Rifle ammo

walleyesforme wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>weedis wrote:</div>
My buddy hand loads and lucky enough he has the dies for 300wsm, which is hard enough ammo to find. He loaded me 180gr accubonds and couldn’t be happier so far. Accurate and lethal, two deer this year went a total of about a yard. A lot cheaper too. When I could get ammo regularly, I did like the fusions, same gun shot those well.

I have a Ruger in 300 WSM and have only shot one deer with it and that was with core lokts and the performance of those was absolutely terrible. It got the job done but left a hole the size of a basketball in it. After talking to some friends that have guns in that caliber they said those bullets just aren’t built for that kind of power. Just an FYI for anyone else out there that’s looking at different options.

I did try core lokts at the range once but for whatever reason it would not cycle very well, hard to pull the bolt back at times. Only round I have found to do this. That’s as far as I got with those but what could be “bad” round for one gun could be a great one for another.

I switched to solid copper monolithic bullets a handful of years ago in my .270 and never see myself going back.

Four reasons:

They save meat

No lead fragments

100% weight retention (unless a petal falls off)

Pass throughs are far more common

Core-Lokts definitely kill deer, but they are like throwing a hand grenade into the animal. (I’ve shot A LOT of deer with them in the past)

Over covid thy quit making the winchster bullets I shoot for my Ruger 7mm. Switched to Horandy 138 grain and it shoots them very well. Has been a very good bullet for m.

B-man wrote:

I switched to solid copper monolithic bullets a handful of years ago in my .270 and never see myself going back.

Four reasons:

They save meat

No lead fragments

100% weight retention (unless a petal falls off)

Pass throughs are far more common

Core-Lokts definitely kill deer, but they are like throwing a hand grenade into the animal. (I’ve shot A LOT of deer with them in the past)

Heart shots waste no meat besides the heart

I used to use nothing but Federal Blue Box but switched to Fusion after talking to an engineer at Federal. I shoot a 30 .06

John Rasmussen wrote:

I used to use nothing but Federal Blue Box but switched to Fusion after talking to an engineer at Federal. I shoot a 30 .06

The Fusions interested me but don’t shoot as well out of my Ruger .30-06. Guns all have their own personality.

Brad Dimond wrote:

Guns all have their own personality.

I’m running an older Savage, haven’t noticed an issue.

John Rasmussen wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Brad Dimond wrote:</div>
Guns all have their own personality.

I’m running an older Savage, haven’t noticed an issue.

No issues with the Fusion, the Blue Box just is more accurate. 5 shot groups of 1 1/8 inch with the Blue Box, 1 1/2 with the Fusion. Doesn’t really matter in my deer hunting situation, never shot one at more than 75 yards. When I use up the Blue Box I’ll try other bullets.

B-man wrote:

Core-Lokts definitely kill deer, but they are like throwing a hand grenade into the animal. (I’ve shot A LOT of deer with them in the past)

Yep. They’re very effective but definitely don’t retain much weight after impact. I actually like that for safety reasons. One of my spots has at least 10 houses within a half mile or so of the 40 acres parcel I’m hunting. I always pay attention to the direction I shoot and always shoot from an elevated stand but I like knowing that there’s little threat of a pass through going rogue and ending up somewhere i don’t want it to go.

For whatever reason, the Hornady SST in 165 grain groups the best out of anything for my 308. I’ve tried dozens of rounds over the years. So many half used boxes of ammo in my safe.

Brad Dimond wrote:

No issues with the Fusion, the Blue Box just is more accurate. 5 shot groups of 1 1/8 inch with the Blue Box, 1 1/2 with the Fusion. Doesn’t really matter in my deer hunting situation, never shot one at more than 75 yards. When I use up the Blue Box I’ll try other bullets.

Gotcha. I still have some blue box sitting around. Like I mentioned one of there engineers told me the performance on the fusion was quite superior so I bought some along with another guy from the group and while its hard to tell they do seem to work better.

I shot a doe this morning with a .308, 180 grain federal blue box. They shoot the best of anything I’ve shot out of that gun but that being said it’s a hunting rifle so it’s not exactly a tack driver, Winchester model 70 featherweight. Bullet performed very well and left a nice hole in the top of the heart. Nice neat hole going in and out. It walked out on a trail at about 150 yards and layed down. I waited and made sure it had no fawns and shot and it never got up. Several years ago I had a box of federal fusions for the same gun and they didn’t seem to perform very well for me. They did really weird things inside the animal. I think that gun shot 5 deer that year and not one bullet went straight through. A couple hit right in the sweet spot and came out the neck, one was hit in the front shoulder and it came out the top of the head and one was a was out there, 378 yards and it hit perfectly and the bullet barely went inside the body cavity and lodged in the spine by the hind quarters. I was able to recover that bullet and it never even began to open up. It looked like it did in the box minus the rifling marks. People swear by them but it’s a pass for me.

waldo9190 wrote:

Shot my buck this year with a 130 TMK (tipped match king) handload out of the 6.5 creed and it absolutely hammered him. Top of heart gone, lungs shredded, and a nice 50 cent sized exit. Perfect performance.

There is a 65 or so page thread on the Rokslide forum of guys tipping game over at ranges longer than pretty much all of us shoot (elk and the like up to and including 600+ yards) with match bullets out of 6.5s, 6s, and even hotrod 22 cartridges like the 22 creedmoor.

The primary thing to consider with match bullets is that YMMV heavily depending on the specific projectile. There are tons of success stories with projectiles like the 130 TMK, 130/140/147 eldm, or most of the Berger offerings. HOWEVER, I would absolutely NOT shoot game with something like a 142 SMK.

End of the day, do your research and put it in the boiler room. We’re blessed to be living in an age with tons of great bullets for pretty much all of the popular cartridges.

I can concur with all of this. 77 gr sierra TMK and 75 grain eldm are stone cold killers out of my 22 creed and 1/8 twist 22-250. Extraordinarily fun to shoot at distance on steel. Feel like I’m cheating. Game performance has looked like an ordinary cup and core bullet – pencil entrance, lungs turned to soup, exits have been about 50/50. Golf ball to baseball sized when they have happened. YMMV but I’m happy so far. The wind bucking ability on the prairie is damn nice