Has anyone used 168 gr bthp match .308 for deer?

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rednekhuntr

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Amherstburg ON by way of Parry Sound ON
I was recently gifted a couple hundred rounds of Winchester .308 168 gr bthp match.
I'm curious to see if anyone has used this ammo on whitetail, and what the results were. Generally I use federal blue box 180 gr, or I roll my own 150 gr Speer, and 748 ball. Not that I'd have a problem punching paper with the free ammo, but it'll be a double bonus if they're effective on deer too.
 
I've used this type of bullet for deer hunting in the past, Hornady 168gr HPBT but out of a .300 Magnum. The one deer I shot with it was running at a range of around 80 yards and the hit was not good. It ran into the woods and I found her 3 days later when retrieving another doe we had shot. Pencil sized hole going in and the same going out with no expansion, same as an FMJ. Stick with proper expanding bullets, these are made for targets and not hunting.
 
Boat tail hollow point on game? They're not recommended for hunting on the Hornady website. I prefer a bullet that expands reliably for humane kills.
 
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I had a 25-06 .. and that was all the bullets I could buy .. 120 grain hollow point .. I never did shoot a deer with it .. But I assumed they were selling these shells for hunting.. Maybe they were different bullets but they were hollow points
 
Federal Premium sierra Game King 165 gr .308 vs Deer

blew the chest apart and came out the leg on the other side.


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Match bullets produce inconsistent performance on big game. Sometimes they'll produce lightning kills, while other times they pencil through, or explode like a varmint bullet leaving a massive but shallow wound. The ballistic advantage of a match bullet is not so much greater than an appropriate game bullet that it can be exploited in the field over normal hunting ranges. The game deserves better, and the hunter needs to choose his bullet for the terminal performance that he can make use of, rather than for some theoretical advantage in trajectory, wind drift, or accuracy that he cannot.

Here are a couple of examples of what can go wrong:
.308/168 MK

.243/90 Scenar


Note Dilligaf's post above as an illustration as to how a game bullet should perform.
 
BTHP match bullets, of whatever weight or caliber, do not have consistent terminal performance on game, or in my "test media" of jugs of water or wet newsprint. I have stopped using them on anything but paper, and even on paper they show very tiny advantages over good hunting loads. Likely my rifles and my shooting are just not good enough to extract whatever accuracy advantage they can provide, but, for hunting, I would not use them at all.
 
I used one years ago when I first started hunting and didn' t know much. I was handloading 30-06 and bought match bullets because that was the only bullet in that weight available. I shot a doe off a knoll @about 100 meters and got a decisive one shot kill but as others have posted expansion is iffy. Match bullets are meant for paper not animals
 
Match bullets in question do not work, maybe a close shot you might get shockwave that might kill it, but most match are designed poorly for going through bone, hit one and its only injuring the deer 90% of the time, stick with a proper expanding bullet
 
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