With the bullet shortage in my area, and all I can find
is Sierra bullets. What would be a good Sierra bullet should I get for whitetail deer? In my area
most are 100- 150 pounds and ranges are under 150 yards.


Thanks,
jr1968.

The pro hunter in the 117gr flat base

117 grain Pro Hunter bullets already recommend are a good choice. I'd not hesitate to use any Sierra hunting bullet 100 grain on the size of deer mentioned. Aim for the boiler room and not the shoulders just to not ruin so much meat, though the bullets wiil punch through a shoulder if needed.

I have had success with the 117 Sierra BT with Mule Deer. Most accurate in my Model 700.

Mid South Shooters supply has the Hornady 100 gr inter-lock,
the 120 gr HP and the 117 gr SST and 117 boat tail in stock.

Hornady is discontinuing the 100 gr interlock and the 120 gr HP bullets. I ordered a lifetime supply this weekend for two rifles. Hornady just shipped the "LAST" run of .25 120 HP to it suppliers.

Doc

jr1968,

I'd suggest the 117 ProHunter as well, especially at the ranges you typically shoot. I wouldn't worry about getting the absolute most velocity out of it possible, either, having had my best results from Sierras at muzzle velocities not more than 3000 fps at shorter ranges.

+1 on that Sierra 117 gr. Pro-Hunter... My .25-06 is so fond of that bullet that it's the only .25 cal. bullet I use in it anymore. Along with a healthy dose of RL-22 it has become my standard go-to 25-06 load. Shoots so well I figured on sticking with that one load so I could be more familiar with that gun and its trajectory. Never shot a whitetail with it but I know for a fact that its great on pronghorn.

MD,ever use the 100 gr Sierra Pro-Hunter on deer?

Midway has 117 grain Hornady Interlock boattail blemished bullets on sale right now.

I took a mule deer with a 100gr bullet out of a 25-06. My buddy's wife has taken 2 elk with her 25-06. Modern bullets are well-constructed. Shoot one designed for big game and you're good to go. Whichever bullet shoots best out of your gun is the one to use. Here's a pic of me with my 25-06:

That's an interesting buck you killed Waders. Going to have it mounted?

Yeah, it's pretty goofy! I did a European mount.

Doesn't take a lot to kill a deer sized critter. 25-06 is a pretty damned powerful round. My personal favorite flavor was the Speer 120 grain Hot-Cor. Lots of folks post about 100 gr. this or that. If your typical range is 150 yds or less, I'd recommend a heavy for caliber bullet. If in real doubt try a Partition or Barnes X of any flavor.

Have not tried the heavier bullets in my .25/06. Just gonna use the 100 gr Sierra for deer,coyotes and rabbits,with,maybe,an antelope thrown in.

I like the 90gr HPBT Gameking never had a deer walk away from being hit with that bullet, and I killed alot of deer with it.

Send prairie dog shooter a PM. He has used 25 cal 100 grain Sierras on a pile of deer.

I'm sure he has, but he lives in Texas, where deer are usually considerably smaller than they are in southern New York. And they can get considerably larger in New York than the "average" 100-150 pounds mentioned in the OP's post.

So,for a deer in the 100-150+ lb range a 100 gr Sierra would be just fine?

Well, yeah. I've killed plenty of deer from Texas to Montana with 100-grain cup-and-core bullets from both 6mm and .25 caliber rifles.

But my point (which I thought was plainly made in my first post), is that velocity is more important that bullet weight with cup-and-core bullets. A 100-grain bullet can easily be driven at 3300+ from a .25-06. I would NOT recommend one at that velocity for 150+ pound deer at ranges under 150 yards.

Gotcha.

Availability of good .25 cal bullets isn't good. Midway has 110 grain accubonds.

I always ran 100 grain TTSX at 3340ish out of my 25-06.

My Dad had not deer hunted in 10 years and wanted to go this year with my son so He used my 25-06 this year.

We all hunted together out of the same blind. Dad shot a doe at about 100 yards with TTSX that my son couldn't get on. About 10 minutes later my son shot a button buck at 149 yards with a .243 and 85 grain partition.

The .243 partition caused several times more meat damage than the TTSX going several hundred a feet per second faster.

Dink

If you can get them, the Hornady 120 grain hollow point worked fine for me on small northeastern deer. They blow through both shoulders and put the deer down right there. I see no problem with heavier Sierras.

A little widow lady gave me her husbands stash of bullets and one box was the Hornady 120 HP. They worked fine for a friend of mine and he decided he wanted more in the future. You should have seen the look on his face when I told him they were discontinued. My personal favorite is the Hornady 117 SP. They have been working for me for 30 years.

The 25-06 is one of my favorite cartridges. Like many have eluded to, there are several bullets that work well with this cartridge. I like to use 100 grain bullets in mine but learned many years ago what Mule Deer said about the cup and cores at high velocity! As a result, today I use either a partition or one of the monos. My favorite mono bullet in the 25-06 is the Nosler Etip. Excellent accuracy and high velocity.

The Sierra stalk is seldom a bad option.

All flavors of mono bullets continue to underwhelm in the smaller calibers. I've had good luck with the 30 cals. .257 and .223 seem to result in l-o-n-g tracking jobs and very little blood to trail. Regardless of velocity.

I'm going to try some 7mms, but from here on out, everything is going to be leaded in the smaller guns.

Not in my experience. I'm still getting "electric" kills with my 257 Weatherby and 100gr TTSXs

Strange. I would think that the 80gr TTSX out of my .25-06 @ 3450 would be fast enough to get the results other people are seeing. Maybe my local deer are just weird.

BD,

I always try to break shoulder with the .224 sized monos.

All that fragmenting schit seems to make 'em drop more faster.




Travis

Here's an interesting monometal.

http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/10719100

DF

And COURSE, I shoot the shoulder. None of this behind the shoulder BS.

Good to know. The GF is the one who shoots deer with the .223. Not sure if she is familiar with deer anatomy well enough to go with shoulder shots.

Just about lost a buck on Thanksgiving day. She hit it through the back half of the lungs. Took a pretty good while to find the buck. There was a hole through the lungs, and that is about all I can say for damage. None of the "red soup" or lightning kills that everyone talks about on here.

If that is how guys are getting DRT shots, it kinda skews the results.

why?

Yeah. They just punch those clean holes IME as well.

Longest shot I've seen taken on mulies with the .223 was 300yds and she double lunged it. Good expansion and it certainly died dead but I just prefer hitting bone with that combo.



Travis

I have never used mono's, but I always go for ribs. Don't like to throw away any more meat than necassary, and with the Sierra or BT bullets I usually use, it works well. Mono may skew results, just as bellydeep said about placement.

Just about any bullet that can punch shoulders will give a DRT. Nothing special about monos in that regard.

I don't have to worry about a TTSXs blowing up on a shoulder at velocities in excess of 2700 fps and that is even more critical in larger animals.

The more meat you blow to hell the less you have to pack out.





Travis

A TTSX doesn't have to blow up to mess up a bunch of meat.

Here's a hog hit with the 26 Nosler, 120 E-Tip (essentially a TTSX clone) at 150 yds, MV 3,450 fps.

Of course, I never recovered the bullet, but doubt it fragmented. I think what you see here is raw kinetic energy unleashed on flesh.

DF

works for me..

Worked pretty well on this hog, boom/flop.

Balancing velocity and bullet weight/type with terminal performance on various critters is a Loony exercise of the first order...

Overthinking, of course...

DF