No Blood Trail, Rifle Not Powerful Enough

I aim for the neck, or very low just behind the leg. The low chest shot may be tricky at some distance. The neck is a fairly large target.
 
I use 150 gr coreloks in my .300 Win Mag for deer and 180 gr for elk. No whitetail or mule deer, elk or black bear have ever gone farther then 10 yards after shot behind the shoulder. They usually drop on the spot. The bullet always goes through and puts a good hole in the animal. Not always alot of blood though. I want the shocking power. Weatherby knew what he was talking about.

The same goes for the 270 Win 130 gr I now use (corelok or ballistic tip Winchester). They go down like a rock.

the .308 and 30-06 I had did not put them down like this. Everything I've ever used (except a .243) has always penetrated (and the .243 would have to with nosler partitions).
 
I shoot em (deer, pigs, and coyotes) just behind the shoulder. That has always worked just fine, even on a 'godzilla' Boar I shot some 20 years ago (270, with 130 grain Ballistic Tips). I have always felt that the behind the shoulder shot, if you don't put the bullet too far back, gave me a larger kill zone - more of a vertical zone rather than horizontal. That's more forgiving (for me anyway) if you aren't sure of the range. I started doing it that way back when I had that old 35 Remington, which had a trajectory like a mortar round, and I just carried that approach over to my flatter shooting rifles.
 
Looks live you've found a load thet works. I've used an 18.5" barreled Model 7 for years with 150 Speer Mag Tips. They got impossible to find locally, so I switched to Sierra 150 Pro Hunters over Varget or H4895 with very good results on deer and pigs.
If you want to boost you velocity some and have a bullet that will expand and penetrate any hog or deer stem to stern, try the Barnes TTSX 130. I use the TTSX 95's in my 6.8 SPCII. They perform much better than you would think a light bullet at modest velocity should.
 
it's the BULLET! i will never shoot another deer with a rem, 150 gr corelock bullet again.
i shot a 200 lb dressed buck this fall quartering at me at 150 yds with a .308. perfect shot placement in ''left front quarter' trailed him 2 hrs saturday, 6 hrs sunday, 5 hrs monday, of us outsmarted him and killed him tues. morning. his shoulder was obviouslt broken, bullet didn't exit. we had a fresh snow and he was hurt bad enough that he would bed every time i quit pushing. he would be where i left off the day before. he was also strong enough that out of 6-8 times i kicked him from his bed i only saw him once.
i don.t know about a 30/30 but i know a .308 ahould have ventilated him left front shoulder to right ham. it never got to a vital organ.
i posted this on another forum and asked for bullet recommendationsfor a better bullet. federal supreme[ or something like that] came up in 165 gr. one hunter said he has shot 30 deer with this load in .308 and never lost one. when i asked how the bullets expanded, did they breakup, his answer was he never shot a deer that the bullet stayed in!
i have shot broadside deer with the remington and that is pretty easy kill for any bullet but i will never carry that load again. i never want to do that to another animal or myself again.
bob noffs
n. wi.
 
All bullets are not constructed equally,with this statement I am still a bit confused with the performance of the corelokts? Most reviews of this bullet always seems to get good reviews for hunting thin skinned game?

I personally hunt with 7mm rem mag and use Nosler Partition bullets with nothing but good results,I would try handloading with a better constructed bullet.

Good luck
 
I would come up with your own load using hornady sst's they are great i use them for my .308 and I also use Hornady Amax as well both 168 grain
 
Remington might be making there bullets cheaper like they do everything else now. Get a bonded bullet that keeps most of its weight. If you want it to exit stay away from sst and ballistic tips. Try 168 grain barnes tipped tripple shock. Your .308 is plenty powerfull for anything in the lower 48. Its not the rifle its the bullet. Good luck.
 
Well I saw it again, my Son wanted to shoot a Hog so I took him Sunday evening. A big Boar came out and my Son Shot him in the Shoulder at 142 yards (measured with a Bushnell Backtrack) My Sons Rifle is a Savage 110 30 06 his load was Remington Coreloct 180 grain. He hit the Hog , in the shoulder and dust flew from the Hog, and once again no blood trail. I dont understand it because we have had that gun over 20 years and killed several deer and hogs with it and alwayse got a blood trail with it. I saw the impact and know he hit the hog in the shoulder, his 30 06 should have blown chunks at that short distance but it didnt. I wonder if the material in the bullet has changed.
 
in the shoulder and dust flew from the Hog, and once again no blood trail.
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Do not shoot big hogs in the shoulder: Shoot them low just behind the shoulder-heart shot. Hogs usually leave a skimpy blood trail at best.
 
As I just posted in the other thread, they can scrunch down real low and become almost invisible maybe it hid real close.
 
Tallub is right. You are hitting them in the wrong place. Between the thick shield of a boar and the shoulder blades, your bullet is more likely to stick than to pass through. Go for the spot behind the shoulder and you'll get a cleaner kill AND a pass-through.
 
Using a 30-06 and 150gr core lokt on hogs from 100 yards to 200 the bullets exploded. Not a single exit between 3 shot. All were dead and clean kills, but I decided to move to 165gr in both 30-06 and 308. I mostly use Speer 165gr SPBT in my 308, handloaded now. Power points and core lokt are both good hunting bullets for deer and hogs though. Atleast for shots 300 yards or less, which is the ranges most people harvest game.
 
too hasty

Much ado about nothing. A .308/150 is a classic deer load, I'd think more than enough for a TX whitetails and hogs, irregardless of barrel length/velocity or lack of it. The OP claims to have shot 3 animals, recovered two, and the third may or may not have been a hit, and may not have been a good hit.

The next three may drop on the spot, with or without exit wounds. How dead does the deer need to be?

Bamaboy and I each killed a mature buck last season with the .308 Hog Rifle and 1st generation 180 gr Nosler B-tips. Slightly quartering shots, and neither yielded an exit, we recovered both bullets. Both deer went 10-20 yds before piling up. We care not a bit. We shot the 180's cause the rifle likes'em, and I traded for a couple of hundred. Also have had good luck with Sierra flat base 150's, from two other rifles, and one of those has a stubby barrel too.

If you've lost confidence in the load, why not change if that might boost confidence, but I'm claiming any 150, cup and core bullet from a .308 will work for you, just give it a chance.
 
It's a 2 year old thread, and the OP hasn't been here since:
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That does not mean that the question has been answered adequately for everybody ...... nor that new readers can't gain from insight that was first laid down years ago....... nor that new posters can't have their $.02 .......

..... I come here to kick it around- talk about gun stuff ...... if you don't want to do that ..... then don't.
 
That does not mean that the question has been answered adequately for everybody ...... nor that new readers can't gain from insight that was first laid down years ago....... nor that new posters can't have their $.02 ....
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I agree about all that.
I just wanted to pont out the fact it's an ancient thread for those who hadn't noticed, and there probably won't be any response from the OP
 
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