Now that my deer season is over for another year it's time to start planning for next year. I used Federal Fusion this year (due to suggestion by clerk at store and this being my first real crack at whitetail hunting) and it worked alright as I dropped my deer but I was expecting a bit bigger exit wound. I shot my deer at 125 yards and the exit was pretty much the same size as the entry...good thing I hit the heart and it dropped about 15 feet from where I hit it.

Due to high prices on ammo up here in Canada I am thinking about trying the Hornady line of ammo as they seem to be priced right between the lower end ammo and the premium stuff. I like the looks of the SST (super shock tip) and the Interbond. Does anyone have experience with them and if so how did they perform?

I'll be shooting a 30-06 Savage.

Why would you want to have a huge exit hole? If it blows a big hole all it is doing is wasting meat. If the bullets do the job and it sounds like it did why change? The main thing is shot placement if you don't hit them right it doesn't matter what bullet you shoot it won't make a difference.

It sounds like you ammo is working well. Blowing a big hole out the other side of the deer is a waste. That shows your bullet is wasting most of its energy if its blowing through and leaving that big of a hole. If you really want to try a different bullet try Winchester Ballistic Silvertips. They always made a big hole on the way out when i had my 30-06. Also the skin stretches when the bullet goes through the deer. We shot a deer with a 300 Ultra Mag at 150 yards. It took the lungs and heart out of a 1.5in hole. The entrance hole was bigger then the exit hole in the skin. But if you looked at the ribs there was a 2 in hole in the entrance ribs and about a 6in hole in the ribs at the exit.

As I said this was my first crack at harvesting a deer as I have been a bird hunter all my life and I've never even seen an entry/exit wound in person. I guess I should have indicated that I was unsure of the performance of my bullet as I had read stuff about Fusion bullets not expanding properly on game and wasn't sure if this was the case with my deer.

Being this is my first deer (and now I'm hooked) I want to play around with ammo and the Hornady line seems to be a good round for the price. The Fusion wasn't bad accuracy wise at the range but I'd like to play around with other ammo as this was the only ammo I shot out of my new rifle. I would like opinions on the SST and Interbond and how they performed on deer.

Sorry if I was misleading about only concerned about expansion...more ofa situation of not really knowing if it performed as expected...other than I have a freezer full of meat and a set of antlers on the wall.

I prefer the Hornady ammo over all of the other factory stuff. I'm set up to reload all of my deer rifles,but you can't purchase just the bullets to reload your ownHornady LeveRevolution shells so I use the store-bought stuff in my 30-30.And my25-06 likes the Hornady Interbondsso well I just use them instead of handloads. Both perform exceptionally well on game, at least in my experience anyway. A couple years ago I took down 2 goats with Hornady ammo with zero problems. Switched to Fusions in the same gun several weeks later and wasn't real happy with the results. Got two deer with the Fusions, but I didn't think they performed anywhere near as well as the Hornadys did. I didn't think the Fusions opened up as much (same gun, samedistances as the Hornadys) and consequently didn't leave as big of wound channels/tissue damage (makes tracking harder) and didn't transfer as much shock into the animals.

I have a box of the Hornady SSTs, but I've only sighted them in; haven't yet used them on game.

Im sorry i took your inital post the wrong way. As for experimenting with different bullets thats a great thing to do. Hornady makes great rounds. The SST's i havnt herd much about on game. Are you only hunting deer with this rifle or are you going to hunt bigger game with it also? There are soo many choice of bullets and weights for a 30-06 its not even funny. Give us an idea of what your hunting or plan on hunting in the near future and there will be any opinions of what bullet to try. Some of my favorites are Ballisitc Tips, Accubonds, TSX

For next year it's looking like whitetail only. Give it a couple years and I'll be looking at Moose and possibly elk.

My .30-06 shot the 180 SST's and 165 IB's equally well, which was stunning! TheSST's I dug out of the backstop at the range, however, showed more fragmentation than I was hoping for, so I used the 165 IB's on my elk hunt. 1 slug passed through, with plenty o' lungs coming out of a < 2" exit hole.The other wasrecovered on the far side of the skull (whoops!). It looked like it had about 60%-70% of its original weight.

I've never used 'em on deer but wouldn't hesitate. I'd have no problem with the SST for deer, either.

FC

Federal fusion ammo and the Remington Ultra corelockt bullet line is some of the best performing deer ammo on the market. Those 2 bullets are made expressly for deer hunting and don't blow apart at magnum speeds and close range. I mean there are other bullets that will work similiarly but not priced like those 2 are. You don't need TSX's or Swift A frames for deer. In factory ammo 7 REM mag and 300 WSM I find those lines to be very good ammo.

For what you want any 150 or 165 grain bullet will work grea on deer out 300-400 yards if you NEED to shoot that far. For moose and elk i would go to a 180 grain bullet. You could get away with a 165 on elk but id rather have the 180 and possibly a 220 if your going for really big moose.