Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game 75gr Vmax in 25-06

I am a Partition fan -tried and true but......
For culling does etc has anyone expierence using the subject bullet?
My rifle shoots them under an inch at 200yds with 48-49grs of 3031.
Not saying I'll use them but I am curious.

I've used the 74 Max in my 6/06 for some deer/lopes. When I pointed it right it did the job right quickly!

From my experience I'd not worry, as long as shot placement is intelligent.

Dober

I've shot coyotes and stuff of the same size with them with no problems. They don't stay together at all. I shot a coyote running straight away from me at 535 yards. I hit him in the left ham and the flat copper jacket (it looked like a penny) was laying on top of the snow next to him. How that jacket exited and was just sitting there on the snow is kind of bizarre. For head or rib shots, they work well. I don't think I would punch bone with them. I run mine at 3,750 fps. Nothing shrugs them off, but they do go nuclear on contact with skin ;o) BigStick on here has shot a lot of deer and bear with them. He loves them. Flinch

Thanks Flinch. You using them in a straight 25-06? Load?

Not in the 25-06, but I've shot 'em in lots of 1000 at pdogs over the past few summers in a couple different 25 WSSMs. I think the 75 grain .257" VMax is 1 of the most accurate regular production .257" bore bullets out there, neck and neck with the 75 grain Sierra HP and 90 grain Sierra BTHP. A great varmint bullet, but too fragile for me to feel comfortable shooting deer with them. The lightest, non-Barnes, bullet that I like for deer is the 87 grain Speer Hot-Core. It is probably the best regular production bullet for the 1-14" ROT .257" bore rifles, like many (most?) 250-3000s. It seems to hold together well at higher speeds from the 257 Roberts, 257 AI, 25-284, and 25 WSSM.

I have never shot a deer with a 75 grain VMax, but have shot a dozen or so sub-150 lbs. whitetail does with the 95 grain .264" VMax with excellent results. Since shooting does is more akin to shooting podgs than it is to hunting antlers, I am willing to wait for a shot into the pleural cavity, requiring minimal penetration, to present itself. Like Mark has said, deer are easy to kill if you're selective with your shots.

JEff

Are you sure? I know he uses the .224 75gr A-Max on game a bunch, but I haven't read anything about using the .257 75gr V-Max...

Sierra has a couple of new .257" Blitzkings, a 70gr. and a 90gr., which might be a bit better for your purpose. A buddy of mine has ordered some, and got 'em, but they're in short supply right now. I think the 90 would be "interesting" on a doe cull.

I stole this pic from an aquaintance on another site, he'd bought some, too. It's long enough that it might penetrate "enough" if you hit a rib or something.

I tried the vmax in a 25-06 with 4350 and found it to be ridiculously accurate. On more than one occassion I punched 2 inchish groups at 400 yards. That said I never did kill any deer with it so I won't comment except to say that I don't consider deer to be varmit sized.

My cousin does swear by 87 grain bullets out of his 27 weatherby on deer. Considering that he has used it for many year I would have to say that he is right.

The sierra blitz king 90 grain is listed as a varmit bullet however so are some of the 87 grain bullets that my cousin uses.

I'm thinking the Sierra 90 HPBT Gameking would work very well for that work.

daveh,

i've been shooting the 25-06 with 75 vmaxes at coyotes and other vermin fo about 2 years now...

if it was what i had loaded in the rifle and i had an opportunity on a deer, i wouldn't hesitate, given a sane shot opportunity...

i do still have trouble finding the .257 75 vmax available for sale... and the ones that i do find are selling for ~$30 per box...

a friend gave me a box of sierra 75 hps... i have shot a few now and ythey are very accurate... how they will perform on coyotes remains to be seen...

as mentioned by someone else above, the sierra 90 gkhp is a very accurate, versatile and easily available bullet...
i loaded some of these over the winter and have shot a couple of coyotes with them...
their performance on coyotes about mirrors that of the 6mm 85bthp gameking that i've used a bunch of...
although my use of the .257/90 has been very limited, so far, that their performance is similar to the 6mm/85 seems obvious by what i've seen to date...
and that's a good thing for an all around rifleman....

Thanks all. They are scary accurate and if I went heavier or less expensive bullet I'll use the Speer 87gr SP.

pitting the price,availability and performance of the .257 75 vmax against the sierra 90 bthp gameking leads me to believe that there'll be a bunch more of the 90 sierras in my future...

that takes nothing away from the hard fact that the hornady 75 vmax is, to date, the most accurate bullet yet tried in my 25-06...

The 75g V-MAX shoot great in my .257 Bob but, as been pointed out, they don't hold together at all.

I've used them on lots of p-dogs and coyotes but wouldn't choose them for anything larger - even though they would undoubtedly do the job on a good broadside hit.

The 87 Rem HP is another good one, and for some reason or another I wouldn't be afraid to point it at deer/lopes. Same goes for the 85 NBT.

Dober

is the ballistic number on that 90 grain sierra really .388? That is a rocking number for a 90 grain bullet! They really need to do a plastic tipped 115, 110, 105, or 100 grainer!

The 25-06/75 v-max combo smokes coyotes because it is very frangible.

I wouldn't select it for culling deer though it would probably work most of the time.

I think you might see some weirdness given enough pokes.

Horny 87 HP also.

The 75 grain bullets from Hornady and Sierra shoot very accurately in my Ruger 77 25/06; cheaper than the Vmax. As they are varmint bullets, I have never thought about shooting deer with them, they may/may not work OK at medium ranges as a cheap deer culling bullet...

The 90-100 grain hunting bullets from Sierra + Hornady are likely better alternatives.

my longer range windy weather coyote load in my 25.06 is the 100 gr BT over a stiff charge of RL17 getting an honest 3450 fps usually bumping 3500. I went with this for 2 reasons as I didnt see much to be gained with a lighter bullet and the POI at 100 yds is only 1 " lower than my load with the 110 gr accubonds

I'm sure the 75 gr. v-max will cull does just fine but they are a destructive bullet. Dang, what they do to varmints make the vulture's job easy.