Thoughts on SST's(long)

[flopduster]

I'm not really complaining, pondering would be a better word. I just think I had a dull point that some game bullets perform the same or worse than match bullets. A person would have a higher chance of a superficial wound shooting their 7rum with a 150 sgk at 75 yards than the guys shooting a 220 smk at 75 yards. Even if that 220 fragments, they would be some quite large pieces to inflict serious damage not to mention the higher energy tranfer. For my style of hunting, I can find reasons to complain, but can not find enough reason to change my bullets. I had a friend that shot fail safes out of his 270 because he adhered to the "exit wound at any cost" club until he lost two nice bucks the same month to them. He shoots a lot of his bucks in the neck if they are inside 100yds(he has killed some very nice bucks for SC including several in the state book) and the fs went through with out hitting the spine and did not do much tissue damage.

If I was only shooting 400 yards and wanted an exit wound I'd try the barnes triple shocks. I had crap accuracy with the XLC's but I hear the TSX's are prettu accurate. If you get moa or better you're fine.

I drop a mulie buck and a lope in there tracks this season with my 7 STW and 140 Barnes XLC's. The lope was hit in front of the shoulder at 48 yards and died instantly. With that shot placement I thought he would have ran a little but never took a step.

The mulie also dropped in his tracks with a 216 yard shot, but he got it right in the kill zone.

I switched to 156 cauterucio's because XLC's were too erratic and I want to reach out farther. Funny thing about the XLC's is they shot well once I warmed up the barrel (sometimes 1/2" to 3/4")but a cold barrel was pathetic.

[Warren Barrett]

Flopduster, I agree with Jerry. The 140 or 150gr. SST would be the better choice. My experience with the SST`s has been the following with muzzle velocity of 3250fps pushing 140 6.5 cal. SST:
1) 325yd shot on large cow elk through shoulder without hitting shoulder bone. Complete pass-through with quarter size exit.
2) 215yd shot on mature white-tail doe quatering to me. Bullet strikes large shoulder bone and exits opposite side about 8 inches in front of rear leg with quarter size exit.
3) 411yd shot on mature white-tail doe broadside shoulder shot breaking large shoulder bone on entry and exiting opposite side with quarter size hole.
So as you see, I like shoulder shots also. The deer have dropped in their tracks, while the cow elk ran about 75-100yds.
As a side note, these bullets have proved very accurate with my experience.

[rost495]

Flopduster

Your friend did not loose 2 bucks with failsafes due to a bad bullet. He simply had poor bullet placement and a similar tracking job.

I won't dabble into this argument over bullets, other than to say that those that will not penetrate and leave exit wounds on broaside shots at range, well when your trophy of a lifetime comes out walking dead away from you with his head down trailing a doe, you'd better pray before you shoot because you'll need lots of penetration on the non perfect shot. Its why I shoot a bullet that will penentrate. If or when the time comes, I can shoot without hesitation. Big bull Nilgai teach you lots about lightweight bullets and poor bullet design that you don't want to know about.

Jeff

I like the bullet that transfers all its energy inside the game on a broadside shot. If the trophy is walking dead away I will pass on the shot. I don't want a broadside shot that makes a little hole. I tryed the barnesx and the failsafe one year. I shot a nice buck at 265 yards with the x bullet broadside. Small bullet size hole right through high in the back of the lungs. He ran all the way across a section field (1 mile) before falling over. Blead to death but all inside, no blood trail. Got another deer with the failsafe just over 200 yards. In the chest and hit the shoulder on the way out. Very little internal damage but damaged the off shoulder and she went down. I won't use those bullets on deer again. Just my way of doing things.

[rost495]

I'm starting to wonder if FS or X performance is related to caliber. I"ve never had an animal travel over 100 yards after the hit. All bullets have performed very well, leaving a trail that anyone could follow. I admit I'm mostly a bowhunter since rifle shooting is not much of a challenge until you pass the 300-400 yard range. As a bowhunter I expect them to run and am very adapt at following a trail. But there remains the possibility of caliber performances. I've only shot 180,30 cal and 225 ,338 cal x and fs bullets. They've worked from 100 pound up to 800 pound animals from 50 yards to a max so far of 802 yards.

Any thoughts as to that?

Jeff

My shooting experence was with 140g fs and 130g x in a 270 win. On both deer in last post the bullet went in between ribs. Not much to start expansion with a tough bullet. The SST can enter missing ribs and still do a ton of internal damage. Thats what I like!