Premium vs standard ammo for hunting

[beardenbc]

This is an offshoot from another thread where the debate came up.

Is it worth it to you to pay the extra $$$ for premium ammunition, or are you fine with just a standard round for hunting? What are the bennies for you?

I pay the extra premium for Corbon hunters, but mainly because most other 7.62x39 ammo is cheap and not much good for hunting. The bullet itself is nothing spectacular, just heavier, and the ammo itself is loaded hotter.

On other rifles, I've used both standard and premo, and got pretty much the same result. Red tasty meat with one shot.

What's everyone else's take on it?

 

[Relod'n]

Premium for small game at long range. Standard for everybody else.

 

[Art Eatman]

Depends on what's hunted and what are the circumstances. If I were going on some high-dollar trophy hunt, I'd be more picky about what bullet I used. Just to go out in the pasture and kill Bambi, any old bullet, generally, would do just fine, just as they always have.

 

[sasquatch]

If I were going on some high-dollar trophy hunt, I'd be more picky about what bullet I used.

With the cost of out-of-state licenses and tags running well over $600, I consider my hunting trips to Idaho and Montana "high-dollar", and am therefore "picky" about the bullets I use.

 

[taylorce1]

To me premium bullets are needed on what I'm trying to accomplish hunting and the rifle I'm using. If I'm using light bullets for the caliber I'll use premium bullets while hunting large game. the same goes if I'm using a small caliber rifle for big game I'll use a premium bullet. Of course there are exceptions to what I'm doing every time as well. I'll give some examples of what I'm talking about.

For deer with my .270 I'll use plain old Sierra or Hornady boat tails in 130 grain, but if I go up to elk I use 150 grain Nosler Partitions. Will the regular 150 grain take out an elk probably but I like the extra insurance the premium bullet gives me. Now for hunting elk with the .30-06 I like just a regular 180 grain bullet as at the speeds they are traveling the standard hunting bullet from Sierra, Hornady, and Speer work just fine. If I were to step down to 150-165 then I would use a premium bullet again like the Partition.

For my large bore rifles like my .338-06 and .35 Whelen I really don't see a need for a premium bullet as I just barely reach 2800 fps with 200 grain bullets with my most accurate load and they standard bullet will perform just fine. For my bores smaller than .270 I prefer the premium bullet for all large game animals, but all varmints just get whatever bullet is accurate in my rifles.

My exception to the rule was when I went to AK to hunt a black bear. I used 200 grain Nosler Partitions in my 06 just because I knew I wanted penetration. I planed on taking the running gear away from the bear with my first shot. Since I planned on breaking heavy bone I wanted a heavy bullet that would penetrate. My first shot at 200 yards shattered both front shoulders and the bear never moved again which is what I wanted.

For premium bullets my favorite is the Partition, but I'll admit I've tried very few outside of the Partition. I've found I get decent accuracy and I've never had one fail on me. I'm sure there have been improvements over this bullet as very little has changed on it since it was designed, but I know this bullet works and will continue to work for most of my hunting situations. For 85% of my hunting regular old Sierra, Speer and Hornady work and have yet to fail me.

 

[Pathfinder45]

I Use 'em All

What I like about 150 grain Nosler Partitions in my .270 is the groups I get with a particular load at 300 yards. What I don't like is their price. The 130 Speer flat base I have used on several deer. No need for improvement there! I can't resist a good deal on reloading components at the gun show. I save my Partitions for the pet load and that's what I'll use for hunting. For higher volume plinking and practice I use everything else. I've yet to shoot an animal with the partition but I expect it will at least be adquate.

 

[davlandrum]

For me, in a one-deer-a-year state, I am willing to pay a little extra (If I use more than a few bullets a year hunting, something is wrong).

I have confidence in them, and that is half of the game.

 

[ZeroJunk]

I have shot deer and elk with Nosler Partitions, Barnes X, Sierra Game Kings, Hornady Ballistic Tips, Hornady Interlock, Remington CoreLokt, probably some others I can't remember

Fact is I didn't much think about it for years, and bought whatever the gun store I was in was selling.

The animals I have had to track more than I wanted over the years was from a bullet being to tough and not expanding.
I have had jackets separate in the hide on the near side of the animal, but the remainder did great damage and he was dead nearby. I would rather have that than an X zipping through and leaving a pencil size wound.

All and all the old standby Nosler Partition is a good balance.

 

[sasquatch]

What I like about 150 grain Nosler Partitions in my .270 is the groups I get with a particular load at 300 yards.

Of all the premium bullets I have tried, that one shoots best in my .270, as well.

What I don't like is their price.

If you reload, at around 40¢ per round they really aren't all that expensive. I figure a box of 20 rounds costs me about $11 dollars to reload.

 

[oldcspsarge]

Nosler Partitions

Great Premium Bullet !

The K-mart/Wally World promo ammo may work, but we usually take time off work, drive/fly a fair distance and work to get into the habitat.....a premium bullet may make the difference in dropping the game and spending the rest of the day tracking it !

If you dont hand load, loads like Federal Premium are loaded to a tighter spec for consistant velocity and point of impact.

All worth consideration on a hunt !

 

[kingudaroad]

I use premium bullets exclusively I guess because I want my reloads to have every possible advantage of accuracy and terminal ballistics.I spend a lot of time with case prep on rifle cartridges and don't want to leave any details that I have control over.

So if I'm target shooting I'm looking for one hole groups and do not want to take shortcuts at any part of the cartridge. The cost difference is not enough to make me buy non premium.

If I'm hunting there is not enough volume for there to make any difference. This year my rifle shot 5 deer and one hog. Let's see, that amounted to six bullets.

I see no advantage to shooting 500 rounds through my bolt action rifle in one sitting. It will do nothing for barrel life, and it would get so hot your accuracy would suffer anyway.

 

[Scorch]

Lots of game animals have been killed deaddeaddead with Winchester or Remington factory ammo. Hitting the animal where it counts is what kills them the best. In general, the only premium bullets I pay much attention to are Nosler Partitions. Others either cost too much or are not as good as the Nosler. Unless you find the high priced premium bullets shoot that much better in your gun, I would not waste my money on them.

The animals I have had to track more than I wanted over the years was from a bullet being to tough and not expanding.

Exactly my experience, too.

 

[azredhawk44]

After looking into bullet separation and fragmentation on inexpensive ammo versus more premium bullet construction ammo, I've decided to use mid-to-high grade ammunition for hunts from now on.

Typically, the cheapest stuff out there tends to explode and separate from its jacket on impact. Nicer stuff sticks together better.

My .308 load from here on out is going to be the Hornady BTSP Interlock 165gr for smaller game and the Speer Hot Cor 180gr for elk.

It doesn't take Nosler/Barnes prices to keep the bullet together, but sometimes you need more than what the cheapo Remington PSP fodder can accomplish.

 

[jhgreasemonkey]

It is a real bummer to have a bullet blow to pieces on impact and riddle the meat with fragments. It is also rare but I have experienced it. The deer was killed with a second shot and this time the bullet did its job. After the deer was processed we still ended up picking pieces of bullet out of the deer sausage as we ate it. This was good ol standard rem corelokt sp .270 win which for standard hunting ammo has a pretty good rep so this one must have been a rarity. I shot one deer in the same area as this one (vitals broadside) at about the same distance 75 yds with the same bullet and caliber a couple years ago and it did fine. If anything it didnt expand enough but the deer dropped in his tracks. I shot a deer in the skull with a 7mm rem mag with rem corelokt and there was no fragmentation that time.
I dunno. I have heard of the premium stuff like the hornady accubonds coming apart too so.........
For now I stick with the standard federal powershock and like it fine.
If I was hunting something other than deer especially dangerous game I would upgrade though.

 

[Buzzcook]

Traditional bullets work fine for me. That doesn't mean that premium bullets aren't worth the price.

I use mostly Hornady Traditional #3031 .308 I've never lost a deer with them though a couple did run off.
When I've used premium bullets the deer didn't wander off but they also didn't drop any harder than the SP when I was doing my part.

If I was in situations where the chance of losing a deer was higher than where I hunt now I'd use a premium bullet.

 

[Lawyer Daggit]

I agree with posts saying it depends on the situation.

I think if you are 'stretching' a rifle's or rounds capability then use premium.

Thus, I would use ordinary hornady interlock in my 7x57 on Fallow deer, but if after Sambar, would probably use a premium bullet.

 

[Fremmer]

For deer hunting, I use Federal Premium, not because of the bullet performance (which is excellent), but because Federal Premium shoots the most accurately out of my rifle.

If plain-jane soft point ammo (like Core-Lokt) was the most accurate of the my rifle, I'd use it.

 

[rem870hunter]

i think the regulars will be fine. as often as we go where we can use a rifle. the ammo we have will be fine last time we hunted with rifle was virginia in1993, the federal hi shok and remington core lokt. we use more of the remington in 30-06 180 gr. and 200 gr. .35 rem. as far as handgun we use are own handloads of .357 magnum with 158 gr. JSP. or factory loaded .45 acp with 185 gr. silvertips. we tried a few different brands and bullet weights. and went with what gave us the tighter group at 100 or 200 yards. kinda hard with the .35 because rem. and federal are the only companies making it.

 

[Pathfinder45]

I never use factory ammo for hunting. If we're going to call all hand-loaded ammo as premium then all I use is, "premium". However, I don't consider a hand-loaded .270 with Speer 130 grain spitzer to be premium. Never the less, I've killed more than a few deer with them and am convinced that nothing is better for deer. Maybe as good as; but certainly not better. I have faith that some premium bullets are better for Elk, etc.; but that's blind faith. My current .270 seems to have a preference for 150 grain bullets especially Nosler Partitions loaded at or near 3,000 fps. I consider that load, "premium". It leaves nothing to be gained by switching to a magnum and I hope to get an opportunity to use it on Elk. For deer and factory ammo I think that premium ammo is a, "waste of money", unless it's the only stuff that's accurate in your gun or you're using a .223 or 7.62x39 or something similar that's known to be marginal at best for deer. But waste away and have fun; after all, many of us have wives that think hunting itself is a huge waste of money. Mathematically they're probably right, but I'm not going to stop. So I say it's ALL good........

 

[lockedcj7]

Depends. I used to have very limited hunting opportunities and had to drive a long way. I wanted to use Nosler ballistic tips and they weren't offered in a factory load at that time. That forced me to take up metallic reloading.

Now I can hunt from my back yard any day I want. I've discovered over the years that factory ammo from Rem, Win. and Fed. is more than enough if the gun isn't already marginal. Generally, I use core-lokts in the woods and step up to BTs for open-field hunting since they tend to shoot a little flatter and be a little more accurate for me.