Thread: what is the best 308 130GR pojectile for deer

Stick with 150-165 grainers and slow them down if necessary, suppress your rifle for sound AND recoil reduction

Originally Posted by Jaco Goosen

Sweet! Thats exactly the same results I got. Time and again - very consistan performance.

What did you hunt/shoot?

Yep hits them hard alright, I just wonder what they're like below 2,300fps. It was an older red hind.
Entry hole of a fallow buck around 150m, I've found it minces everything out to around 150m/2,600fps. I reckon they're good for awkward angles because of the penetration.

Originally Posted by 7mmsaum

Stick with 150-165 grainers and slow them down if necessary, suppress your rifle for sound AND recoil reduction

You're caught between a bit of a rock and a hard place @57jl. You want a big fat mushroom but without the explosive fragmentation. Big fat mushrooms don't materialise unless you drive monolithics or bonded bullets quite fast, or very fast, which generally means quite a lot of felt recoil.

Certainly not arguing about the effectiveness of the faster, lighter pills when everything in is your favour, but you've gotta make sure you get really solid resistance to get the best out of the monolithics. Hit them slightly wrong and you'll have a recovery hunt on your hands. Sure that can be the same for any bullet, but in my experience a hit too far back with a heavy, soft bullet even at modest velocity is going to make a much bigger hole and kill much faster than a hard mono, especially a rear lung hit.

If you're recoil sensitive with the shoulder injury, a fast, slightly lighter bullet can still give you quite a sharp thump, especially with a faster powder like 2206H.

This is what I'd do, no question, what @7mmsaum suggests. I'd download a 165gr class, soft bullet with slower powder. Recoil will be more of a shove than a crack. Good bullets to consider with this in mind, driven at low book speeds (2300fps MV for a .308 carbine, for impacts 1800-2200fps):

Speer BTSP, 165gr
Sierra GameKing 165gr (softpoint version)
Hornady A-Max or ELD-M, 168gr
Sierra TMK, 168gr

The first three I've used with success in .308 Win. The Speer and the GameKing make a really beaut wide mushroom at these speeds and don't really shed a lot of fragments. This carcass from the other day, hit at 321m with the Speer, which is about ~2,000fps at impact. This heavy red hind collapsed on the spot.





The A-Max is a bit more inclined to fragment, but at lower impact speeds it makes really nice mushies. The TMK I haven't used but the photos I've seen of low velocity impacts are impressive, with fast, clean killing without the gore.

I had a couple of surface blow ups with 125gr accubonds from 16" .308 doing around 2900. both occasions deer was around 20m away. have any of you lot had the same experience?

good information guys, i'm learning heaps.

Yep sum good info, I have a brand new M70, 308 Featherweight stainless, sitting in a box beside me at present, about to pull the scope off, the AV 7x64, and move it on.
Looking at loads, and what I want to do with 308, on a blustery, rainy, fall day in Northern Canada.