Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting 165gr HPBT Sierra in an '06?

Great pictures Pharmseller, BSA and others! Like you Pharmseller, those SOB's that get elk out whole can kiss my 5th point of contact!

I've run AB's, PT's, and TSX's on elk. By far, my favorite is the PT. Like BSA, I buy them up by the 100's when they drop on SPS. I figure I buy them cheap enough like that I can practice with the same bullet I hunt with, without having two different loads.

OP, good luck picking a bullet, but the 165 or 180 AB/PT along with a slew of others won't let you down in a 30-06. I spend way more in fuel than I do in bullets while elk hunting.

This guy got the what for with the 338 and 210PT. I was happy to be carrying the 338 that day.



Saying that, Pharmseller has convinced me if we draw tags for OR this Fall, my son will carry his M70 7x57 with 140AB's.

Agree with bea on this.Even at full retail a box of 165 Partitions costs less than filling a pickup with a tank of gas.

Been a few years since I was doing extensive 30/06 shooting,but in the last rifle I was using a load of 59-H4350 with both the 165 Sierra and 165 Nosler Partitions,and shooting to 500-600 yards.

At 100 yards you couldn't tell which was which in terms of grouping;but at 500-600 the Sierra showed slightly better grouping;and I mean "slightly", on average.Either would land easily in elk vitals.

Point being, it is SO easy to use the cheaper bullet for practice with full confidence in switching to the Partition for hunting.When it comes to elk hunting the choice between the two is easy for me.

Interesting thread. Lots of opinions on what works or doesn't work which makes one think. Compared to some my experience on elk is very thin, mostly due to bad luck. If I drew a bull tag all I saw were cows and if a cow tag, well you get the picture. Most of the time I don't draw squat. Last time I drew an elk tag in my home state was 9 years ago.
What I wanted to say tough is this. Condemning a bullet as no good based on one failure for whatever reason is statistically insignificant
Way back in the mid 1970's I loaded up the bullet the OP asked about in my 30-06 for a deer hunt. That was during the time when the Mule Deer population dropped drastically for some reason and we'd seen nothing. I got a crack at a coyote about 250 yards out and the 165 gr. Siera HPBT smacked him good. We paced it off and found a two piece coyote. I never shot another animal with that bullet. Too fragile.
In 1978, the last year I hunted Nevada I shot the biggest bodied Mule Deer I've ever seen. Total weight of the skinned quarters on a certified butcher's scale was 296 pounds. The same 30-06 was used but this time I was shooting 180 gr. Nosler Partitions. First shot nicked the heart, shot #2 was through the lungs three was a miss, four broke and antler and my last shot broke its neck. When I opened him up, the I found the first bullet just grazed the heart, The lung shot looked like someone had poked both lungs with a pencil the fifth aand last shot shot broke it's neck. Didn't use Nosler Partitions for a very long time after that.
For a very long time I held the opinion that those two bullets were no good and I would not use them. All based on what happened with one kill with either bullet. Currently my elk rifle is a .35 Whelen shooting the 225 gr. Barnes TSX. Three elk with that load, all one shot kills. One hunting partner shoots a 7MM Rem. Mag. and the 160 gr. Accubond at 3000 MV. I've seen him take two elk with that rifle, again one shot kills. This last January we added another fellow to out group and he dropped his elk with a .270 WSM shooting the 150 gr. Sierra Game King. Again, statisically it doesn't prove squat but it's been enough to make me look at bullets with a more open mind.
Paul B.

south,
I'm not going to read all the blather as I see it has devolved very quickly.
The only thing I want to say is there are better choices than a hollow point bullet. It is not needed and may get you in trouble with a closer than expected shot.
If you want to use a cup and core, fine, the guys have killed many elk with Power Points and .270's in our camp.
Good luck.

PT AB TTSX Swifts just to name a few,

I bet they just slay thousands of elk in Mn.!!!!

In an earlier post I stated the following:



That still stands true. Placement is king. That said, I choose tougher bullets because I worry more about what happens when things go south than when they go as planned. Dad gave me a Ruger American .30-06 last year, along with 4 boxes of Federal 165g Sierra GameKings and a box of Federal 165g Trophy Bonded Tip. Last weekend I had an opportunity to shoot both loads into water jugs.

Stick a GameKing in the lungs and elk will die, but take a look at the recovered 165g GameKing and 165g Trophy Bonded Tip bullets in the photo. Also look at the 225g .338 bullets, two cup-and-core Hornady SST bullets and one Nosler AccuBond.



Here is another photo of bullets recovered from water jugs.


Left to right:
4 jugs == .45-70, Sierra 200g FP .458" @ 2390fps, 81% weight retention (left group of five, front row center)
6 jugs == .45-70, Speer 300g Uni-Cor .458" @ 2247fps, 59.6% to 72.5% weight retention, 68.8% average (remainder of left group)
8 jugs == .45-70, Speer 350g FP .458" @ 2147fps, 87.6% weight retention
6 jugs == .45-70, North Fork 350g .458" @ 2189fps, 97.4% weight retention
9 jugs == .45-70, Cast Performance 460g WFNGC .458" @ 1812fps, 76.5% weight retention
5 jugs == .375 Winchester, Hornady 220g FP .375" @2230fps, 65.7% weight retention
7 jugs == .300 Win Mag, Barnes 180g MRX .308" @ 3100fps, 93.4% weight retention

In the image above, pay particular attention to the last bullet, a Barnes 180g MRX (similar to the TTSX but with a tungsten core in the caboose). It penetrated almost twice as many jugs as the .30-06 GameKing or Trophy Bonded. We have yet to recover an MRX or TTSX from deer, antelope or elk. I've taken three elk with AccuBonds (one with a .30-06/150g and two with a .338WM/225g) and all were compete pass-throughs. I don't expect pass-throughs will always be the case but I do expect them to hold together better than cup-and-core bullets, with deeper penetration the result.

If all you have is a bad angle on a fleeing and possibly wounded elk, which type of bullet construction would you rather trust - a standard cup-and-core or a bonded core (ala Trophy Bonded and AccuBond), or maybe a mono-metal like the Barnes TTSX?

For me there is no question. This fall I'll be hunting elk with the Ruger American Dad gave me last year. I had considered using the Sierra Game Kings because I had the 4 boxes Dad gave me. After trying them on water jugs I'll be using something else - perhaps the 165g Trophy Bonded Tip or .30-06 loads I already use, a 150g AccuBond, Barnes 168g TTSX or a 165g North Fork SS. In any case it will be something I trust won't come unglued on impact.

CH: Interesting test and thanks for posting.

Some comments/observations: Interesting that the 30 cal Trophy Bonded Tip had more frontal area and retained weight than the 338/225 AB.But did not penetrate quite as much.

Second, the 300 Win Mag/180 MRX seems to show that you don't leave penetration on the table with high speed bullet impact, if bullet construction is up to the task.

Water is good, but I wonder what results would have been with some heavy bone mixed in

this!

The HPBT is actually tougher than the Gameking in my experience.

If I were traveling a long ways to shoot elk I'd go with something different I suppose. My '06 likes the 165's also but shoot's 180's well enough that I have no issue using them. I've never tried a Texas Heart Shot but then again I'm not from Texas.

What you shoot them with has much less to due with killing than where you hit them.

Bob -

Hard to say what bone would do if added, other than cause inconsistency in the target media making shot comparisons less direct. (Getting big bones into a water jug would be an interesting endeavor... ) I do have some photos of bullets recovered after impacting bone in game, however, and the results are - at least to me - informative.





Left to right:

350g North Fork, .45-70, 6x6 elk, 213 yards, 2181fps MV, retained weight 271.5g (77.6%), .623" expansion (excepting the 'helicopter wing', which probably unfolded on impact with the last rib)
160g Grand Slam, 7mm Rem Mag, 5x5 elk, ~110 yards, ~2900fps MV, Retained weight 113.7g (71.1%), .542" expansion
162g Hornady BTSP, spike elk, ~110 yards, ~2900fps MV, retained weight 77.2g (47.7%), .593" expansion
180g North Fork, .300 Win Mag, 200-yard steel, 3032fps MV, retained weight 85.0g (47.2%), .486" avg. expansion

The .45-70 350g North Fork hit low on a broadside, obliterating a section of the left front leg and near rib and shattering a far rib before coming to rest under the hide. Somehow the bull remained standing but tipped over before I could get another shot off.

The Speer Grand Slam and Hornady BTSP InterLock were both fired from the same range from the same rifle at roughly the same speed. The Hornady hit a near rib dead center leaving an caliber sized entrance hole in it and a rib-wide crater on the back side. It missed or lightly nicked the far side ribs and came to rest under the hide on the off side. That was my first elk and the last time I've used standard cup-and-core bullets in my bolt rifles when hunting, switching to Speer Grand Slams the following year. Some 20 years later I recovered my first and only Grand Slam. It had destroyed both shoulder joints of a 5x5 bull and came to rest under the hide on the off side. IMHO the challenge to the integrity of the Grand Slam was much greater than that for the Hornady InterLock. While they both penetrated to the far side the Grand Slam did a heck of a lot more damage on the way there.

The North Fork SS embedded itself in the 200 yard steel, as did all three or four I tried. This was the only one I could dig out of the steel and, while it didn't retain much weight, the North Fork SS were the only bullets that didn't fly to flinders. Cup-and-core bullets turned to shrapnel, shredding nearby paper targets. Barnes XLC bullets made nice depressions and gave them a beautiful copper plate finish but we couldn't find any remnants. They also shredded nearby targets, lending support to the belief they came apart as well. This is not to suggest North Fork SS are better bullets for game, as steel is far different than flesh and bone. I've recovered North Fork bullets from game but have never recovered a Barnes XLC, MRX or TTSX. It takes a lot of bone to stop the North Forks. I guess it takes even more to stop a Barnes.

Here's another North Fork recovered from elk after hitting ribs on both sides and breaking the off-side front leg:

.30-06/North Fork SS, 165g, 2800fps MV, 25 yards, .586" average expansion





(It is snowing with 6-10" accumulation expected and other than going downstairs to do some reloading, no, I don't have anything better to do. )

CH. Interesting photos. I'm going to have to get you a few rounds of my 30-06 220 gr round nose to shoot for comparison.

I can never get that many jugs.

I could leave them out at BLGC for you to pick up if interested.

Great pictures. I just loaded some 270 grain Northforks to try in my 35 Newton. Can't wait to stuff one into the jugs.

You're asking the right question. IME which bullet to use is one of THE most important questions when it comes to the terminal performance needed on a elk.

I stayed with 165 Sierras too long because my 30-06 loved them and shot tiny groups. I killed several elk and other critters and was more bothered all the time as I cut up animals. They were dead but the bullet performance was quite inconsistent in penetration, expansion and in sometimes shedding jackets too soon.

I kept killing elk till with them until I shot a good bull through a shoulder angle that needed considerable penetration and lost him. I know exactly where I hit him from evidence of sight picture and cut hair in relation to his tracks. I hit him where I intended and it was my fault that I chose a bullet not up to what I asked of it that time. That bull deserved better.

I went to 180 Nosler Partitions for years. They never shot the same tight groups but they performed far better on elk, even if they were an inch off of where the Sierra would have hit. FWIW they did NOT kill deer and smaller bears quite as quickly as the 165 did with a double lung shot. A dozen years ago I switched to 180 Swift A-Frame that shoot MOA in my 30-06 and do a superb job on elk, even more consistent terminal performance & damage than NP's IME.

Your philosophy is a factor. IMO overkill is good. Extra margins of penetration are good. Cup & core work better than bare lead and as a teen I killed elk with 130 grain cup & core from a 30-30. But I don't drive a Model A Ford and don't drive big game bullets from that era anymore. Last week while hunting a black bear that I knew was huge, I talked it over with a guide friend and went with 180 Swift A-Frames instead of a bonded 165 grain even though IME black bears are relatively easy to kill. In the event the 165 would have killed as quick or quicker, but I wanted to insure an exit and blood trail if the bullet took a long path through an extra large critter.

Good luck on your elk!

Maybe we can meet for dinner some evening at the Mexican place in Monument?

Lots of good info above.

However, the 165 Game King soft point is not the same as the 165gr HPBT. The 165gr HPBT has a significantly thicker jacket. Sierra's Techs confirmed this.

I have shot literally thousands of them, as they shoot so well in my Tikka .308s that I was actually using the projectile as my load for shooting rifle matches.

I have killed numerous Elk with the 165 gr HPBT Game King and not one needed a second shot. They are a little too heavily constructed for game such as coyotes, as they tend to pencil through. They work great for big bodied Mule Deer.

One negative thing: When loaded in a .308, out past 600 yards they really get blown around by the wind as compared to a Scenar for example. I have killed Muleys right at the 600 yard mark with them, but conditions were in my favor. Lots of kills in the low to mid 400s.

If I could choose just one proven load for my .308s to hunt Elk and Mule Deer with, it would be the 165 gr HPBT Game King, pushed by Varget.

Hornady 180 SP in my 308 Norma Mag puts the smackdown on deer and elk. As well as Sierra 180 Pro Hunters. Can't go wrong with either one in the boiler room or through the shoulders.

This thread is still going?

The bullet is the last thing I would be worried about on an elk hunt.

A plucking bullet rates 10 pages and things like vehicle, personal fitness and ability to deal with 700lbs of dead meat rate none?