Recommendations for better terminal performance - SST and 7mm-08

Facing shoulder is called front, shoulder on the side away from you is the back shoulder. Does that help a little with your confusion? Lol
 
I must admit that I am a great fan of the Hornady SST Interlock. I have shot a lot of game with them from coyotes to deer, bears, moose and elk. I have never had one fail yet. That doesn't mean it can't happen though. I have had Swift A Frame and Nosler Partitions fail on me though. I never would have believed it until it happened to me either. The Nosler only lost half of one side of the portion on top of the partition. This acted like a rudder and the straight on shot to the ribs at 50 yards angled almost straight up and out beside the spine and came to rest in the hide on the same side the bullet entered. The second bullet of the same type performed exactly as it was supposed to. I sent that bullet back to Nosler explaining what had happened. An engineer called me to ask about range/velocity etc. They told me they would send me another box of bullets to replace the box I had. I never saw them. Not really a big deal as the rest of the bullets worked as advertised. For every bullet I shoot at a game animal you can bet 49 will go down range at a paper target to stay familiar with trajectory.

The Swift A Frames were likely not being pushed fast enough in my 7x57 at the time so I really don't want to knock them. Wasn't pleased with their accuracy/consistency either.

The Interlock SST is about as accurate as I can ask for in a hunting rifle. They hold together well at most ranges from 50 yards and further. I talked to a fellow that shot a doe during the antlerless season last fall and he claimed his ILSST bullet blew up at 75 yards. We went to the spot the next morning and his shot, measured with my Swarovski range finder was under 40 yards. That takes a very tough bullet to stand up to. He was shooting a 7mm Rem Mag with 139 grain ILSSTs. I can see a problem there.

If your shooting is up close and personal on a regular basis maybe you need a monolithic style.
 
Lefty #### said:
Go with the Interlock's and carry on.
K
I
S
S

80 yds, mv:2730fps

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So what was that bullet recovered from? Looks like a bullet when recovered from a test media of some sort. I have recovered hundreds of bullets from animals, not too often they look like they hit water, newspaper or ballistic gel.

I edited my post where bold as I realize it came across offensive and I would like to apologize to all for that. Especially Lefty ####, I did not mean to insult you, I chose my words poorly.
 
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"So what was that bullet recovered from? Looks like a test media of some sort. I have recovered hundreds of bullets from animals, not too often they look like they hit water, newspaper or ballistic gel."







The boy(15) decked that buck through the near side shoulder, found the bullet in the fleshy part of the offside shoulder just behind the scapula.

I ran these same bullets at 3080 out of a .284Win for many years(new barrel prefers partitions) some place I've got a rather mangled bullet I recovered from a cow moose shot head on at about 150yds. The bullet crushed over 20" of spine after passing through the skull. It only weighs around 40 grains. But I measured about 27" of the toughest going a bullet will ever see.
Found it here's a pic:


Then there's this one from the Whitetail doe my daughter shot this past season.
60 yds, quartered on, near side shoulder through the chest to the far side at the liver, found lodged in a rib.
This is a bit down loaded, to around 2650fps mv.

 
Most impressive results! I stopped using SST's on game due to my own experiences, which are supposedly an interlok, although a small sample. The other bullets you show look like mine usually do, especially when bone is encountered.

The only bullets I haven't recovered many of is partitions and a-frames, about 90% of cup and core get recovered and maybe 50%? Of the Accubonds and similar.

Took a deer this year with the 222, and it was a pass through surprisingly!! Was hoping to get that one back lol.
 
I stopped using SST's in my 7-08 also.I found them to fragile in my experience.

Now you mention price.

How many animals does one harvest in a year?

How many shots to do load development and sight in?

I have made the move to a premium bullet for hunting as it is a very small portion of the hunting cost and if it gives me confidence what price can you put on that?

Cheap bullets vs premium at a difference of what? Maybe $0.30 or $0.40 difference per projectile.

Load a cheap projectile for practice and a premium for big game, a box of 100 will last a long time if it is just for hunting purposes.

Anything with a interlock type jacket will still meet your on game performance and be a reasonable price if you are budget minded.

The thin jacket bullets I am not so enthusiastic about but they do work for some shooters and their applications.

I will also endorse the Swift line of bullets.For me they have been super accurate and extremely dependable , on game performance is also very very good for me, knock on wood.

I use the 150gr Scirocco in my 7-08 and 7WSM, works perfect in both.The expansion vs velocity is also very broad and dependable.I do push these bullets on the upper end with W760 in both chamberings.

Concerns about accuracy are not of a huge concern here as you can pretty much get any bullet to perform well enough for hunting purposes.Between charge weights and COAL you will get your bullet of choice to meet your hunting needs.
 
Well said Kelly, I think the same way you do about hunting bullets. That being said, I have had a few boxes of Speer 130 grain .284 cup and core I want to use in reduced loads for my boy, just have to figure out a velocity where they expand but hold together on deer at 50-150 yards. For my boy to use my model 7.

Lefty has kindly shared some load data with me.
 
I don't even think you would need reduced loads with 130's even if in a light weight model 7, I bet some loads at starting charge weights will be very reasonable to shoot.

Cleftwynd said:
Well said Kelly, I think the same way you do about hunting bullets. That being said, I have had a few boxes of Speer 130 grain .284 cup and core I want to use in reduced loads for my boy, just have to figure out a velocity where they expand but hold together on deer at 50-150 yards. For my boy to use my model 7.

Lefty has kindly shared some load data with me.
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Kelly Timoffee said:
I stopped using SST's in my 7-08 also.I found them to fragile in my experience.

Now you mention price.

How many animals does one harvest in a year?

How many shots to do load development and sight in?

I have made the move to a premium bullet for hunting as it is a very small portion of the hunting cost and if it gives me confidence what price can you put on that?

Cheap bullets vs premium at a difference of what? Maybe $0.30 or $0.40 difference per projectile.

Load a cheap projectile for practice and a premium for big game, a box of 100 will last a long time if it is just for hunting purposes.

Anything with a interlock type jacket will still meet your on game performance and be a reasonable price if you are budget minded.

The thin jacket bullets I am not so enthusiastic about but they do work for some shooters and their applications.

I will also endorse the Swift line of bullets.For me they have been super accurate and extremely dependable , on game performance is also very very good for me, knock on wood.

I use the 150gr Scirocco in my 7-08 and 7WSM, works perfect in both.The expansion vs velocity is also very broad and dependable.I do push these bullets on the upper end with W760 in both chamberings.

Concerns about accuracy are not of a huge concern here as you can pretty much get any bullet to perform well enough for hunting purposes.Between charge weights and COAL you will get your bullet of choice to meet your hunting needs.
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SSTs have done the same for me. I now shoot them at the range and load GMXs for hunting. A lunger penciling shot doesn't bother me that much, and a shoulder/spine will open it up. That being said I have only seen textbook expansion for the the GMX in practice.
 
He just started with centre fire this year, using my BRNO 222, the model 7 is a stainless synthetic is a little light and don't want him to become shy.
 
Great results with sst for me in the 30-06. Just loaded some in the 7mm-08.
139gr interlocks are shooting really well for me under h4350 getting 2895fps and very small groups. These should do nicely next year for deer season
 
Lots of talk back and forth but in the end no one has come up with a compelling argument against the 140gr Partition. I'm not sure that a better bullet could be designed for a wide window of impact velocities and impact media. I look at those graphics of the E-Tip and frankly the expansion at 1800 FPS is embarrassing and the 2600 FPS is barely adequate. The monos ted to be like that. The only way to improve the Partition would be to design it with a non-toxic core material to appease people who get worked up about things like that.
 
My go to bullet in my 308 for hunting is the 165 Accubond loaded at 2800 fps.... Very potent... JP.
 
Cleftwynd said:
That's an interesting tidbit, didn't know that. Thanks for the heads up!! Might try that bullet in a semi reduced load.
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The silhouette guys wanted a tougher bullet to knock down the rams at 500 so nosler started using the jacket from the 140gr btip in the 120's. If you google cross sections of each you will see the 120 has a thicker jacked. I wanted them to shoot in my gun but after around 100 bullets fired with different powders and charges they were not a good match in my gun. The 139gr interlocks shoot under 1" for me at 200 though.

In all actuality only reason I got into the 7mm-08 was because a local shop had a model 70 supergrade with excellent wood. Had to have it. So I would just use mine for plinking and deer at the most. I have a 30-06 for anything heavier.

I also shot a box of accubonds to see how they shot. Smallest group I could get was 1.25 ish to 2"+. Always had better luck with hornady then nosler not sure why I keep buying noslers to try lol
 
Accubond,Scirocco 2 ,Barnes X and or Partition.....haven't tested the Interbond so no comment on those....Harold
 
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