Best hunting bullet for the M305

Riflechair

Riflechair

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Howdy ladies and gents
Im curious to know your experiences with ballistic tipped hunting bullets. Lead tipped spitzer bullets tend to hit that feed ramp and deform which is never good for accuracy. Have you guys ever seen a broken ballistic tip after hitting the feed Ramp?

My intention is to prove that semi-auto rifles are perfectly suitable for hunting purposes. Looking at a fall deer hunting trip with 150gr pills.

Looking at the hornady SST. Reviews from the USA sound pretty good but there are always a few that had have issues.

Im using swaged 7.62 NATO WCC brass, Varget and Federal Champion primers.
Yes I know I could post this in the reloading or hunting forums but the honest truth is I want to hear from the M1A / M305 guru's.

Cheers and as always Maple Leaf Up.

RC
 
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Not a guru, and did not stay at a Holiday Inn express last night.

I believe that the M305 functions best at around 165-168gr. Not a good idea to shoot much heavier on a steady basis. Doubt that the M305 and 308 would pack much power, i would stick to a Nozler partition, or a Barnes monometal.
 
nowarningshot said:
Not a guru, and did not stay at a Holiday Inn express last night.

I believe that the M305 functions best at around 165-168gr. Not a good idea to shoot much heavier on a steady basis. Doubt that the M305 and 308 would pack much power, i would stick to a Nozler partition, or a Barnes monometal.
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So this guy I was talking to at the Holiday Inn last night was saying to avoid exposed lead tips. I'd choose accubonds myself, and I agree about the heavier bullets not being the best choice.
 
A deformed tip has almost no affect on accuracy.

I would use 150 or 165g hunting bullets of whatever flavour I happened to have on the shelf.

I would prefer 165 because that would work well on larger game, like moose.
 
I've shot a number of deer with the Nosler BT in .308 150 and 165gr, .284 in 140gr and .277 in 130gr in bolt rifles. The Nosler BT is a very accurate bullet and a good killer, but a bit on the tender side. Before they got expensive I shot quite a few of the .308 150 and 165gr BT bullets in handloads at paper targets in M1 Garands and an M14. They always fed and functioned well.

I've also used the Hornady SST as a target bullet in M1 Garands, but not on game. It fed well thru the action. You don't need an expensive bullet, like a Nosler Partition, to shoot deer. I've had good results with ordinary hunting bullets from all of Speer, Sierra, Nosler and Hornady.
 
Any 150-165/70 gr bullet designed to hold together. I never had any issues with typical exposed lead bullets in my 305. Grab some partitions or interbonds, maybe a gmc or ttsx.
 
Rifle the PowerMax bonded with it's protected hp will feed like FMJ;s. Never used them on game however but they were accurate in my M-14. Winchesters new "Deer Season" ammo line is what I'm trying next with the flat base like a MkVii bullet and a large polymer tip.
 
I've used the 150gr Hornady BTSP lead exposed bullets for service rifle matches out to 500yd with no issues. That is all I'd use if Hornady was still making them. I used the 150gr SST on deer this last year and didn't like the performance on impact. YMMV.
 
Mostly a casual target shooter here, but I can tell you one truth Riflechair; If using NATO brass you'll have to back off top velocity hand loadings as catalogued for 308 Winchester civilian brass.

My steel smashing experiences have me almost exactly duplicating the M118 ball load. Sorry, no live big game experience here.
 
Absolutely and good point Brutus.
I fully understand that NATO brass has slightly less case capacity.
I know lots of folks like to use civy brass in NATO chambers but I prefer not to.
I'd be pretty happy duplicating M118 with a hunting bullet though...

Cheers
RC
 
theDuck said:
I've used the 150gr Hornady BTSP lead exposed bullets for service rifle matches out to 500yd with no issues. That is all I'd use if Hornady was still making them. I used the 150gr SST on deer this last year and didn't like the performance on impact. YMMV.
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That's what I needed to hear.
Bullet retention didn't meet your expectations?

I was looking at the Remington Core-Lokt bullet and thought that might be a good design for the M305.
There is very little exposed lead at the tip...
 
One thing to consider.

Federal blue box 150's are pretty plain but effective budget hunting round. They also happen to be the cheapest hunting ammunitionon the market!

I usually "test" every 308 that crosses my path with fed-blue 150s, if it doesn't shoot that well, the rifle likely won't shoot anything well (with out some work).

Personally I usually run nosler ballistic tips in my medium velocity hunting calibres but prefer Hornady interlocks for plinking and heavy-for-calibre-rounds-rounds (most would say partitions). I currently have a go-to plinking load with 150gr interlocks (or PRVI sp) that is accurate out to 300y and I wouldn't hesitate to use that ammo on game.

My $.02, keep the work on the YouTube channel RC, I enjoy your videos.

Cheers!
 
Riflechair said:
That's what I needed to hear.
Bullet retention didn't meet your expectations?

I was looking at the Remington Core-Lokt bullet and thought that might be a good design for the M305.
There is very little exposed lead at the tip...
Click to expand...

It was lack of expansion that seemed to be a problem for me with the SST. The bullets acted more like a hard point. The bullets were pass throughs at 275 yards and needed multiple shots. The BTSP would also pass through but had an immediate affect. After we skin a deer hanging in the barn we take a good look at entry and exit wounds so get a good idea of bullet performance over the years.
Buddy I hunt with is using the same 150gr SST in 30 06 handloads and also notes the same lack of expansion or should I say less expansion compared to the lead tip soft points.
I've used the Remington Core Lockt bullet for CQB matches and they functioned fine. You are rattling off 5 shots, one mag after another and the Remington bullets didn't cause any feed glitches.
 
OK so it's sounding more and more like I shouldn't be worrying about a little bit of lead deformity at the bullet tip. I'm currently running PRVI 165gr and there is a lot of exposed lead. It looks unsightly after it's been chambered but perhaps I wouldn't be concerned about it. Cheers folks and thanks!
 
The bullet makers put a lot of R&D into both the accuracy and terminal performance of their hunting bullets, mostly on deer sized game. The ones that I've wound up using in my hunting loads have been pretty satisfactory in both areas. This applies to all of the plain old vanilla Hornady Interlocks, the Sierra Gamekings, Nosler Ballistic Tips and Speer softpoints. I mentioned that I found the Nosler BTs somewhat on the tender side as evidenced by the fact that what I recover isn't as intact or nicely mushroomed as some of the others. But they are very accurate and do kill well, which brings up the age old question, "at what point in the death of the animal did the bullet fail"?

Maybe the best solution is to buy a box of various 150/165gr hunting bullets and test them at the range. If you want to check feeding and see the extent of point deformation when run thru an M14 type action, load a few from the mag at the range and then extract them before firing to check this (as a bonus you can also see the extent of the floating firing pin dimpling on the unfired primers). If the tip is deformed a bit, fire a group of them to see what happens on paper. It's also worth checking some other propellants incl IMR4895 (the .308 Win/7.62NATO baseline), H4895, IMR3031, IMR4064, W748 and BLC2 to check for accuracy variations. One bullet that is well worth a try is the Sierra 165gr HPBT. This bullet has a harder jacket for hunting, but shows the accuracy of a match bullet. I've used quite a few of them in target loads in M1 Garands with good results.
 
There is no best bullet for any rifle. There isn't really by cartridge either, but the .308/7.62(and .30-06) really likes 165's for hunting. A 165 will kill any game you care to hunt and an M305 is, like you say, just a semi-auto .308.
The guy in the Holiday Inn who told you to avoid exposed lead tips is wrong. An SP or not makes no difference whatsoever. The old Winchester Silvertip feed like hot dam through my evil Winchester semi'd M-14. And SP's feed with zero fuss through my M1 Rifle.
The .308/7.62 was designed with 145 to 150's when the U.S. jammed the 7.62 x 51 down everybody's throat in 1954. NATO settled on a 147 for some daft reason. It does like 168's for target work though.
 
I've shot plenty of Federal blue box 150r SPs through my M305 as well as lots of hand loaded Hornady Interlock 150gr SPs. Zero issues feeding and accuracy slightly under 2 MOA with the handloads.
 
theDuck said:
I've used the 150gr Hornady BTSP lead exposed bullets for service rifle matches out to 500yd with no issues. That is all I'd use if Hornady was still making them. I used the 150gr SST on deer this last year and didn't like the performance on impact. YMMV.
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I know what you mean about the SST's i shot a doe with a SST out of a 243... it basically blew up

Ganderite said:
A deformed tip has almost no affect on accuracy.

I would use 150 or 165g hunting bullets of whatever flavour I happened to have on the shelf.

I would prefer 165 because that would work well on larger game, like moose.
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I shot game with the 150 Grain rounds winchester is making for 308 (just regular lead tips) , the old browning lever likes um so i shoot those in that gun. all have died when hit correctly exit holes on deer are about 45-50 cal but not blown up like SST or Nosler bt's i've used before in the past * think fist sized exits *.



sunray said:
There is no best bullet for any rifle. There isn't really by cartridge either, but the .308/7.62(and .30-06) really likes 165's for hunting. A 165 will kill any game you care to hunt and an M305 is, like you say, just a semi-auto .308.
The guy in the Holiday Inn who told you to avoid exposed lead tips is wrong. An SP or not makes no difference whatsoever. The old Winchester Silvertip feed like hot dam through my evil Winchester semi'd M-14. And SP's feed with zero fuss through my M1 Rifle.
The .308/7.62 was designed with 145 to 150's when the U.S. jammed the 7.62 x 51 down everybody's throat in 1954. NATO settled on a 147 for some daft reason. It does like 168's for target work though.
Click to expand...

Yup buy some hunting ammo and see what groups best is a good way to do it. settle on that and go, It doesnt have to be super expensive either winchester , federal blue box etc are usually pretty solid and cheaper than the rest, they just dont come with the super duper tsx rounds or Ballistic tip partitions. .
 
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