Originally Posted by
ADVWannabee
I switched years ago but not from "trusty" old bullets.
I was using Winchester Silvertips and they would not go through a dear. They would break up and stop at the hide on the far side. So I switched to Federal Premiums with Nosler partition bullets. Now I get a nice through and through shot.
I'm confused by two things, why you would use Silvertips and why you would think that you need premium bullets to kill a whitetail deer.
The object of killing a deer is to find a bullet that retains as much of its core as possible. The tip of the bullet burns off in flight, especially if it is one of these new polymer tipped bullets.
The goal then becomes getting a bullet that will open up upon impact and will penetrate and create a wound channel that will do devastating destruction to the internals of the animal you wish to kill.
At one time, I knew people who hunted with Sierra Match King Bullets. They thought that pin point accuracy was the key to harvesting a deer. Yet Sierra tell you in plain terms that the Match King bullet is specifically designed for target practice only. Once it makes a hole in a target it's job is done. The Sierra Game King is the bullet of choice if you wish to hunt whitetail deer.
The goal of shooting deer isn't to see who can blow the biggest hole in it, but to use the cheapest bullet that will do the job.
Dead is dead.
A bonded bullet will not always open up upon impact because it is designed for thick skinned game such as Elk and Moose. A solid core bullet is not designed to open up upon impact with a soft skinned animal either.
The end result is that more deer are shot in Pennsylvania with Remington, Winchester, Federal cheap factory loads then any other component or brand name bullet - first because it is the cheapest and second because it is the most available.
Thats not to say that you could or could not use them to shoot a deer 500 or 1000 yards away, but to say that most weekend warriors - that only hunts deer a couple of days a year, uses them with success because their range is usually limited to 200 yards or less and that is what these factory loads are designed to do.
My dad was a reloader for years and he uses Hornady bullets because they are cheaper.