Should have learned from last years experience. just about the same scenario as last year. Minnesota whitetail doe about 160 pounds, 150yrds broadside shot. aimed for the shoulder, knocked deer right of its feet. deer gets back up, runs off very little blood found, searched for about 2 hours lost all blood sign. This Has happened 2 years in a row almost same deal. I am shooting 270 win with 130 grain sierra Gamekings. It is very accurate at the bench ( just for fun we were shooting water filled milk jugs at 300yds) so I know I was hitting where I was aiming. Its to late for me anymore this year to try a different bullet, so I am going to try for neck shots ( don't like to) until I get a different bullet figured out. looking at the Accubond or Interbond bullet now. I would prefer a bullet that wouldnt explode on impact at 3100fps like I think the gamekings are doing. If you would please help me to choose a bullet that I can put through a shoulder blade at 100 to 300 yards a still perform equally well. I like the accuracy of the gamekings but not the end result. Thanks again, Steve
Number one, why would you shoot for the shoulder with a gameking? Your asking for bullet failure there.
If I can give some advise, I say shoot for the boiler room like us bowhunters do. I have killed dozens of deer iwth gamekings and never have a problem hitting the lungs.
i have used 150 grain .30 caliber Sierra Game King and Sierra Pro-Hunter bullets on deer for over 40 years. Most of those kills were bang flops. i do not do shoulder shots, opting instead for heart-lung shots.
Lets see, you did the same thing last year using the same ammo and you got the same results. Did you expect different results ?
Gamekings are not the toughest bullets but they aren't sold as such either. I use them on elk every year, same ammo, same results...dead elk. I expect those results.
160 lb. doe isn't exactly the king of the forest, shoot'em thru the lungs.
Unless the deer is recovered, you have no idea where you hit it. Just because you shoot it well on the bench does not mean you did that particular shot equally as well. Nor does knocking it off its feet.
I made the worst shot I have made on a deer in a decade last week. Prone off a bipod, rock steady, 300 yards at a 7-pt. He was quartering and stopping briefly while walking, but still I had no excuse to make anything but an easy shot on him. He dropped like a rock at the shot (I have it on film). Flopped a couple times, then still as 3 does practically ran him over fleeing. Dead deer, or so we thought. The shot felt perfect.
We turned our attention to 3 other bucks bedded further down in the field my buddy wanted to shoot at. After about 15 minutes while we were sizing them up, my buddy turned to get something from his pack and told me my buck was sitting up! I wheeled around and put another round into him.
Turns out I made an honestly poor shot for no apparent reason and hit him through the back hips; with the angle my bullet was about 6 inches right of where I'd aimed. I validated the gun by taking a similar shot on a rock at the same range, and hit within 1/2 inch of where I was aiming. Shot another animal 2 days later at 550 yards again perfect. If I had not retrieved that buck I could have blamed it on the bullet as every other shot I took was perfect, but having recovered him I KNOW I screwed up that shot somehow.
For all you know you may have done a similar thing. Without finding the deer you will never know. But if you've lost faith in the bullet I'd switch anyway, the last thing you need in your mind when you pull the trigger is doubt in your equipment.
Though they do seem to be accurate, my experiences with GameKings has been similar. I've not lost an animal, but I became accustomed to the 165 BTSPs in a mildly loaded .30-06 shedding jackets and nearly 60% of their original weight. They performed even worse in a .243.
Those results always seemed to amplify when hitting a solid mass of bone and tissue such as the shoulder. Tremendous near-side tissue damage and waste, but little penetration. Thus, I'm also a fan of the heart/lung shot over shoulder or neck.
Location: A flat lander lost in the mountains of Northern,AZ
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I got to finally try Gamekings on a deer by accident and I was pretty impressed with the results. reason I say by accident is because I had originally worked up a special handload for my 308 for my mule deer hunt this year, which was using a 165 grain SST's over RL15. But the day I left for my hunt I forgot my shells but in my center console in my pickup I luckily had a box of my other handload I was using for coyotes the week before which were 165 grain gameking hollow points over varget. though these loads didnt print as tightly as my SST loads the POI was basically the same so I went ahead and used them instead of making the drive back home to get my other loads. I would have really liked to see what the SST's would have done but the gamekings worked well enough in my opinion. I hit my deer at about 200 yards he went down after about 50 yards of trying to run up the mountain after a few minutes he seemed to get a second wind and I sent an insurance shot at him which pulled the plug out. For a cup and core bullet it did a good job from the looks of the damage and the exit hole Id say they hold together pretty well.
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Genesis 9:3
Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.
A 130gr GK in a 270 will kill a whitetail everytime if the shot is good.
Try shooting a target at 150yds from the same hunting position. The result will likely be dramatically different than 300yds off a bench.
second gameking failure
