Best hunting bullet???

I hunt deer and I would like to get a moose one day, but on hand I have these bullets in 6.5mm:

95gr Vmax
120gr Nosler BT
129gr interlock
129gr SST
140gr SST
140gr speer spitzer
140gr Nosler partition,
140gr Rem Core loct
140gr Barnes X
160gr RN interlocks

Usually the magazine for my rifle gets loaded with warm 160gr RN at night time as a camp gun, and I would probably use the 140 partitions if I was moose hunting.

A 140gr Corelokt behaved perfectly a couple years ago on a quartering away mulie.
Last year my 140gr SST hit low lungs and I wish it would have been a bit more violent. 129gr SST's shoot like laser guided precision bullets in my rifle and they give me a lot of confidence in putting it where I am supposed to. So this year I'm using them.

For the 1 or 2 deer I am going to shoot this year, I'm not bothering with partitions or Barnes, I want to see what a 129 SST does on my first deer at least before I try another. I really do my best to not shoot things in the shoulder, preferring a lung shot. I know it's not always possible, but I've watched many a deer over the last 15 years slip away because I wasn't sure I could drop it right there. Growing up my dad always hunted with a 7mm rem mag and he really made it important to me to put the bullet in a good spot. If you don't with a 7mm, RM, you wreck a lot of deer and he hunted for meat. He picked the 7mm for the ~10 moose he's gotten and when he bought it, he could only buy one gun.

p.s., I paid $10 a box for most of the boxes of bullets I have from a gun nut not needing 6.5 anymore. Good deal.
 
Concentrate instead on being a premium shooter instead of 'hardware'. Take a paper plate to your rifle range and shoot offhand at the distances you usually encounter while hunting. If you can't reliably hit the paper plate with boring regularity you need more trigger time, IMHO. All major bullet manufacturers produce good products; the key is proper placement.
 
Shootshellz said:
Concentrate instead on being a premium shooter instead of 'hardware'. Take a paper plate to your rifle range and shoot offhand at the distances you usually encounter while hunting. If you can't reliably hit the paper plate with boring regularity you need more trigger time, IMHO. All major bullet manufacturers produce good products; the key is proper placement.
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I agree completely and I am lucky enough to live 15 minutes from my range. I have a ton of trigger time and am very confident that with my monopod walking stick I can hit the vitals out to 200 yards.
 
Defenitly one of the best bullet you can use is the SST, dead accurate and hit like a train, i dont use nothing else from coyote to elk... JP.
 
Well I need to get another plug for the Nosler Partition. I use the 180gr in my 30-08 and 165gr in my .308, and, so far I have not had a single animal walk, run or crawl away from it. This bullet has put more game in the freezer than any other bullet that I have tried. I have not tried the Barnes only because the price is not worth it to me. Just my two cents worth.
 
prosper said:
98% is placement, 2% is bullet. As to which is best, that depends on the application. I use partitions or TSX for most big game hunting, but interbond and accubond work well too. SST's are pretty destructive to meat when driven at magnum velocities, so I don't use them for anything but practice. I use VMAX for gophers and varmints
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Agreed. I shoot either 180 grain Speer Spitzers or 180 grain Horndy interlocks in my 300 win mag. They aren't the super duper, tulip forming, no lead, 99% weight retention bullets that you CAN buy, but I have yet to not take down a deer with one shot.....it's a friggin 300 win mag after all LOL. With your gun, a decent shot in the heart/lungs, any bullet chosen will bring it down.
 
Boomer said:
Its pretty easy to get pulled into the logic of choosing premium bullets. The cost of these bullets per animal shot over cup and core bullets is irrelevant, they might penetrate a little deeper or expand a little bigger, and they will almost certainly retain much of their original weight. The question is however, does the hunter armed with a rifle chambered for a moderate 6.5 or a 7mm cartridge benefit from using premiums? If he is a deer hunter, does the premium kill any quicker compared to the claims we hear that the best kills occur when a bullet penetrates into the lungs, then grenades?

I think premiums have their place, and I have a bunch of them on my loading bench from Barnes, Rhino, Swift, Matrix, and Woodleighs. But I also have Remington Coreloks, Winchester Power Points, Hornady Interlocks, all manner of Sierras, a few Speer, and a whole bunch of cast bullets that in some cases work better than jacketed bullets.

If you are contemplating a once in a lifetime hunt, by all means choose a premium bullet. If you are using a marginal cartridge for which premium bullets are available, choose a premium bullet. If your cartridge has an impact velocity in excess of 3000 fps, choose a premium bullet. And if you just like the idea of using a premium bullet, then you should.

But, if you are a hard core rifleman, who burns up hundreds of rounds of 6.5, 7mm, or .303 per month, you might find the cost of premiums intimidating. If you shoot cup and core bullets for recreation, you just might prefer to use that familiar bullet when a deer or a caribou is your target. That choice is certainly not unethical. That choice is as viable for you as it is for the guy who has to sweat to put enough cash together for the blue box Federals he needs for this year's deer, bear, caribou or moose. Sure, I like premiums, but I doubt that I would hunt with any bullet or load that I hadn't shot extensively, and there is a price tag associated with that familiarity.
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Good advice, as usual.

I've been leaning towards standard cup-and-core bullets more and more lately, for two main reasons. 1. In the last 3-4 years as costs have gone waaay up on most bullets, particularly premiums, and 2 - I've spent more time examining actual bullet performance on game (based on my experience, or game taken when I was personally present), and found a clear trend - Well placed shots kill game and badly placed shots don't kill game, period.

I've got Partitions, TSX's, TTSX's, FailSafes and Grand Slams at home, but mostly now I buy lower end offerings from Hornady, Speer and Prvi Partisan. Alas, even my beloved Sierra Gamekings have jumped 30% or more recently, and have been almost exclusively replaced by SST's, which are still reasonably priced.

I'm honestly starting to feel that the biggest benefit of premium bullets, by far, is to the confidence of the hunter, and that's about it. Which means they still may be worth buying, but then maybe not.
 
You haven't said what caliber but I have been using hornady interlocks for years in 30 cal and have had great success on deer moose and bear .
This year I am trying some 180gr speer soft point boat tail only because of the high bc and the flatter trajectory and I heard they were a great hunting bullet.

Shot placement is key imo.
 
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