything from a well placed shot with a .243 to a so so shot with a 30-06 will kill deer.

The bullets that you are using is designed for BIG GAME and dangerous game - where what you are shooting - you don't want to get away, run towards you or attack you. Bears, Moose, Caribou, Elk, Lions, Tigers etc...

Make a so so shot on deer in some of the thick areas I hunt here in the Southeast and you'll be more apt to find a needle in a hay stack than recover your game.

The bullet has nothing to do with the bullets ability to penetrate brush in a marginal shot.

As a matter of fact, in order to get a bullet to retain it's shape, it is best to shoot it at a very low velocity.
That is the reason why the .35 Remington and the 30-30 is known as brush guns. Add to the fact that any tube fed magazine requires you to shoot blunt nose bullets only - and that is what makes it such a good brush gun.

At one time, a 220 Swift was one of the fastest production guns out there, and yet it was a very poor performer for deer. As a matter of fact, even the reloading manuals tells you not to use that gun as a deer rifle. The first little twig that the bullet hits and it explodes and the most you will ever find is little fragments of a bullet - sometimes as small as a grain of salt.

We did a identical test once with a 22-250 and a orange hunting hat. We put the hat in the middle of a brushy spot in the woods and went back 100 yards and shot at the hat 5 times and couldn't find a hole in the hat. Just some little holes from the bullet fragments.

From my experience if you had used a .35 or a 30-30 you still wouldn't have found any holes in that hat.

My comment has zero to do with brush bucking, which I say is a whole lotta hog wash as any bullet can be deflected, but has everything to do with the fact that a marginal shot made on a deer generally leads to it running into the thickest, nastiest, grown up, infested junk that you can imagine. I've had to cut my way in and crawl my way out of the thickets were I hunt to get deer that ran.

The excellent is the enemy of the good.

jim

Where to even start with this post?

I have some Norma 6.5 Arisaka stashed somewhere, but
Hornady is cheaper.

Guess you never heard of Parker O. Ackley.