Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Thoughts on Deer Bullets...

Waiting on my 257Wby to get here and thinking about the perfect bullets for such.
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<br>What bullets would you pick for medium range shots across greenfields?
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<br>Got some Barnes 100gr XBT's,Nosler 100gr BT's and hopefully some Nosler 115gr BT's on the way.
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<br>Never dabbled with a 25cal rifle before and I'm itching to try it out.
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<br>Any thoughts???
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I would do a 115gr Partition at 3,400 fps
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<br>Mike

Yeah, I have a thought, and here it is:
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<br>That dang cartridge looks beee-yoo-tee-full with that blue bullet sitting on top of it.
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<br>And me deciding between a .257 Weatherby and a .300 Winchester!
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<br>Beautiful! I gotta go with Stick on this. If you can make that 100-grain X shoot at anything near .257 WBY velocities, you have no need for any other bullet. She'll do all that caliber can in spades!
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<br>Rick

First, congratulations on choosing the perfect cartridge for deer hunting. I use the Remington 25-06 Sendero and three of my lease partners use the .257 Weatherby Acua Mark We hunt wide open country from stationary blinds and tree stands with shots ranging from in your lap to 400 yards.
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<br>I shoot Sierra 100 gr. boat tail spire point bullets with wonderful results. One of my friends shoots the 115 gr. Nosler ballistic tip and the others use the 100 gr. ballistic tip. I wanted to use those bullets but my rifle would not group them as well as it will the Sierra's.
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<br>When they first started using the Weatherbys one of the guys loaded 120 gr. partition bullets. They shot well on paper and we thought a cotroled expansion bullet would be necessary at 257 Weatherby velocities. We were wrong. The first deer shot with that bullet was an average size doe. Bill shot the doe through the lungs behind the sholders, twice. I heard the bullet impact both times from by blind. Bill is an execelent shot, the doe was about 100 yards out, and he was shooting off of a rest in his blind. He said he hit where he was holding both times. Well, that doe ran off and we never found her. There was no blood trail to follow and we spent the rest of the day looking for her. Twelve of us searched for half a day and three of us went back the next day and looked again. The second deer shot was recovered. It took two shots to put her down. The first shot was behind the sholders and the second which put her down was through the neck. When we butchered that doe we found that the bullet had penetrated through the chest without much if any expansion. The wound channel was small, the exit hole about a half inch in diamater was pluged up with fat and that combined with the skin sliding over the wound prevented any external bleeding. No blood trail. The neck shot contacted bone and left a good exit wound. We never shot deer with those bullets again.
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<br>Our experience with .25 calibers and our small whitetail deer has been good with ballistic tips and Sierra bullets in the light weights. 100 or 115 gr. bullets have always exited. Most improtantly to us the deer do not go anywhere once shot except straight down. In other words I believe you will like the lighter jacket bullets for deer even with the fast .25 calibers. We have killed more than 40 deer a year with ballistic tip bullets from this lease since we started shooting them about ten years ago. We have not lost a deer or needed a second shot when shooting the ballistic tips or the Sierra bullets. That's over 400 deer killed with one shot each and no bullet failures.
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I will mirror pds's experience with ballistic tips in my 270. Of course there are deer and then there are DEER but for what I have shot I couldn't ask for better performance than I get from the BT's.
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<br>BCR

Morning CHEAHA >> In my opinion, the perfect deer bullet is the Nosler Ballistic Tip (BT). I've used the 100 gr. bullets from a .25-06, 180 gr. bullets in a 7.82 Warbird and a couple cartridges in between and I've not been disappointed. Used them on both Muley and Whitetails. Neither one stands up to a BT very well. The BT just has some nice qualities that I like working with. You mentioned the Barnes X in your list of bullets that you are looking to choose from. I know that there are a lot of fans of the X bullet here. Frankly, I think they're way to much for deer sized game. While you will never see a BT penetrate as well as an X, you'll never see an X expand as well and offer the wound channel that the BT will. I guess you have to choose what's important to ya. The pentration or the wound channel. More times then not, I choose the heart/lung shots just behind the shoulders. The way that the BT shreads on a shot such as this is second to none. Will be using a 120 gr. BT this year in my new .264 WinMag. I expect the same satisfying results that I've gotten with my other BT choices. Good luck to ya with your bullet selection and your .257 WbyMag. >> klallen

Those are very interesting comments about the NP bullet, PDS. I've used alot of the NP bullets too. All of mine have opened very well, even at very low impact speeds.
<br> But, ever so often, I've heard reports, or seen test results, of mis behaving Nosler Partitions. Not nearly as many as I have from most other brands however.
<br> Their biggest complaint has been that they loose their front cores at high impact speeds. But, usually, the critter's insides are destroyed in the process. I've had some come out caliber sized from high impact speeds. But all of the deer were down on the spot.
<br> I've also shot several critters through cover with them. They will expand, and sometimes deflect. But they always penetrated well enough.
<br> I believe it boils down to hunting style. You guys don't shoot through cover. Or have to take fanny shots. I prepare for them because that is often all I get for oportunities.
<br> Fortunately we have bullets that work well in these situations as well.
<br> Then there are the critters themselves. Every once in a while you bump into a very tough, bullet proof, deer. I've seen these too. My grandfather used to speak of the old Remington Bronze Point bullet as the "hit'em anywhere" bullet. Then my brother hit a small buck too far back with one. We never found him. No more talk about about hitting them anywhere.
<br> I'll take a premium that will open, and, above all, hold together, any day. I've tracked wounded deer on my hands and knees for hours. Looking for that one spot of blood, no bigger than a dime, every 40-50 feet in heavy cover.
<br> You never really know where you hit them. Usually it goes well. They aren't hard to kill. But, sometimes, that "insurance", or extra performance, of the premiums really pays off. It's the cheapest extra killing power I know. E

Interesting comments by all.
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<br>This rifle will primarily be my stand hunting rifle. I have no intention of lugging it around for days on end. I have others for that.
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<br>Most shots will be for filling the freezer with meat. We have way too many deer and very liberal seasons here. My county has 46 doe days this season,that's two does per day every day(92 does per person) in addition we have a limit of one buck per day every day from Nov.23rd thru Jan.31st.
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<br>I'm leaning towards using the Barnes 100gr XBT/moly but starting to wonder about the Nosler 100gr &115gr BT's.
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<br>PDS, 400 deer with BT's and every one exited???? That's quite a track record! I may try those as well.
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<br>I have a box of 120gr Partitions coming from Big Time but your results with them have me concerned.
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<br>BTW, I will be using a 30" barrel on my 257 Wby so the velocities should be in the neighborhood 3850-3900fps with the various 100gr bullets.
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<br>Do you think the additional velocity will be too much for the BT's?
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<br>Most of my shots will be from 150 to 300yds on my greenfields but longer shots are available on other greenfields.
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<br>Thanks for the comments...

Cheaha - No, we had one that did not exit. It was a 95 gr. BT from my son's .243. It was a large buck and he shot it in the brisket / lower neck as the deer was facing him from about 120 yards. I saw the buck flip over backwards, head over ass, and land on it's back with all fours sticking straight up in the sky. I thought I was in for a nasty gut shot field dressing job but no, the bullet stoped right at the diraphram. I recovered that one and still have it. It is a perfect little mushroom. Still, I would not call that a bullet faliure. BTW that was the first buck he ever shot and we have it mounted.
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<br>DO NOT try .224 caliber BT bullets on deer. We did, and the deer drop dead but meet loss was awful. Neck shots were OK but sholder or lung shots were a mess. One doe I shot at 220 yards lost both sholders and the front half of the back straps.
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<br>That 30 inch barrel should be a good one for stand hunting. I don't have a clue how these bullets will perform in the 3800 - 4000 fps range. My guess would be just fine.
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<br>As another poster mentioned hunting style has a lot to do with your bullet selection. We hunt a large ranch that offers long range shots. We are allowed to hunt from stands only and we do not have to shoot at running game or try to bust through brush. We deal with the heavy mesquiet by shooting through the holes. Sort of like threading a needle. That is why we prefer flat shooting calibers and high magnification scopes. I would guess that 65 percent of the deer we shoot are shot in the neck. The remainer are sholder / lung shots with the exception of the rare times when one of the children muffs a shot too far back. We simply don't shoot deer in the butt. If we don't get a shot to our liking we let the deer go and look for it another day. If you feel you may need to skewer one from stem to stern the BT may not be your best choice. For sholder and chest shots they are by far and away my favorite.

The perfect deer bullet in my experience is the 338cal 200gr Nosler BT but it is built differently than the 30cal and under BT's. The only smaller BT's I have tried on deer are the 7mm 150gr BT's when they first came out. They were absolute crap! They would start blowing up on the hide and take out one lung on a broadside shot. Admittedly they have improved over the years and now are reported to be much better.
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<br>I'll give the 100 or 115gr BT's a shot on a few does and see how they react to the impact velocities but will have (hopefully) a good load worked up with the 100gr XBT's for the rut. Thanks again...

I've used the 100/btip 100 & 115/NP 117/Sierra, and 120/Speer hot core. In my experience the 100's kill quicker than the 115/120's. The 117/ Sierra falls in between the 100's and the 115/120. It penetrates a bit more than 100's, expands a bit quicker than the 115/NP or the 120/HC
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<br>This experience is spread only over about 2 doz. animals so it's hardly definitive. In any case, I've settled on the 100/btip in my 25-06's
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<br>JimF

Have you seen the article on bullets in the latest Shooting Times? Seems those super bullets don't do so well in real life. I've always liked the Nosler Partitions and now shoot a lot of BT. Have shot some, if not all the others and never thought they were that great.
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<br>Dan

I have recently been working up some loads in my new .257 Roberts. I have tried NP, BT, SST, and the plain jane Hornady interlocks. All 115-120 grainers. My rifle seems to like the plain interlocks best, so that's what I'll be using. I'm not the least dissatisfied with that, as I've had very good luck with interlocks in the past.

I haven't seen that article but do have the old article from Handloader/Rifle that tested most 30cal 180gr bullets. Quite interesting reading. The barnes X & Win.Fail safe's penetrated the most (big shock),the Bear claws and A-Frames made the biggest mushrooms and the MatchKings were pure bombs that did horribly.
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<br>I'll have to get that issue and check it out.

Pedestal...for your application I think any standard bullet would and will do fine and I think most would agree...But James wants to play difficult and shoot the things at the speed of light so he will be stressing them a little...just a littlebit
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<br>I think I would try my best to unglue and A-frame or some other bonded core bullet on a deer with that rifle!! I bet it would not stop just under the hide on the off side
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<br>Mike

cheaha,
<br> with the speed your putting on, any shot under a couple of hundred yards needs a real stick together bullet to stick together. but you know that, i think..... i gotta wonder why you're using so much gas to take deer. the only experience that i have with premium bullets is with the partition. don't know why they make all the others. i suppose though that the nosler just won't shoot in some rifles. least thats what i heard. it works out in mine OK, and thats the direction that i'd point you in first.....
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<br>i got mixed feelings on the subject. all of the hunting that i did where i really could have used a partition was back before i really even knew about them. i killed a black bear with a 6mm sierra 85 bthp. i did all my loading in those days with the lee loader. (the one where you use a mallet to knock brass into the sizing die). that was the bullet that the guy at the gun shop sold me.... i'm sure that he never envisioned me shooting a 300 lb. bear with it. i still use the same load though. i've owned 3 different .243 rifles and it shot great in all 3. ( nowadays it's just a coyote rifle)
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<br>the kind of speed you're getting with the .257w really complicates things, at least in my mind. i'd guess that a lot of decent bullets would turn into a streak of grease when they hit hide, up close. i have a friend who has a .257w and he only ever shot 1 deer with it. wasted a lot of deer. he still has the rifle.... to hear him talk it's the only rifle that he uses, but he deer hunts with me and i know that he uses a .308..... good luck, john w

"i gotta wonder why you're using so much gas to take deer."
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<br>Because he can badger

Cheaha,
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<br>Although I've never been a "big case" .257 fan, I have shot a truck load of bullets from the smaller .257 rifles; 250-3000, 257 Roberts, and 257AI. In the smaller .257 cartridges, I always liked the 87 grain Speer and 90 grain Sierra BTHP. The 90 grain Sierra hits like a bomb and I've never had a lung shot deer go more than 10 yards. Usually they have a hole in the rib cage that you can put your fist through and I have big fists! Both of the bullets that I have suggested may be too fragile for the bigger .257 cartridges and the BC isn't a match for the longer and longer/heavier bullets, but they will kill lung shot deer like nobody's business!
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<br>Sincerely,
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<br>Bearrr264
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Badger,
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<br>I guess I shouldn't mention what my other deer whacker is...

I use the 120 grn Nosler partitions on big game, whitetale and mulies. They work well from any angle!
<br>I have also used the 100 grn, but settled on the 120's at a velocity of 3000fps.