Hornady SST

[highcotton]

I've been giving some thought to trying 140 grain Hornady SST's in my .270 WIN. Anyone have experience with these bullets? Accuracy? Terminal performance? I've been shooting mostly Nosler, both BT's and AB's. I like the performance of the AB, but have not been able to get the groups I want with them so far. Thought I might give the SST's a run, but wanted some experienced feedback first.

[Derek M.]

Originally Posted by highcotton

I've been giving some thought to trying 140 grain Hornady SST's in my .270 WIN. Anyone have experience with these bullets? Accuracy? Terminal performance? I've been shooting mostly Nosler, both BT's and AB's. I like the performance of the AB, but have not been able to get the groups I want with them so far. Thought I might give the SST's a run, but wanted some experienced feedback first.

I would take a nosler btip over an sst any day. a buddy and I hunted pronghorn in TX in 2008. he was shooting factory sst from his 308. took 5 shots to kill his pronghorn with those sst bullets. the first one was a perfect broadside shot and the bullet exploded, ripping off the skin and muscle from the scapula with bare bone exposed and a hole big enough for 2 fists yet no internal damage whatsoever.

I will try to find pictures. My advice, stay away from SST bullets. This is based on that experience for terminal performance, and my own experience with loading them and not achieving good accuracy in 3 different 270 rifles with the 130 and 140.

[Derek M.]

Here he is. I'll email him for the pics of the entry holes. It was quite the mess and in my opinion, the bullets are a joke. What you are looking at is the "good" side of the buck. There are NO exit holes on this side at all, and 2 of the shots were within 30 yards because the buck was like the energizer bunny, he just kept on going.

[Scot E]

I like them a lot. My son used them to shoot his mule deer this fall. Only a 225 yard shot but it mushroomed to almost an inch at the widest, penetrated a shoulder on the entry side and a rib on the off side. Full penetration and about 75% weight retention. This was a 308 165grain out of an '06.

I can tell you the 6.5's and the 308's have a higher BC than what is listed. I played with the 308 this fall a bit and didn't finalize what the BC was but it was noticeably higher. They shoot very accurately for me in every gun I have tried.

If you like to shoot through the leg bones of big game then you will have to be careful with this bullet. It is not as tough as the PT or AB. This is especially true on elk and big mule deer. But if you shoot for the vitals or take should blade shots I think they will be perfect. I personally like a bullet that does a lot of mushrooming and even some shredding of weight so for my style of shooting these work well.

HTH,

Scot E.

[T3-OleMan]

Close.

Try the Superformance GMX, it did a very good job for my 338WM (185gr) by accident during a scope upgrade. 15 uncleaned rounds and I was impressed as the way they closed in after 7 or 8 rounds of alighnment. They are faster!
Good luck.

[sendero72]

The 95gr in the 243 works great on whitetail.

[Browninglover1]

The 140 SST and RL22 with Fed215M primers shot very well in my Browning A Bolt 270. The only thing I ever killed with this load was jack rabbits so I can't really speak of performance on big game.