What bullet should i use? I will be using factoy winchester loads and be shooting 180 gr bullets on my 30 06. This will be for hunting Mule Deer here in alberta on farm parrie land i will be shooting for heart andlungs. shot will be with in 200 yards. posibly within 100 yards.
I know thereaccubonds will blow right through no porblem but im worried about not enough expansion and not creating a large wound channel. I perfer not to track. The Ballistic silver tips worry me If i miss place a shot in the sholder I dont know if they will punch through and still give me a clean kill. HELP!!!

I just read about the accubonds in africa and about the impalas droping after lung shots at 75 yard witha 308 150 gr accubond. Are imaplas compairable to mule deer in size and toughness?

Both would work fine, I have shot deer with a 165gr B-tip with my 30-06. I loaded up some 168gr BST for my 30-06 at about 2900fps and I would not hesitate to shoot mule deer with them. The BST are a controlled expansion bullet just like the Accubond except they are not bonded. I personally would go with the 165-8gr over the 180 in an 06 but either weight and either bullet will do just fine. You don't have much confidence in the BST so if you don't mind the price difference get the accubonds and have confidence in you bullet.

I would go with the Nosler AB's they seem to have more integrity. Good luck.

If I was shootin' a .30-06 and 180 grain bullets, I'd try the plain old Remington CoreLokts first. That cartridge is more'n a hundred years old, standard bullets will handle anything it can do. It's more a question of not fixin' what ain't broke than the amount of money they cost.[8D]

gopher, have you ever harvested a maturewhitetail?
What bullet did you use and how did it perform?

Mule DeerIMHO and experience are no harder to harvest than our canadian whitetail's..so pick whichever bullet shoots best and don't give it a second thought. In the 06/180 grain either would work JFL on any deer you may come across (as would others).

I have taken both variety of deer with Ballistic tip bullets from 120 to 200grs in various calibers/cartridges, haven't found a deer thatthe BT didn't do a bang up job IF I did mine first (put it in the right spot)!

Best of luck

In the 30-06 165 gr accubond would be a great elk/big deer round.I have shot alot of deer with the 30-06.
I would stay away from the Balistic-tips on mule deer,you can call BS on this if you want but their hair is thick and coarse and Balistic's have a tendancy to blow up on impact with them.
We were hunting mule deer in eastern MT a few years ago 4 pepole 2 rifles 1 a 270 win. and the other a 7mm rem mag..Shots from 40 yds to 300 and we experienced this with 130 gr BLT(270) and 140 BLT(7mm).Of the deer we shot only one did not require a follow up shots.When skinning them we could see where the bullets would brusie the shoulder/ribbs and not penetrate.
We had ued this load on elk befor and they were on shot killers,the only thing was their thick winter coats.
BBJ

Call me oldfasion, but I'll stick to the corelokts
for deer size game.

Ilove the 95gr CT's in the 243.....have had inconsistant performance with the BT's in the larger calibers.....ie. no expansion. I'm going to try the accubonds in the '06 and 7mag this year. There is no perfect bullet.....I keep looking!