deer bullets, whats your experiance with....?

There are certainly differences in game and conditions. I hunt at 6K to 10K feet, temperatures usually below freezing; Mule Deer, Elk and Pronghorn.

I have used the BTs on Pronghorn primarily to get rapid expansion in the ribcage at distances of 300 yards plus. Those guys are not big at all.
 
The 130 gr. Nosler Ballistic Tip is excellent for deer in a .270 Win. I took my best Mule Deer (over 163") in Wyoming at more than 400 yards with this bullet. It has been perfect on Whitetail deer in Missouri and Minnesota. The 180 gr. Nosler Protected Point Partition has also been perfect - three one shot kills of elk at ranges of 25 to 400+ yards, and one Black bear at 400+ yards with my .300 Win Mag. I have hunted with center-fire rifles for over 40 years and have NEVER hunted with a factory loaded center-fire rifle cartridge! (I do not dispute the quality of factory ammo but prefer loads developed for my specific rifles.) I do not claim that Nosler makes the very best hunting bullets, but they have all been excellent in my experience. The same is true for all Hornady and Speer bullets I have used.
 
Toss up between Nosler 140 BT and Hornady 139 SP. I've used both and have excellent results. If you run those at 7mm Mag velocities it's a different story but at the moderate velocity of the 7mm08, either will work fine.
I use Nosler AB in the 257 Wby as I've had bullets blow up on impact. You don't need that sort of expansion control and possibly might be disadvantaged by it.
 
Riverrat--- I use mostly Remington Corlokts when I reload. I have used some Hornady and Speer bullets for calibers I have that I could not get Remington bullets for. It was never a "Cheap" thing for me, but performance. I just looked on the net for Remington bullets for my 7.62x39 and my 7x57. Nothing but back orders for over a year. If you kind of follow this forum or hunting forums, you will constantly see questions about bullet performance on deer. The questions/complaints usually involve "New improved" bullets. I am not a fan of Walmart, but I was in there about two months ago and there was hardly a green and yellow box on the shelf. Ammo with weird bullets was about all that was left.
 
They will all work fantastically. But I don't see any reason to pay the extra for the barnes or the accubond....they would work great but they are unnecessarily tough for this application. I've used hornady interlocks in my .270 and yes, they kill deer. The ballistic tip is probably a bit more emphatic at greater distances (it is essentially a hollow point, just with a plastic tip to increase ballistic coefficient). I'd go for the b-tip or a hornady sst, though a plain old soft point, especially a heavier for caliber one, will do the job just fine and possibly risk less meat damage (the 140 grain hornady btsp .270 damaged very little meat in my most recent experience with said bullet, a big bodied whitetail buck at a little over 100 yards...easily drove through the shoulder and bored straight through the heart, perfectly mushroomed against the offside shoulder...amazingly, the deer still ran over 200 yards through knee deep snow)...also as was already stated by someone else, the reason the special bullets are in stock is entirely a matter of price, not performance. The cheap, and yes I will even say "lesser", bullets fly off the shelves because let's be honest the vast majority of the rounds we fire are at targets and such and we don't need to spend .50-1.0$ a pop on controlled expansion paper punchers.
 
Last 7mm bullets I hunted with were Speer Grand Slam and Nosler Partitions. Both are easy to expand by have a hardened lead bonded in the base that stays together. Shot a muley, and a hog with the Speer and black bear and a hog with the Noslers. Never recovered a bullet or parts of one.

I realize these are old school today, but I think both are still around.
 
I've said it before, but I'll say it again. I, like one of the other guys, have shot about 200 whitetail deer and a bunch of pigs (one of which weighed about 400 pounds) with Nosler BT's of the first and second generation. That's a lot of deer and a lot of years, but I can't remember losing a deer to bullet failure. You might say, and be right, that I don't really know the cause of a lost deer, but I didn't
lose but a couple. I do avoid shooting through the shoulder bones, if I can, and i avoid quartering shot if I can. The big hog was at 40ish yards, and I hit him just behind the shoulder with a 1st generation 130 gr BT and he went straight down. The bullet, starting out at about 3000 fps did not quite penetrate the thick 'plate' on his far side, but almost did. These days I use the BT in the 260 and the 270. I did quit using the 55 gr BT in my 220, because it wouldn't anchor a large pig. Kills them, but not fast enough. And no way I'd use that bullet on a deer.

Anyway, I think that just about every bullet now sold for deer-type hunting will do just fine - SST, Barnes, PowerPoint, coreLoct, AB, and others. And I personally think that one of the best, in terms of price and performance, is the Sierra Gameking.
 
"...am looking for pass throughs..." No you're not. Those mean the energy is not expended in the deer. Otherwise, any of those will do nicely. Any of 'em are just as likely to over penetrate at 50 yards too.
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It matters little if all the energy is expended inside the deer or not.

It's always more desirable to have an exit wound, since entrance wounds tend not to bleed as much, and can result in losing the animal due to a lack of a blood trail.

The one exception I can think of would be fur hunters who don't want extra holes in a pelt
 
Most bullets will go thru a deer depending on where you hit them. I've hunted with .243 and .270 all my life. Lung or heart shot thru the ribs all bullets passed thru. Some quartering shot did not pass thru, these were the deer that fell in their tracks. Never had a bullet fail to perform as expected. Used 85 gr Speer BT in the .243, have shot 130 silvertips, hornady 130 Spire points, The gun I have now likes 130 Nosler Ballistic tips. I wouldn't use the Silvertip or the Ballistic tip on an elk as penetration may be a problem. Bottom line a deer ain't that hard to kill with good shot placement, if you gut shoot him you may have a problem. The Silvertip and the Ballistic tip may come apart but by then the deer's on the ground.
My 2 cents.
 
Boat Tail

Never have I had a Nosler Solid Base bullet blow up,generally no matter what angle the animals have been hit except a front thru the brisket they were pass thru with huge holes when they exit. The small buck hit thru the brisket I recovered the bullet a few inch from the anus, the bullet travel virtually the full length of the deers body. I've been using that bullet for close to 25 years and if I think that ones not tough enough I fall back on Noslers Partitions which I love for the bigger stuff. I should add these bullets are the most accurate bullets I have ever used. With that said I do not like Noslers ballistic tip bullet, the only animal I ever hit the bullet blew up on the surface (neck) but did enough damage I recovered the animal. I did buy quite a few of the Solid base bullets in several calibers when Nosler closed them out and still shoot them today! FWIW I stopped shooting Sierra's many years ago because of the thin Jacket and switched to the Nosler bullet line.. William
 
I've hunted deer for over 50 years and shot them with three different rifle cartridges and several bullet types/styles, all handloaded.

My favorite deer load used to be 130 grain BTs, but have tried Barnes TSX and it worked well, but they fouled my barrel, so switched to Hornady 130 GMX and they're great. Accuracy is good and the only deer killed was from my tree stand and it was running flat-out away from me. The bullet entered behind the shoulders and stayed in the throat area, about 23" of penetration with a perfect mushroom and a dead deer. Weight retained was 97%. The meat cutter was VERY impressed at the wound channel.

I'll continue to use the GMX monolithic bullets, since they're everything I want in a deer bullet and there's NO lead to disperse dust and small particles in the meat (no lead). I'll also try the GMX 80 grain bullets in the .243 Win.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by reynolds357
If you want to be sure of pass through, your choices are immediately limited to the monolithic bullets.
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There are millions of dead deer that prove that statement false
I've shot deer with a variety of cartridge/bullet combinations, and it's very hard to predict what the terminal results will be since there are too many variables

Reality is any cartridge from a 223 up will kill deer easily with good shot placement

Some just leave better blood trails
 
Decent list of bullets:
120gr TTSX

140gr Nosler BT

140gr Nosler AB

139gr Interlock SBT

Of the four, I would go with the 140 AB first, the 139 IL next, then the 140 BT and the 120 TTSX last.
A couple of others I would look at are the 120 gr. Nosler BT and the 145 gr. Speer Hot Core. Might consider the 140 gr. Nosler PT too.

You could also look at a heavier bullet as well. I don't shoot a 7-08 but I do shoot a 7x57 Mauser that I hand load to 7-08 pressures and velocity. Currently I'm working with the 150 gr. Nosler PT, 150 gr. Nosler ABLR, Hornady 154 gr. IL and the Barnes 140 gr. TSX for possible use in an upcoming elk hunt. I'll also be trying those same bullets in a .280 Remington. Still and all, I'll still take my .35 Whelen as my back up gun. ;) I know it's work.
Just a comment on the Speer Hot Core. I've only shot about 15 deer with that bullet but they were the big Nevada and Arizona Mule deer. All were shot with a .308 Win. and I recovered only one bullet from all those deer. All but one were either broadside or quartering broadside shots except one which was facing me at 250 yards, laser measured. Bullet hit in the center of the chest and came to a stop in the left ham bulging the skin. Bullet retain 65% of it's original weight.
Paul B.
 
I have shot more deer than I care to remember. The only bullets that exit every time are the monolithic bullets. I have had one of them that did not exit.
 
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The only bullets that exit every time are the monolithic bullets.
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No bullets "exit every time", but nearly all bullets will exit on a good broadside shot, monolithic or not, if you push them fast enough and make them heavy enough.
 
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