i have a question about 300mag hand loads. what is the best 150 grain handload for deer at long ranges, up to 450 yards. before you start on the why would you take that long of a shot, i have shot in the nra service rifle matches at several military installations, and routinely shot out to 600 yards. i do not intend on shooting deer at these ranges, but am curious if anyone has any data. which bullet will expand and stay in the deer, and which one will exit, leaving a blood trail. also, is there a factory loaded bullet that you would recommend. the hornady sst shot exeptionally well, and i am not sure even a reloaded bullet would duplicate the accuracy. the gun in use is a remington 700 sendero. thanks in advance.

I would go with a scirroco,ballistic point or sst.All three expand reliably at almost all velocities and all three have the high ballistic co-efficients desirable for long range shooting.

My vote would be for the Barnes X bullets. They are reliable expanders, and have a high ballistic coefficient.

out of curiousity why would you go with a 150 gr bullet instead of a 165gr that has a better flight path .I have friends that shoot matches and most of them shoot the 168 gr .

My experience has been to go with a 165 gr. over a 150. What you gain in velocity cannot overcome what is lost in bc. 150gr bullets also do not penetrate on deer sized game at this range very well either, although it will work I only had one hit at 430yards that had an exit wound, granted this was using some handloads with Nosler BT's and not with a Barnes X type bullet which would probably deliver much better down range performance.

scshooter Welcome to the board .

Thanks, good info on this BB

You will have no problems with penetration on deer with 150 gr bullets.They will penetrate even better at longer ranges because the bullet will expand less due to decreased velocity.

I don't see a problem with the 150's but why not go to the 165's for the longer range shots? They will buck the wind a little better and still shoot relativly flat. I load 165's for hunting and 168's for paper punching. My pet load is either a Speer 165gr BTSP or a Sierra 168gr Macth King over 74grs of IMR-4350, Win. brass and Fed.-215 primer;(NOTE THIS IS MAX OR NEAR MAX CHARGE IN MOST RELOADING BOOKS) both shoot close enough to the same zero out to 600yds to take down a deer. But like you I limit myself to 400-450yds on game. Out of my Sendero I get an average 3200fps muzzle velocity from both bullets.

thanks for the load data bigEd. i will try it out asap. there seems to be a lot of fans of bigger weight bullets, especially barnes. cant wait til nov 2002 to try out the new loads.