Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting 6.5 Fav Bullet For Deer

I havent found a bad bullet for the 6.5's in the 120-130 range. I like 120 NBT, 125 NPT, 120 BTSX, 129 Horn., 130 Scirocco II's.

Kev

120 Speer Hot Core out of my 260 is what I like for deer. For me, it just plain works.

My 260 sees 129 hornady SP bullets and have never failed to kill quickly.

The Swede has see 120gr Nosler Solid Bases and 100gr Nosler BT for deer. I've loaded the 129 hornadys but have yet to kill a critter with them out of the Swede. The doe I shot this year with the 100gr BT surprised me. The bullet took out 3 ribs going in, wrecked the heart and lungs, and went thru the opposite shoulder upon exiting. Not bad for a "fragile" bullet doing over 3000fps.

The question should be which bullet is NOT a good bullet in 6.5 for deer.

It's hard to go wrong with about 75% of the current offerings...

X3 on the 129 SST. 1-@ 333yards,1-@553 yards 1-@ 675 yards with 6.5x47 Lapua's.

hornady 129 sp in my 6.5x55. Accurate and kill quick.

140 SST. My 6.5-284 chose that one, not me. It performs well on pronghorns, whitetails and hogs. The gun also likes the 140 Berger, but I'm shooting the SST this season.

I've read that the NBT is a stronger built bullet than the SST. In my experience, the SST, at least the 140 gr. .264 does very well. I shot a 300# boar hog thru the neck at 225 yds. with good entrance and exit wounds. It killed a pronghorn, DRT, at 200 yds. and whitetails at various distances. I can't complain. I've had NBT's blow up, but in other calibers, not .264. I never had an SST blow up.

Others may have different experiences. To me the SST is a great cup and core bullet, and very accurate.

DF

Hey Jim - IF that GOOD LOOKING blonde is your 3rd X ?

How about a phone no.

Seriously, Thanks for the pics and INFO.

Jerry

120 Speer hot core, 125 Partition, the 140 Hornady interlock all work very well

jim we don't get tired of seeing your lovely daughter

Hard to beat the 129 Horn SP on deer.

One that I have been playing with this year is the 100gr Interlock. I don't have many deer with it yet but did run it through one shoulder of a little buck this year. So far I have yet to recover a bullet and all the deer shot died and were recovered easily. I hope to shoot a pig or two with it later this season and see how it works.

ANY 100gr thru 160 'hunting bullets' will do well, lighter bullets UNDER 100gr are def meant for varmints. The Lapua 123 and Matchkings are meant for paper but used w/various success on deer, not ideal IMHO.

Peronally I like the 120-130s on deer in 6.5s for combo of bc/sd, trajectory....and nothing wrong with good 140s, though IMHO not needed, but no reason NOT to use them in a hunting bullet.

130 AB is my fav but used 129s w/success, and all other bullets in that weight range have been used w/good effect, accuracy +/- depending on rifle/load, but all suffice.

The 120 NBT from a 260 Rem worked well for me on a half-dozen muleys and WT's

My best load for my Swede in a Rem Classic is 125 grain Partitions, Fed 210 M primers, Win cases and 45.0 grains of IMR 4350 powder with COAL set at 3.14". Gets 2880 to 2895 fps with less than 0.75" five shot groups at 100 yards. More powder opens up the group size somewhat. I have tried 100 to 130 grain bullets and this works best for me in my rifle.

THANKS 6.5 ET.AL. - It sounds encouraging that nearly all the bullet weights work well for deer. From ALL of your reports I could just about take my pick of weight & style & brand.

I've not made any decision yet so KEEP EM COMING.

THANKS

folks'll probably tire of the picture...


30+ inches of penetration on at whitetail quarting hard away.

I've had good luck with the 120 TTSX in limited application. Swayed by impressive results shooting the 53 TSX out of the 223 into deer

I use mainly the 125 partition.

I've shot a couple of Whitetails and a coyote with 129gr Interlocks. No pictures, but silver dollar sized exits on all.

One whitetail and five pigs with 130gr Accubonds. Exit on the whitetail was about the size of a quarter. He ran about 30 yards and piled up. Exits on the pigs were about the same. None ran farther than 40 yards.



Caught an Accubond in this pig.



Initially shot him square in the poop chute as he was running away. That brought him down in the rear quarters and I got closer for the finishing shot, which I put low through both shoulders.

Recovered this bullet from under the far side gristle shield. This boar measured 60" from the tip of his snout to the base of his tail and 30" from the bottom of his front hoof to the top of his shoulder. A real test for any bullet...



Shot this bobcat, buck, coyote and pig with 130gr VLDs. Got exits on the bobcat and coyote, but none on the buck or pig. The buck made it about 30 yards and the bobcat and coyote were DRT. Exit on the bobcat was the size of a baseball. Exit on the coyote was about 2" but there was a chunk of lung the size of a card deck laying on the ground behind him. The pig was very poorly hit, just in front of his pelvis, as that was the only shot he presented me in the mesquites. He ran about 10 yards where I was able to put two more in him. I have shot several pigs with VLDs now and it is my impression they make fewer tracks after the shot with VLDs than with any other bullet I have tried. For me, barring a CNS shot, pigs are harder to kill than any other animal I have shot







[img]http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n159/Hondo64d/35f1d3e2.jpg[/img]

All these were shot from a .260 and and bullets pushed to a little over 2850fps. I don't really have a favorite at this point. Doesn't really seem to matter what i shoot them with as long as I put it in the right place...

John

Hondo that 260 you put together is one sweet looking rifle.