Posted: 9/14/2008 6:39:04 PM EDT
| Alright guys, deer season is approaching and I will be hunting with a .300WM instead of my '06. I need some good deer loads for it. Shots could range from 30 Yds, out to 250. These need to be factory loads. I don't reload. I hunted with winchester supreme ballistic silvertips in my 06' and had good luck, but am afraid I will disintegrate a deer with that load out of a .300WM. Also, forgot to mention that I need the deer to do down ASAP - I am surrounded by all swampland, and if that deer gets into the swamp it is as good as gone. THANKS! |
| No matter what load you shoot out of your 300 you aren't going to disintegrate the deer. If you aren't reloading just get a few boxes of factory hunting loads and see which one your gun is more accurate with. My 300RUM just puts slightly bigger holes than my 06. |
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That is a tough order... You are asking for excellent performance at basically all ranges out of a high-performance cartridge. The closer range shots are the ones that worry me.... At short ranges the expected impact velocities will cause abrupt and extreme expansion. A 'regular' bullet isn't up to the task. Your typical .30 cal off-the-shelf bullet is designed to expand at and reliably hold together at .308/.30-06 impact velocities. Add several hundred feet-per-second impact velocity at very close range out of that .300 and those lightly constructed bullets over-expand. You'll get inconsistent performance. They will drop one deer like a box of rocks, then fail dramatically on the next. You could opt for a 'traditional' performance bullet. Old standby's like the Nosler Partition. These are not ideal for your use. In my experience they always work, but they do not cause the sort of instant kill you are requesting. Your only reliable option that will consistently fill the bill as you requested, in my book, is one of the newer bond premiums. Take your pick. You can combine massive expansion (for dramatic kills) and reliable 'hold-togetherness" for that 25 yard shot. Expect to pay for this performance. In all honesty the .300WSM is a handicap. Increased velocities do not help, but rather hinder. The benefits obtained by increased velocities are off-set by the problems of bullet performance. For what it's worth I've found that picking a specific bullet, finding its optimal impact speeds and then pushing that bullet to the desired speed is frequently a better strategy than all-out speed. I've used 165 grain Nosler ballistic tips, loaded them at less than max speeds in a .308 and shot dozens of whitetails with this load. Basically I'me shooting the modern equivalent of the .300 Savage out of a little Rem Model Seven. I get near-instant kills. Use a shoulder shot and 9 out of 10 deer are literally dead before they hit the ground. The remaining 10% make it less than 10 yards (and these are 'shooter error' more than bullet performance). Every single deer shot on teh shoulder has died in its tracks. A few that were shot farther back (unintentional lung shot) made it ten yards. I've found that somewhat slower speeds do not stress the bullets as much, and allow them to expand in a far more controlled and reliable manner. Even at reduced velocities these Ballistic Tips are entering, expanding violently, carving permanent wound channel that is rough 3.5-4" in diameter, and exiting fully. Accuracy is frequently increased as well, and bullet placement is even more important in obtaining instant kills. If you want instant kills forget the double lung shot. Move it forward and take the shoulders out. In the .300 I'd use a 180 bonded bullet. I'd be selecting the 180 for one simple reason: Reduced velocity. In a factory '-06 load I'd use Federal's Premium Vital Shock with the 165 Grain Nosler Ballistic Tip or Hornady's 180 Super Shock tip. If you offered me a choice I'd be carrying the 30-06 |
+1 I like the Barnes TSX, and I use them in my .308 and .223, but my 6.5x57 doesn't shoot them worth a $h!t, so I use Nosler Accubonds in it. Why are you switching to the .300WM?? If it's "because you want to", then I understand (I've been known to kill whitetails with my .416, so I really do understand). |
I hate you. |
Made the link hot. Edited to add: Those will get the job done! |
+1 on the Cor-Lokts. |
I have no experience with that bullet, but I think that should do you just fine. I have been deer hunting with a 300WM for about 14 years now and yes it is too much gun for a thin skinned deer...but works almost too good. You need to stick with the 180 gr. bullet weights in whatever you decide to use. The lighter 150 &165 gr. bullets shock too much meat. I have double lung shot deer with 150 gr. bullets and wasted both front shoulders...way too violent for deer. The 180's work much better. I reload, so I have my pet load and bullets that I like, but what you have picked should work. The problem with deer and the 300WM is you want a bullet that will expand on the way through, but not blow everything to shit in the process. The bullets like the Barns X are great out of a 300 when shooting elk...but on a deer it just passes through and does not expand at all. While yes...this will kill the deer, they are going to run at least some distance. I have had very good luck out of 180 gr. ballistic tips. These bullets expand but do not explode, they do a good deal of damage to the deer and they normally drop in their tracks or within 10 feet....this is if you make a lung shot...any further forward and you will ruin the meat on the shoulders. |
Barnes has a free video that shows their TSX will reliably open in a 2" thick piece of ballistics gel. Even Texas whitetails are more then 2" thick. I have shot deer with 180gn TSX's out of my .308, and with 120gn TSX's out of my 6.5x57. They all showed signs of rapid expansion, no fragmentation, and the exit hole in a direct line with the entrance hole. Never had a deer take a single step after the shot. Not a single step. If the TSX reliably expands at a sedate velocity of a 2600 fps from a .308, I'm sure it will work as advertised in a .300. As far as ballistic tips are concerned, Last season I spent hours on my hands and knees in thick thorn brush following the blood trail of a buck that had been shot in the shoulder by my friend with a 7mm Rem Mag @ 100 yards. Blood trail stopped in an open field of hip tall grass, never found the deer. BT's have a nasty habit of coming apart and not penetrating the vitals. I have a strong suspicion that is what happened in this case. I bought my friend a box of 50 .284" TSX's so I won't have to do that crap again. |
Ballistic Tips get a bad reputation because of things like this. It's not looking at apples an apples. Take a car and drive it into a brick wall at 50 mph and see what happens to the car...then take an identical car add 200 lbs of extra weight to it and drive it into a brick wall at 35 mph and see what happens to the car. I promise that the faster car is going to "blow up" much worse than the slower car. I know...not the best example..but the premise is the same. You have to macth the bullet, bullet weight, and velocity for it's intended purpose. I have no doubt that what you said did happen...I have seen it happen myself, but not out of a 180 gr. BT. The 7mm Mag. you mentioned, I am quite sure was shooting a 165 gr. BT that was traveling several hundred fps faster than a 180 out of a 300 mag. Ballistic Tip bullets have there limitations and that is one of them. I have shot dozens of deer over the years with a 180 gr. BT from a 300 mag and never experienced what your buddy went through, heck I have never had a deer go more than 10-15 feet. I have shot them at less than 25 yards and as far as 350 yards. The deer shot at 350 yds dropped where it was standing as do most of them. I may very well look into the TSX's and load some to see how they shoot. My only experience with them was the original X bullet, which was basically a chunk of copper that would not expand unless you were shooting heavy thick skinned animals...so I wrote them off. ETA: I sometimes have a problem calling all "tipped" bullets Ballistic Tips. For the last few years I have been shooting Nosler Accubonds...and still call them Ballistic Tips. Before that I shot the standard Nosler green tip ballistic tips. I have had no trouble out of either in the 180gr. weight. |
Have you ever shot the winchester supreme ballistic silvertip? How do you think that round would compare to the federal that I am looking at, and to your rounds? |
I have and they perform well, my gun does not like them as well as my handloads from an accuracy standpoint...but they shoot as good as most factory loads do. I don't know how they will stack up against the Federals you picked. The Federals that you picked are a bonded bullet, which will help it hold together better if you happen to make a bad shot and hit the shoulders and it should perform well. I would tell you to get 3 or 4 different factory loads and see what your gun likes as well as how they expand...but with the price of shells that could get expensive. With what I said above about lumping all tipped bullets into the "ballistic tip" category...I would look real hard at this: www.winchester.com/products/catalog/cfrlist.aspx?bn=16&type=69 These are a balistic tipped bullet...but the construction of the bullet is very different. I have shot these and they shoot good, but have not shot a deer with one yet. I would really like to load some of these myself...but they don't sell these bullets yet. At any rate, you will love the 300WM on deer. I think I have lost most of my tracking skills since I started hunting with mine.  |
Aye, duly noted. Several manufactures produce boned core bullets with polycarbonate tips. Swift Scirocco II, Hornady Interbond, Nosler Accubond. Barnes makes a polycarbonate tipped bullet too, the MRX. To the OP, pick any of the bonded core or homogenous bullets from 150 - 180 grains. If you can afford to try several brands, select the one that is most accurate. If they all shoot the same size groups, then take the least expensive. Put it in the vitals. Eat venison. |
I've shot stuff with 7x57 and Core Lokts. Later I ate it. I've also had a Winchester Silvertip fail and destroy lots of meat. So now I am a bullet snob. |
I've shot stuff with 7x57 and Core Lokts. Later I ate it. I've also had a Winchester Silvertip fail and destroy lots of meat. So now I am a bullet snob. |
I had an old Bronze Point out of a .270 fail to expand and acted just like a FMJ on a Mulie. Shot placement was good, but it still went about 150 yards before it went down. I was given a box box of Federal Fusion 180 grain for my Model 70 .300 Win Mag. They group real good in my rifle .5 moa. Im curious to see how they perform on Elk. Blew a chance on testing them out on a black bear yesterday. (waited too long before I decided if he was a shooter) |
All of those cartridges you listed are standard velocity rounds. When you start driving Core Lokts at magnum velocities like the OP plans on doing you stand a chance of driving a cup and core bullet beyond its design limitations. Having experienced the aftermath of projectile failure first hand, and spending several hours following a blood trail on my hands and knees in thorny thickets so dense you can't walk through them, I will GLADLY spend the extra 50 cents on a bullet designed for the task at hand. If 50 cents and common sense makes me an ammo snob, then so be it. |
I don't know who you are talking about, but I am pretty much the biggest bullet snob there is. I don't hunt with core-lokt's and never will. I used ballistic silvertips out of my -06 and took advice from this thread and went with winchester XP3's in 180Gr for deer. I will keep this thread updated with my accuracy from them, and what my deer looks like after I shoot it with them. I will be testing them out this weekend, with my Tikka T3 and Zeiss Conquest 3.5-10X44. |
Sorry about that. I think I misunderstood your post. By "OP" I thought you meant me. I guess that is what 4 hours of sleep and just getting home from the gym does to you 
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