bullets fer .308

[deadonat100yards]

i am wantin to start shootin 168 grain Hornady A-MAX Moly match bullets out of my .308. what do yall think?i hunt deer with it.

[L. Cooper]

I am not familiar with that bullet, but if it is a true "match" grade bullet, I would not use it for hunting.

Bullets made for target shooting are very different than those made for shooting game. There are LOTS of really good .30 caliber bullets for the .308 that will work very well for hunting. When living things are going to be shot, we should use properly designed bullets.

[Rocky Raab]

I concur completely. Shoot paper with match bullets, shoot meat with game bullets.

I love the Hornady 150-gr flatbase softpoint (#3031) in my 308. If you want to shoot 165s, every company makes a nice flatbase softpoint designed for game.

[HPBTMTCH]

Deadon, what cooper and rocky said, plenty of deer bullets for the .308 out there. That being said, the A-max is pretty fragile, even in a .308, great g-hog, coyote bullet. They will get the job done on smaller deer taking broadside lung shots, but often will not exit. Never had one fail, but it would still be best not to use them, the 165 gr. sst`s would be a much better choice. Berger bullets says their match bullets are okay for deer, and 168`s and heavier always exit on broadsides, but for what they cost, you might as well shoot match grade barnes x triple shocks, they WILL work.

[PJgunner]

My choice for deer in a .308 would be the 165 gr. Speer Hot-core, a spitzer flat base bullet. That bullet has passed through every der I've shot with it, except one. That deer was 250 yards out facing me. The bullet entered the chest, passed through the deer coming to a stop against a back leg bone, breaking it. The bullet retained 65 percent of it's weight, and the deer went bang-flop.
Paul B.

[petey]

I shot a 700+ pound Bull elk with 168gr Hornady A-Max's from a 300 RUM this year.

If it can kill an animal that big, I highly doubt you'll have a problem killing a 150 pound deer...

http://huntingallover.com/jpegs/josh/elk/pose.jpg

Oh wait!!! I just remembered, here's the buck I shot last year with that same MATCH bullet! Proof is in the pictures, not that the advice above isn't sound.

http://huntingallover.com/jpegs/josh/buck04/buck04-6.jpg


It's just that, dead is dead and In my opinion Match bullets are highly productive in dropping game quickly! By the way, the elk traveled 10 yards and the buck dropped in his tracks. Elk was shot from the brisket through the quartering shoulder. Bullet was found in the hide on the exiting side. The buck was shot high in the shoulder and exited low in the heart.

I say, if you're reloading, find the most accurate bullet/load combination, then worry about how productive the bullet will be on game. After all, I've heard 1000's of times that Match bullets can't kill deer, and we've proved that theory wrong time after time at distances well beyond 500 yards.

[Rocky Raab]

I'm tempted to say that one can run 100 red lights without a problem, but on the 101st...

The problem is that in writing that, it might sound as if I were being sarcastic. I'm not.

But what I mean is that it's very difficult to read anything into such small sample numbers. One hunter may have superb luck with ten or twenty of even 50 animals, but the next hunter might wound and lose the first animal he hits with a given bullet.

One hears of Nosler Partition or Ballistic Tips that "failed" for example. Does that mean that the bullet designers are all stupid and we should should match bullets at deer instead of hunting bullets? Nope.

It means that one or two bullets (of EACH KIND) performed in a way not expected. I choose to believe the folks who design and test their bullets as thoroughly as they know how. If they tell me not to use target bullets on game, then I won't. I won't recommend otherwise, either.

[Catfish]

I`ll leave the bullet slection to you, but I would like to say that you will gain nothing from Molly and stand alot to lose. I ruined a barrel with Molly. It is far easier to clean copper fouling from your barrel then it is Molly fouling, and it does build up. If it does lessen the friction in the barrel, then why does it take more powder to get the same velosity? The manufacures of Molly will tell you that it will not improve your accuracy, so what good is it????????????????

[deadonat100yards]

thanks petey for your help.and for the rest, i got a box of them bullets from my uncle, who is in the Army, and he got em from a master sniper in th U.S. marines. They shoot at targets at 1000 yards with them bullets. they also use em for decapitatin humans at 500 + yards. i say if theyre good enough for them, then they are good enough for me.thanks again petey!

[petey]

Touché Rocky!!

Very wise, as I said, yours and the other's advise were sound choices.

I guess I like to live on the "daring side", if you will. :rolleyes:

I try to find the best shooting bullet, for the purpose I plan to use it for. You, yourself know that means shooting at distances beyond the normal hunter. It would make only sense that match bullets would be my bullet of choice to acheive the accuracy I would need.

There are cases that I choose more of a "game" bullet when wanting to take shots under 100 yards. Here in PA, it's almost like a free-for-all, and on the first day of season (if you're not hunting on private land) you'll see Blaze orange every hundred yards. In that instance you need a bullet that will do the job, and do it quick! If your deer gets to the next guy, well it's more than likely over at that point.

Over the many big game animals I've shot, however I've found only three bullets to "Fail", by my standards. Fail meaning the deer or other animal ran more than I wanted it too (be it 50,75, 100 yards)

1. Handloaded -150 gr Speer Grand Slam out of a .308.
2. Factory - 250 gr Rem Core Lock from .338
3. Factory - 230 Gr Fed. "Fail Safe" or "Black Talons" from .338 for you history buffs


Number's 1 & 2 both took whitetails and I believe were too beefy of a bullet for the animals I shot. Both bullets acted more like a FMJ than a game bullet. Wrong bullet/animal combination there.

Number 3, I'm assuming the same scenario. I shot a nice 4x4 Mulie in Eastern Montana around 350 yards. This buck had to be close to 250-300#'s on the hoof, but it still ran 100 yards. I didn't recover the bullet and I'm thinking the "Black Talon" was more like shooting a FMJ and didn't open up enough.

In the end, all 3 were dead. They ran further than expected b/c of poor bullet/animal combination choice. SO what did that test prove?? Nothing, just that I didn't like the fact that the animals ran so far when using those bullets. Not that they didn't kill a deer,b/c each one did but not to MY standards. If anything, I see the match bullet about tear a deer in half verses not performing.

Some people may like to keep a little meat, so I'd say if that was the case then stay away from match bullets. They seem to be highly explosive. But come on, something that punches a fist size hole in a deer won't kill it?? I think not!! ha ha.

By the way, just for the record... I shoot 165 gr Nosler Balistic Tips out of my .308 which are considered "Game Bullets". Other than Harnady A-Max's having a higher BC, I would consider the A-max and the Nosler BT to be one in the same bullet. One company calls it a match, the other calls it a game bullet. BOTH rip a fist size hole in a deer.

It probably all comes down to one word.... "Marketing"

[Rocky Raab]

Folks, I've watched Petey shoot, and he DOES whack groundhogs wwaaaaayyyy out there. My personal choice would be to put game animals and varmints in two, very separate categories as far as bullet choice is concerned, but every hunter is free to make his/her own choice.

Dead-on, what I just wrote also applies to military snipers. They are shooting varmints - or targets - not big game. It's not the same thing at all as hunting, and the bullet choice should reflect that. (Thay also are FORBIDDEN to use softpoints, by international law.)

When I was flying combat missions, we used rockets to kill water buffalo and elephants in Cambodia (VC pack animals). That doesn't mean that I'd select a rocket for this year's deer hunt. Military gear choice has nothing whatever to do with hunting.

[Rapier]

A couple of years ago I had this very same conversation with the good folks at Sierra, at a function, about their Match King line. Turns out that they were getting hundreds of glowing reports about the MK performance on game, in various calibers but especially the 80 grain .224 bullet. Now the MK bullets are like just about all other paper punchers, thin shinned and not designed for penetration. Sierra, like all other mfgs., took the position that their match bullet was not designed for game and should not be used on game. However, the number of one shot, dead in their tracks, kills that were being reported, astounded them. What they found was, with a selected shot, in the hands of an experienced hunter and a good shot; the bullets perform a bullet's task, by producing dead game.

Now I am not advocating that everyone start using match bullets, far from it. I just think that an experienced shooter, knowing what he or she is doing, has the right, without condemnation, to use whatever bullet or caliber they choose.

The real problem with the use of a match type bullet comes when a hunter takes a shot that they should not have taken, regardless of bullet type.

[Calif Hunter]

Rocky - you are so right about this. A full metal jacket bullet will also kill game and is used ny the military to shoot people. (The military is just as likely to desire wounded casualties as dead ones, in order to further burden the enemy with wounded to care for.)

I think that if Matchkings were great game bullets, Sierra would be marketing them that way. After all, they are in business to make money and this would be another way to market an existing product line.

[Cal Sibley]

A lot will depend on your barrel twist. My Browning Micro-medallion in .308Win. has a 1 in 12 barrel twist. I'm just wasting my money shooting 180gr. bullets in this rifle. It will shoot heavier bullets but not very accurately. The twist should definitely be studied before buying a particular rifle. Best wishes.

Cal - Montreal