Wrong .308 load for deer?

B

bassadict69

Inactive
I recently bought a Stevens 200 chambered in .308. The guy I bought it from gave me about 50 rounds of reloads he had. The loads are 175gr Sierra MatchKing with 42 grains of H-4895.

I killed a deer this morning at approx. 75 yards. Problem is, there was little to no blood and we were very lucky to find him about 40-50 yards from where I shot him.

I have always used 150 grain shells for the other calibers I hunt with and never had this problem. Is this not a good load for deer?
 
Sierra MatchKing is a "match" bullet designed for shooting small groups from long range. They are not designed for hunting purpose.
 
match kings don't expand. that's why there was no blood. at least it was a good shot that still messed up the right part of the insides.
 
Just buy some good hunting rounds and save those handloads for "fouling shots" after you clean your barrel.
 
Sounds like target ammo to me. Shouldn't be hard to eat up. Of course make sure whatever you replace it with doesn't fly much different.

I've been playing with some 6.5 140 grain hornady interlock, hornady sst, and hornady Amax. And the interlock shoots groups 1cm to the left. And the others 1cm to the right. Obviously I am now zeroed for the Amax and SST.
 
Consider using the 165gr

SPBT or HPBt for your .308.

150's are fine too.

Matchking was a waste for hunting, @75 yds it just keep going, with poor wound channel.
 
I agree that the reloaded 175 MK are not a proper hunting load. However that being said, you shot a deer, bullet passed through, deer ran 40-50 yards and died, pretty much the same effect I normally get from a .243, 7-08 and others with a non spine or non shoulder hit also. Good shooting on your part, says a lot for the concept that shot placement trumps most other things.
 
I always hunt deer with plain round nose 180 grain bullets for my .308 carbine. Rapid expansion upon impact plus the weight to always drive through the animal and out the other side. Years, ago I tried 150 grain pointed bullets but discovered that meat loss due to higher velocity was not to my liking.

Jack
 
That bullet is essentially a FMJ. It is a 'hollow point' but not meant to expand. The hollow points on 'match' bullets are usually just there to offer a more uniform jacket, and therefore higher accuracy potential and consistency.
At least the bullet was put in the right place. Just goes to show how important placement and penetration are, though.
 
It also shows how important a proper bullet and a good blood trail are.

Those would make good varmint rounds.
 
I shoot match kings out of my 7-08 and have recovered the bullets out of the sand bank with just scratches on em, no expansion. The Sierra loading manual states, match king bullets are not recommended for hunting applications
 
weird, I always hear about people deer hunting with the 75gr hornaday or 77gr sierra SMK's when using .223. maybe the higher velocity causes decent fragmentation out of an AR.
 
I don't know how well you know the person who reloaded these, but I would be VERY cautious shooting someone else's reloads.

You're betting your health on the quality of their work.
 
The last I checked, Oregon regs require expanding rifle ammo. Odds are very slim that a cop or forest ranger would know these are non-expanding hollow points. I've shot a lot of the 150 gain version out of my .308 and they are a nice shooting bullet but I hunt with Nosler partitions these days...

Tony
 
Thanks for all the advise guys! I will be swinging by and grabbing some hunting loads this evening. Hopefully they wont fly too different than the hand loaded match points since I will not have a chance to shoot first.

On second thought, I may just have to grab the trusty 7400 30-06 for tomorrow mornings hunt.
 
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