Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 150 Grain Hornady SST or 150 Grain Speer Soft Point for Hunting

I have M1 Garand that I would like to use some this hunting season for white tail deer or hog.(I do have the 5 round clip.) I hunt in west Florida so the deer and hogs are not real big. The two handloads I have are about equal in accuracy. I do not have a chrony but the Hogdon manual load data says these loads should be around 2800fps. My loads consist of 48 Grains H4985 CCI 34 primers in either Winchester or Federal brass and with the Horandy or Speer bullet. Which of these bullets would be best to hunt with?

Thanks

358win.

Im partial to the SSTs, they do very well on deer.

I will assume that most of your shots will be under 150 or so yards.

My experience with the Hornady 150 SST is that it is rather frangible and destructive, but very accurate. My choice of the two would be the Speer soft point, and I would be inclined to try the Hornady InterLok.

I've only shot three deer with the SST, but all displayed the same bullet performance. Violent expansion at the point of impact and very little penetration. The Speer HotCors I've used have always fully penetrated, even with a double shoulder shot. All of these shots were 50 yard-ish.

The rifle I used is a .308, and velocity is about what your load should be running.

If your shots are going to consistently be 200+ yards, I would think that the SST would be a great bullet.

At close ranges, if you keep them in the lungs, even the SSTs will do fine.

If you are worried about penetration at high impact velocities, then use the Interbond slugs .

Either one would be perfect for deer hunting. I've killed a large pile of deer with SST's in my 7mm-08 with no problems. They are a tad soft so they may not exit, but they do turn the heart and lungs into a liquid pulp. That said, I reloaded some 150 grain Speer BTSP's for my .30-06 and I killed a deer with one of them with no problems. I got really good accuracy with them and a really nice exit hole to boot. I'd probrably choose the Speer bullet if I had them just because they will probrably exit most of the time. But either one will work fine on a deer.

For deer, hogs and antelopes, IMHO, it's hard to beat the SST. They're about as accurate as the NBT and not as friable. They're not so stiff as to blow through a deer sized target, but not so friable as to create big entrance wounds.

Speer bullets are great, probably sleepers in the world of bullet marketing. Their Grand Slam is an excellent bullet, standing toe to toe with about any premium bullet currently on the market. They just don't have the B.C.'s of some of the others but have stellar terminal performance on game.

Between the two bullets the OP listed, I'd have to go with the one my rifle liked the best.

DF

I would also go with the Speer Hot Core over the Hornady SST. Of course if you throw in the Hornady Inter-Lock, I'd have to think about it. Big Hornady fan but don't like shooting bullet's with plastic tips at game animals. That tip has to go somewhere on impact and I'm guessing right into the bullet, like a wedge. Speer Hot Cores are to me the first premium bullet worth shooting.

I shoot the 165gr SST out of my '06 for deer in NC. It kills deer like lightning and the bullet has always exited. I'd be a little leary of a '06 shooting a 150gr SST if ranges are close. But, Florida deer are smaller than northern deer, so you might be ok.

My .308 had a distinct preference for flat-based projectiles. The Speer 150 HotCor spitzer shot better than any of the boattails I tried.

I don't think a Southern whitetail shot into the vitals with a 150 grain .308" SST started at 2800 fps from a reasonable angle (including through a shoulder) is going to do anything but die quickly. At least that's been my experience with the factory loaded Hornady Custom Ammo .30-06 150 grain SST on a southern deer and a pronghorn at ranges from 25 to 30 yards (impact velocity close to 2800 fps). I shot a javelina at less than 10 yards, and there wasn't a problem there, either. Yes, there was considerable expansion at close range, but penetration hasn't been a problem in my experience.

Based on my experiences, I consider the 150 grain .308" SST a go-to bullet for Southern whitetails and pronghorns at .30-06 velocities, even at close range. Haven't noticed really much difference between the Winchester 150 gr Power Point and the Hornady 150 gr SST at spitting distances (10 to 40 yards). I think the old Core-Lokt (late '80s/early '90s vintage) was a little tougher than the Power Point and SST from what I've seen (I haven't used the current generation of Core-Lokts, so I can't comment on them).

Thanks for all replies.
If I get a chance to take a deer or hog I will report the results.

358win