hunting ammo, New to hunting.7mm. 308, 3030 etc

Jdiep

Jdiep

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Alberta!
Heyyall,

I'm a newbie to hunting. I usually buy whatever cheap ammo I can to just target shoot. Now I'm just wondering what to look for for a good hunting round? Like soft points, jacket soft points, poly tips, hollow points.

What do you season pros look for?
 
I prefer ammunition with premium bullets, but most importantly, it must shoot accurately in my rifle. Velocity is good, but does not trump accuracy!
I also use a mid to heavy weight bullet in each cartridge; usually not the lightest or heaviest, as I try for a balance of velocity and weight for overall performance e.g. 140 for 270 caliber, 160 in 7mm, 180 in 30 cal, 200-215 in 338, 250 in 9.3 and 260 in 375, etc.
After that, it comes down to on-game performance. And I have taken a fair amount of game (from antelope to bison, and recently some game in New Zealand and Africa) over the past 38 years of hunting. And while I have taken big game at distances ranging from 5 to 475 yards, the average distance of game taken to date is approx 132 yards! And I hunt in a variety of environments, from thick dark timber to open plains and alpine.

I have found Federal and Nosler ammo to be the most consistently accurate ammunition in my rifles over the years, in all cartridges tried. And Federal has been the most consistent and accurate (for me).
Tried and true bullets for on-game performance include Nosler Partitions and AccuBonds (my favourite), and of late, I am really impressed with the Terminal Ascent bullets tried in a few cartridges.
Nosler bullets typically expand close to 2 times their original diameter and retain 60-90+% of their original weight. The Terminal Ascent ammo has been accurate and provided quick, clean kills on 5 animals last year, but as all were pass throughs, I cannot report on expansion or weight retention.

I have always had good on-game performance with Winchester Power Point ammunition in lever action rifles, regardless of cartridge. As well as in some bolt actions over the years.

I was just in Africa and due to permitting issues, ended up using the PH's rifle...a suppressed 300 Win Mag, with Sellier & Bellot 180 gr SPCE (controlled expansion) ammunition. I have never tried this ammo or bullet before, but between my wife and I, we took 7 animals at an average shot distance of 193 yards, one shot kills. This controlled expansion bullet performed very well, and 6 of the 7 animals expired quickly to heart shots, with the sable and kudu running the furthest after the shot (approx 80-100 yards) before expiring. the rest were DRT or went less than 10 yards. We only recovered 3 bullets from the nyala, kudu and warthog. Expansion was close to or over 2 times, with an avg of approx 50% weight retention. While I prefer more weight retention in a bullet, I cannot argue with the quick, clean kills on some hardy game! I would recommend this bullet if it shoots well in your rifle.

Hope this helps!
 
I’ve always used cup and core with good results so I see no reason to change, I’ve killed deer with Fed blue box, Hornady interlocks, S&B SP, Winchester superX. At .308 & .303 velocities cup and core work well, they are also relatively affordable still. I’ve been lucky with accuracy in my rifles with the above brands, I try to find something that shoots well and doesn’t break the bank.

If I was going to buy a bonded bullet factory ammo I’d pick federal fusion, it shoots very well in my .308’s. Rem corlokt’s are another cup and core that shoots well for me.
 
Agree on that too, federal blue box 150’s in 308 have a long track record of being accurate and reliable animal flattener, I also really like Hornady match eld-m.

I can give a recent example of a 308 I set up. I bought 8 different factory ammo’s to test against each other at 100 yards. 2 of them ended up sub-moa for 3 shot groups and verified it twice. One was Hornady white box 168gr eld-m match, the other was 180 gr federal fusion. I was hoping for the 168 eldm and 165 fusion as winners so I won’t complain as if I need a heavy bonded I got one, but I will almost exclusively use the white box 168 eld-m.

The next most accurate load was the federal blue box 150 btw, just over moa. The 150/165 fusion were more like 1.5- 2 moa. Then I shot the hornady cx outfitter around 2 moa and superformance was worst of all at 2.5, and I also shot the Hornady precision Hunter 178 eld-x load and it was ~2 moa.

So not sure what cartridges you’re going to test for but in 308 I think it would be worth to compare all 3 fusion weights, then federal blue box 150, and Hornady match 168 white box and see what it likes and go from there.

I would choose a similar strategy for the 7mm, and for 30-30 the usual 150/170 gr cup core and the 160 lever revolution for modern option, maybe a fusion if they have it?
 
Premium projectiles are the best as others have said.

Personally for most of my hunting I use monolithic solid copper projectiles. I’ve never had one not work. That said I reload and can do all the work to ensure I’m meeting minimum impact velocities which is guess work if you’re not using a chronograph. Also factory loadings don’t always shoot well.

Also important with .308 rifles that your choosing the right projectile weight for the twist rate of the barrel. I believe 1:12 twists like the lighter side of things and 1:10 twists like the heavier. Also there have been a few videos out now on the good old YouTube suggesting that shooting a monolithic projectile after a bonded or cup and core makes them shoot terrible. Implying that cleaning the barrel really well has fixed accuracy. I believe Ron Spoomer did one and so did backfire. So if you’re going to test multiple shoot the copper bullets first.

Typically I shoot Barnes but have decided to try out Hornady new CX in a couple rifles. For target I shoot ELD-M or Sierra MK/TMK. These are what I’ve always had luck with. If I can’t get a monolithic copper projectile I will opt for a Nosler Accubond. Thankfully I reload and typically don’t have to settle for anything outside of that.

I haven’t had a chance to test this first hand but will be in a couple months just to see.

Goodluck with testing and selection! Let us know how it goes.

B
 
so a little more to my last :)

a nice cup and core Pointed Soft Point (PSP) is fine for most traditional rifles, I use 100grn Hornady PSP in my 243 and 150 Hornady PSP in my 308

where the premium bullets start to shine is in the overbore and magnums where MV is >3000fps Nosler Accubonds for 25-06 300WM 325WSM
 
Buy a soft point your rifles shoot best.
Try 3-4 brands and bullet weights.
Accuracy is everything not brand
Your rifle will answer your question.
 
Follow on question here. I'm just about to embark on testing some deer flatteners in my rifles. I'm going to test the rounds mainly for accuracy, as I have no way of testing them for terminal performance (no access to bal gel).

Can you folks suggest a sequence of 5 or so commercial loads for the 30-06 and for 243 to truly test the preferences? So far the rifles are very accurate with PPU 150gr FMJ (not for hunting, I know) and quite accurate with 180gr S&B round nose SPs in 30-06, as well as 85gr Remington SP respectively (yeah, I got a decent deal on all of them).

In your opinion, how many rounds do I need to push through of each tube, to establish whether the bullet matches the gun? EDIT: As you can probably imagine, pushing full packs of test ammo through my guns would get too expensive.

I have Sako 150gr SPs and S&B 189 gr round-nose SPs for the 30-06, as well as Hornady 100g SPs for the and 100g Federal Power Shok for the 243.
 
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