.308 bullet for whitetail

W

Who Dey William

Inactive
Most commercial 150 grain .308 loads will put down a whitetail, but I am wondering what the best round for me would be. I'll be hunting with a Remington 700 and shooting from 150 yards and under. The $45/ box Barnes, for example, don't seem to be worth it for my purposes. I've been looking at Hornady's American Whitetail interlocks and I've heard good things, but my pops swears by Remington's Core Lokt offering. Any experience with these (and possibly other) more wallet-friendly deer rounds? God bless.
 
Best? Wallet friendly? The two terms are usually mutually exclusive.
You pretty much cant go wrong with any .308 bullet for whitetail. My favorite is the Federal Fusion.
 
Premium bullets have their place. If the cartridge you are using is considered borderline too small for the game hunted or in some cases for work at extreme ranges a better bullet can make a difference.

But whitetail at under 200 yards ain't hard to kill and a 308 with any bullet is more than enough. I bought a box of the Hornady ammo just to shoot some at the range and it was very accurate in my rifle and the price is right. Nothing wrong with the Remington ammo either. Basically anything in 308 that shoots well in your rifle will suffice.

That said, I usually use a more expensive bullet. But I hand load and can load up the expensive bullets for less than I can buy cheap factory loads. For what you want to do they wouldn't make a bit of difference. But there is something to be said for using the same load for everything. A better bullet wouldn't help most of the time. But I don't always hunt whitetails, and I'm not always limited to 200 yard shots.
 
With 308 I would pick any expending ammo that shoots well in the rifle. It will put meat in the freezer.
 
Remington core lokt have been putting brown on the ground long before any of today specialty bullet and ammo makers.

Don't see a problem using those core lokt at the distance your shooting. 150 gr. SP is a dandy 308 cartridge for the taking of any deer out to 150 yards. The only difference between a Remington 150 Gr. Core Lokt and a Hornady Interlock . "Their price."
 
Your title said "bullet" so if you ever load your own, I would recommend Sierra 150 gr. Pro Hunters. They work well with RL 15 and several other "medium" powders.
 
You can put down a white tail deer with any hunting type bullet, at just about any weight at 200 yards.

If you just want to put meat in the freezer, go 150 gr because it will have a good maximum point blank range, and with a proper shot will drop a deer no problem.

The Remington core lokt though is the most hard hitting non-premium bullet I have ever used....closely followed by Speer hot cores.
To improve on them you need something like the partition or Barnes bullets. Then the Woodleigh's etc. etc.
 
I'd expect at that range you'd be hard pressed to find a .308 caliber bullet that wouldn't take a deer if you choose one that shoots accurately from your gun and you do your part.
 
I'd say the Federal fusion offering over the Remington Core lokt. For whitetails the Remington bullets may work OK, but I've seen numerous failures on elk with them. The Federal fusions would be my choice.
 
I'm a huge fan of 180 grain round nose core-lokt ammo. It delivers rapid expansion upon impact just like the faster 150's but with the weight and related momentum of the 180.

Jack
 
I have to agree with Jack on this one. I'd rather shoot with a round nose bullet if you want a better chance of good expansion and clean quick kills. Core-lokt just do the job perfectly for that. Either way any good 150 gr. hunting bullet will do the job perfectly fine as well. Just as important is make sure it shoots well and accurately out of whatever rifle you use.
 
Last edited:
Anything with a regular cup and core bullet that shoots 2moa or better from your rifle will meet your criteria.

Pro hunter, game king, sst, interlock, speer btsp, hot core, cor lokt, or Winchester powerpoint all come to mind.
 
Whatever 150gr persuasion that shoots the best in your rifle. In my VTR, reloads with 150 Corelokts shoot into a 1/2"
 
Last edited:
Try 165's instead of 150's. A 165 SP out of a .308 will kill any game you care to hunt in North America.
What brand doesn't matter much, but you have to try as many brands as you can to find the ammo your rifle shoots best. The price of said ammo means nothing.
Hornady's American Whitetail 165's runs $22.99 per 20 at Cabela's. Good place to start. And you do not need 1 MOA for deer. Two or 3 inches consistently at 100 is good enough. You do need to practice with that ammo though. Think off hand at 100 yards at a 9" pie plate. When you can hit it every time, you're ready.
 
Find what your rifle shoots the best, but given acceptable accuracy the 150gr core-lokt is a good choice at normal ranges, other spectacular performers are the Ballistic Tip, Hornady SST (the red tips) and Sierra Game Kings (Federal Premium loads them) those last three will also give you longer range then the core-lokt should you ever need it. Most 150gr bullets are designed for rapid expansion so most any of them will perform on deer, but once you get to 180gr you have to really read up because many of those 180gr bullets are designed for much thicker bodied game and might not get adequate energy transfer on a cross body shot on a whitetail.
 
Honestly, the Winchester 150 gr power point is probably as good as any load in the 308.
The idea that one bullet may (that MAY not necessarily will)retain more weight better than another is totally irrelevant if both bullets expand and exit.

Remember, it's not actually a bullet that kills a deer, but the bullet HOLE that kills the deer.

If the hole is large in diameter and it goes clear through and exits, nothing else can be done by that bullet (or any other bullet) and no other bullet can do any better.

Bullets that don't exit can be improved on, sometimes by a LOT, but Remington Core Lokt and WW power points nearly always go on through and both expand well.

On deer I have had about 50% of the Sierra bullets I have used over the last 50 years have blown up, and so far I have not seen even one Burger that didn't blow up on ANY animal ANY time at ANY distance, ----but other then those, it's hard to find a 150 grain 308 load that would not be excellent for any deer any where
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top