Between these two options for the savage 99 which do you prefer for deer?


I personally do not have any hunting experience with either of these bullets.

I've shot several deer with both in 150 gr. The deer died. If both meet your accuracy needs, pick the cheaper one. I personally prefer Federal over Winchester but that is due to having a lot of Federal brass on hand.

I've used PowerPoint. Worked; whitetail, DRT.

OTOH, I usually try several different likely factory loads (in a rifle I don't handload for) and choose whatever seems to be most accurate -- assuming appropriate bullet construction. Happens PPs did just fine in the accuracy department... in my rifle. Whitetail deer, at least, don't need much in the way of fancy bullet design, assuming reasonable distances.

Happens I've been thinking about .300 Savage handloads... considering Barnes TSX (which are slightly shorter than their TTSX)... or maybe some of the partitioned and.or bonded designs. Haven't gotten far in my research, but this would be for hunting mice to moose... not just deer. The issues I see are mostly about bullet length vs. neck length.

"Mice to moose" -- conceptually, also means NOT brown/Kodiak/polar bears, NOT bison, NOT any sort of Big Five" or whatever. For me, that will more likely really be about hunting the elusive paper tiger; I've also been researching recipes for woodpulp, and I bet I can find a way to tenderize those targets in a pressure cooker if necessary.

-Chris

Buy a box of each and see which one shoots better groups in your rifle.

I don;t know if there is a meaningful difference between Federal's cup & core bullets and Winchester/Olin's.

I've always loaded my 300 Savage ammo and when I was shooting a Remington 760 in 300 Savage I used 170 grain Remington RCL 30-30 bullets.

In your shoes I would also try a box of the 150 grain Hornady Whitetail cartridges. Nothing wrong with those others either, just personal experience with the Hornady Interlock bullet on deer out of a similar .308.

I tried several commercial loads in my 300 and settled on the Winchester power point because it shot much tighter groups out of my rifle.I would try several loads and go with the most accurate.Most of the bullet choices available now will perform well on north American game.Accuracy to me is more important.

I have an M99 in 300, but I use only a peep sight. From a rest I have never got a true average MOA load, but I come very close with my best handloads.

The 3 bullets I have got the smallest 5 shot groups from have all been loaded with either 39 or 40 grains of IMR4064 and a 150 grain Sierra Round Nose, a 150 grain Remington Core-Lokt or a 150 grain Nosler "Ballistic Tip Hunting"

I keep good notes in my "rifle journal" and what I have written here is as follows:

The RN Sierra gave me my best groups with the smallest being 1.108" CTC and average of 1.169 for 3 groups. 40 grain charge. I have killed deer with this bullet but always from 308 Winchesters and so far not one from a 300 Savage, but I am sure they will be the same results. Unlike many other Sierras I have not had one of these blow up on a deer. I have killed 9 deer with them. 7 from a 308 (Smith Enterprises M14) and 2 from a 30-06 (Mauser Carbine) and all but 2 stayed in the deer. I like exits, but I have to give credit when it's due and the recovered bullets were all well mushroomed and all held about 2/3 to 3/4 of their weight.

The Remington gave me the smallest single group, with one measuring 1.007 but the average being 1.263" 40 grain charge. I have used these in 300 savage, 308s 30-06 and 30-40 Krag and they do fine for deer and antelope. All good kills and not one recovered so far.

The Noslers gave me it's smallest at 1.200 and average 1.311" 39 grain charge. (about 2.5 MOA in the Remington M81 I use them in) I have used this bullet in both 30-06 and in 300 savage to kill game and other then one last year, all of them worked fine. One I made a hit with last year turned 90 degrees in the chest on the ribs and cut off 6 ribs as it headed to the rear end of the deer even though the deer was exactly broadside to me Very weird. Fired from 30-06 I have had exits every time and I did recover one from a deer I killed with a Mossberg MVP 308. It's recovered weight was still 124 grains. That's very good performance.


For my 300 Savage loads I see no good reason to try to tighten those groups because they were all shot under perfect condition on a bench rest with a V bag at the butt of the rifle and with clear skies and no wind. Such conditions can't be duplicated in the field and for an iron sighted hunting rifle, trying to get smaller groups is a total waist of time and money because I can't take advantage of that kind of accuracy with iron sights anyway. For killing deer and antelope, they have been just fine. If a rifle is 2X more accurate then I can hold it, trying to get it to shoot 6 X better then I can hold it will not give me any extra ability in the field. I get very demanding of my rifles for target work, Coyotes hunting or prairie dogs, but for deer guns with iron sights trying to get ragged hold groups is a waist of time because I don't carry a 400 pound bench and 2 heavy bags with me when I hunt.

I have 2 rifles in 300 Savage. My Savage 99 and my Remington M81, (which works best with the 39 grain charge hence the 2 loads) All accuracy tests above were from the Savage because the 81 has factory open sights and I can't do any better with regular open sights then about 2.5 inches, no matter how accurate the rifle or the loads would be. On a cloudy day getting 4 MOA is good for me now that I am in the Geezer Club. I get tighter groups from the Savage with it's peep sight and better trigger, , so I then load the Remington with the same ammo and if it will shoot all of it's rounds into 2.5" or less I figure that's all I could do anyway, even if the gun and load would shoot 1/4 MOA, there is no way I would ever be able to know it. When I carry my 81 I just get close enough to not worry about how small the groups might be.
I killed 2 whitetails last year with that rifle. I fired 4 shots and all 4 were hits. 1 in the 1st deer and 3 in the 2nd deer, which I wrote about in a post last November detailing how the bullet did one of those super weird things that can't be explained easily. 1st shot was a center chest hit and the bullet turned 90 degrees and never hurt the lungs at all. Next was low and took out a front leg leg and the 3rd was through the brain. 4 for 4, so it can't be too bad, even if my 2nd shot was pulled about 6" low. (That poor hit was all me, not the gun or load) The 1st of those 2 whitetails was hit almost in an identical way as the other deer. Center of the chest and almost broadside, and that one fell after moving about 6 feet. The bullet gave me a straight through wound and exited with a 2" hole-------- which is what I usually see with them.

I never like bullet that tend to break up badly for any big game. The ones above have always done OK for me except for that one Nosler and I have to believe it was a fluke because I have used in in the past from 30-06 rifles and never had a problem. Some bullets I have tried in the past in various caliber have had high percentages of hit that broke up, and a few were 100% break-ups. So I stay away from those.

Another that has been quite good in the old plain vanilla Winchester 150 grain Power Point, and I have killed deer, elk and antelope with them so I would recommend them too, despite the face that I have not used them in a 300 Savage to kill anything with (yet) From 308s and 30-06 I have been well pleased with them. If for any reason I was hunting with a 300 Savage rifle and I had to buy ammo (instead of assembling it myself ) I think I would try to get Winchester ammo, just because I have seen some very good accuracy from it in other calibers, and because I know what to expect from their 150 grain Power Point, and I like what I have seen in the past. I and my wife have both broken shoulder bones on elk with them from a 308 and they held together well and penetrated a LOT better then I would have guessed. I have 2 on my mantel right now I cut from elk and one weighs 129 grains, the other 131 grains.

I have 50 round loaded with 150 grain Nosler Partitions too, and I have used them in the past from 308s, 30-06s and 30-40 Krags so I know they do perfectly, but to the best of my knowledge you can't buy them loaded in factory 300 Savage ammo. I believe that is probably the Gold Standard for a deer bullet in the 300 Savage, but (so far) I have not shot any game with one from any 300 Savage. From 308s and 30-06s they leave nothing to be desired.

Wow good write up. You a brother to RonT?

That brought a smile to my face.