Printable View
Looking to work up a load for a mate in his 16" barrel 7mm08.
Tossing up between the 139gr SST, or 140gr Prohunter with a healthy dose of H335 underneath. Rifle shot these well prior to chop so imagine with luck they will still do so...
However wondering if a 120gr BT might be a better option to regain a bit of speed from the short barrel?
Forget fancy pants TTSX, Accubond etc, this fella is on a budget!
What are peoples favourite loads?
I'm using 120gr BT in my 18" 7/08. They are doing about 3000fps with H335. Only shot one deer at 220yds, heart shot complete penetration and a couple of goats.
The 120BT is a harder projectile than the 140gr BT, because they cut the 140gr cup shorter to make the 120gr, hence the jacket walls are thicker at the nose on the 120gr.
The 139gr SST still has stellar performance even from short barrels like a mates 15" 7mm08. The 139gr SST or 140gr Ballistic tip are my recommendation.
I am using Speer Hot cor 130 grain Spitzer soft Point with 45.0 grain CFE 223 (~2800fps) in a 16' 7/08 Tikka 595.
Furthest shot was 320 yards at a big billy goat and it dropped it well.
what @stug said, or any cup&core like .... 140gn Sierra PH, 139gn Interloks, 130gn Speer hotcore, all cheap as and great for bush loads
Speer also make a 7mm Hot-Cor 160gr. I use those for sub-sonic loads. Nothing wrong with a heavy, chunky bullet for bush-hobbiting.
ebf my good man youve hit the nail fair square on the head......big fat flat or round nose with heaps of exposed lead...bush hobbit ranges 0-75 yards perfect hard hitting load.... find another splitzer then sight in the lighter load 3" high at hundy,hopefully your fatty will be close to smack on at hundy... job done.
Cheers chaps, looks like we're on the right track. Have some sst and PH on hand so might give them a go as see how they go.
Speer 160gr Hot-Cor (1635) next to 162gr ELD-M for comparison
Attachment 111861
that speer looks good,bet your arse it will be soft enough to expand properly too. Speer make great projectiles.
First thought, for a bushpig <200m, is there a clear advantage from having aerodynamic bullets - spitzers or boat tails - compared to the advantage of a round nosed, exposed lead bullet?
ummmmm NO sub 200 mtrs just about anyshape will get projectile onto target....so a supersleak high BC BLAH DE BLAH jobbie wont shoot the deer any deader than dead. if you can make that projectile connect where it will do most good then the terminal preformance aspect is MORE important...
look at the 180grn-200 grn round nose projectiles that the dirty06 and the 303brit were origonally loaded with...nobody can deny they were VERY good at killing things.
the 180grn round nose hornadies I use in .308 winchester are impressive,as are the 170grn speers in the .270 winchester. they just hit hard.....that said the winchester 180grn power point factory loads in .308 ARENT round or flat nosed BUT they do have good exposed lead and are VERY soft.
@ebf what is performance of the 160 speers as a sub load? Does it expand at all, or are just doing doing head or neck shots?
@stug, only just started playing with them, so no results yet.
i did have a chat to a guy at the local NZDA range, he uses 162 Amax seated back to front. apparently those do expand at sub velocities ...
I have used some of shooternz 130gr lead hollow point sub loads. They are accurate but didn't kill as well as I had hoped. Only 2 goats though.
I also made my own from cutting down 140gr Hornady soft points. I only shot a couple of possums with those.
very few projectiles will expand at subsonic speed.....you can get big long ones to tumble.... and VERY soft ones to open a little...cast HPs will expand the same as a powerpoint .22lr as they pretty much duplicate them...or you spend the big $$$$ for lehigh jobbies.
I run the speer 145gr hotcore soft point in my bush pigged(19"bbl) 284. Unsure re speed but shot well out to 350yds(as far as I have tried) then tried it on a good sized pig last week which it smashed at 50m~. Hard to beat soft points
Attachment 111875Attachment 111876
I give a big vote for the 120 NBT at all ranges out to 400 yards. Ive used them for many years, and the good old 120 Sierra before that.
They group well at 400 yards too :) (18" barrel 7/08 A7)
Attachment 111877
Attachment 111878
+1 for the 120BTip I load them for a couple of guys in 7mm08 they work well.
Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk
I used the 139 Sst for a long time in my 15 inch 7mm08 but experienced blow ups a few times on close range goats that put me off. I ended up shooting 162 eldms and they preformed really well. They were going slow as anything but tbh I think that helped. On the bush pigs topic I have short barrels on most of my rifles and if you shoot within reason there is no reason they can't do a good job at range. I have a 16 inch bergara that I use for tops hunting regularly. When I was loading for it I used a 225 eld m at 2250fps to great effect out to 450 yards but now just use factory 168 ELD M loads at 2620fps and they also do great. I've come to find the eldms seem to do very well when the velocity is kept down.
To note though I always shoot to break the shoulders as I hate running animals as the bloodshot meat lost is nothing compared to losing the whole animal if you cant find it before dark and it sits overnight with its guts in during summer.
For a bush load on average sized reds and the japs I used the 139 gr Hornady FP (flat point) bullet loaded at 2,750 fps. That bullet was made for the 7/30 Waters (a 30/30 necked down to 7mm) in lever action rifles. Great performing bullet. Haven't seen them around for at least 20 years now though.
