Sierra Match Kings???

thatmikeguy

thatmikeguy

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:sniper:Has anyone ever shot anything with match kings? I know this is not what they are for but i am still interested. I am using 308 caliber 175gr match kings because they are very accurate... mainly for targets but i also what to kill coyotes. Not planning on using them on deer unless a good portion of people think they work good.
 
I have personally wondered the same thing, so I tested it out and at 200 yrds last winter, I fired a 7mm, 155gr. SMK out of my .280 Rem into a block of frozen poplar(it was about -20 C outside) and recovered the bullet COMPLETELY INTACT. I now have it sitting on my bench at home because its neat to look at the rifling from a projectile that isnt completely ruined. For Coyotes, I say no problem. I would personally never use them for deer though.
 
Chap I knew shot a caribou with a .338 300gr. SMK out of a .338LM at long range. He was displeased with the results. The bullet acted like a varmint bullet, disintegrating violently. A LOT of caribou was wasted.
SMKs are thin jacketed, not intended for hunting, and may not perform in a predictable manner. There are better choices.
 
Berger makes a 175gr. bullet they market as a hunting bullet, but honestly I think it's just their match bullet being marketed as a hunting one, I've read reports from folk who weren't too impressed with them.
 
If you want to hunt with a Sierra, use a GameKing. I used a .308 Win shooting 165 GK's over 45gn Varget on 3 deer this past fall with great success - all bang-flops (well, the big mulie took two leaps and flopped, to be fair).

It's got a nice aggressive nose profile and while it does fragment on impact the damage is colossal. I mean colossal in that I couldn't recover more than a golf-ball sized piece of lung from any of the 3 deer which were shot at various frontal/side angles.

They shoot just fine at the range too - definitely a "match grade hunting bullet" if ever I've seen one.

Any more questions, PM me if you'd like! :)

-M
 
I use 175 HPBT for target shooting and they are very accurate, but for hunting moose or deer I wouldn't use them, on groundhog or coyotes it would interesting to see the result of these varmints being hit by one of these 175 HPBT.

A friend of mine told he shot a groundhog with a Sierra 107 HPBT in 243cal and he said all he saw was pink mist.


JonnyBender
 
If you slow them down upon impact they work great. Within a few hundred yards they are quite explosive. I wouldn't use them unless I was shooting at deer over 400 yards away. I've killed coyotes with SMK's, and I had a bullet fully expand on a coyote that was hit at over 940 yards.
 
In my early years, before I knew better, I shot a young muley buck with a 155 SMK. Perfect shot quartering away, both lungs and heart while he was feeding head down. He stumbled at the shot then took off for the next county. The next two shots failed to connect as he ran towards the far edge of the clearcut. He dropped about 200 yards from where I hit him.

Examination showed that the bullet shed some bits on impact, but left a .30 cal hole on exit. Shortly after I examined the box of ammo I had bought and noticed the "match bullet" designation. FWIW, that was the most accurate factory ammo I have ever shot.

Wouldn't do it again unless I had no other choice.
 
I use 300gr SMKs out of my 338 edge for all my hunting shooting needs and havent had any problems 99% of the animals drop in there tracks the outher 1% was the moose I shot this fall that ran 20 ft
 
I wouldn't use Sierra's for hunting. I have used the 165 gr. GameKing in a .30-06 and have had failures. If you search the internet forums you will find many accounts of Sierra failures on game. Great for paper, but not my first choice as a game round.
 
One of the worst hunting experiences i've had are with smk's while hunting bears.
The bullet is super accurate but produces very little expansion on impact and little hydrostatic shock on the game. I had a fairly large bear within 50 meters and i took a kneeling firing position (which i practice regularly from). I aimed for the vitals and took a shot. Because of the splash behind the bear it was clear that i had put the bullet right through its vitals. Nothing happened! The wailing sound of the wounded bear made me shoot again. Another hit in the same spot. The bear spun around still wailing. It wasn't going down. 5 rd mag ought to do it.(i've never had to shoot something so many times) ...it didn't.
I put in another mag and racked a rd. The bear still hasn't gone down.(about a minute of wailing and frantic clawing at bushes had gone by) I aimed again this time for the head. boom. down. Finally.
After gutting it, i discovered the lungs had five holes through them in a fist sized grouping. I instantly concluded the ammo didn't expand at all. The exit wounds were tiny 30 cal size holes. I don't recommend the use of smk's for hunting, especially dangerous game. I would have been mauled if the bear had seen me. My hunting buddy had run away during all the shooting.(he's from Ontario)
 
heavyBullet said:
I filled two tags this year, and both were bang flops, using 165gr. GameKing SBT's.
Click to expand...

Hey, Congrats! Until the jacket separates from the core and your next deer doesn't drop. GameKings are not in the same league as the Nosler Ballistic Tip, or the newer designs such as Barnes X bullets. They certainly should not be considered as 'premium' bullets as Federal did a few years back in their factory loads. A regular softpoint round from Federal would be as good or better.
 
heavyBullet said:
I filled two tags this year, and both were bang flops, using 165gr. GameKing SBT's.
Click to expand...

One of my best loads, accuracy and on game, in a 308 NM has been using the Sierra 200gr SBT.

308NormaMag.jpg


No complaints on the accuracy or knock down power but there did seem to be considerable meat loss do to lead fragmentation. As a result, I'm in the process of going to Barnes TTSX in three calibers, providing I can obtain comparable accuracy. So far, some of the results using Barnes are yeilding good accuracy.
 
I shot a number of deer with 300 grain .338 SMKs. Nothing needed to be shot twice, and nothing was shot closer than 500 yards which may have been a factor in bullet performance. What a 300 grain bullet could possibly do so wrong that it wouldn't kill a deer is beyond me.
I also shot a few deer and any number of coyotes with 155 Palma match, which all seemed to die in the approved fashion.
 
I wouldn't hunt with SMK's, even Sierra doesn't recommend it. Do a search for my 6.5 bullet test I did a while back. Of all the bullets I tested guess which one did the worst?;)

If you want to hunt with a match bullet, used the Hornady A-Max. Hornady says it can be used on deer size game.

Of course for the guys who say they never had any problems with 300gr .338 bullet it comes to a point where anything that's big and heavy enough will kill.
 
Match bullets are designed for,well, shooting at paper targets. They are unpredictable on game and may or may not expand to kill properly.
There are a lot of hunting bullets which are very accurate and which perform properly to assure a quick and reliable kill on game. I've had excellent results over the yrs with all of Hornady,Speer,Sierra,Nosler,and Win conventional hunting bullets. One can develop MOA or better hunting loads with these bullets in a variety of ctgs and rifles. What more is there?
 
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