I thought you couldn't decide which rifle you wanted???

Put the bullet where it counts!!!150s will kill um just as dead as 180s!!!

I killed my first deer with a Remington 742 in .30-06 shooting a 180 grain Core-lokt (one week after my brother killed his first deer with the same rifle shooting a 150 grain Winchester Powerpoint).

The difference was that my deer at 125 yards took three steps and rolled down the hill with a neat hole blown all the way through.

My brother's deer was shot at 30 yards, the bullet hit the shoulder blade and disintegrated...400 yards later following a trail with 3 drops of blood, we found the deer. Sharp bullet fragments shredded everything internally...looked like jello...not a single internal organ was intact. Without the exit wound, very little blood was lost even beneath the dead deer.

Since then, I have been partial to heavy for caliber cup-based bullets, like the core-lokt (so for me it would be the 180 grain load). My favorite .30-06 load is the Winchester 150 grain Ballistic Silvertip though...

Well usually when a deer drops and doesn't get up that is probably not very painful because it is instant?

I have been shooting the 180 grains for years and I have no complaints.

This is true of a 120lb whitetail at 50 yards and broadside. What if you have a 300lb whitetail at a hard quartering angle? Say you have to plow through the shoulder at an angle?

Why not have some insurance instead of going in with the minimum?

Ive done 150's, 180's and 165's. I shoot a Rem 700 bdl. What I've learned is that my rifle likes the 165's. Ive also learned to not to split hairs. Its a white tail deer. Tough shots do come up but whats more important than bullet weight is shot placement. I put 80 shells thru prior to the season. Different yards and angles. And sometimes I really wish I was hunting with a shotgun!

I have shot 2 deer with a 150 grain bullet, both at about 50 yards. The one I shot last year went clean through, deer went maybe 20 yards and was down on the ground in 5 seconds.

The deer I shot this year (Big doe, maybe 120 lbs field dressed) was a quartering towards shot. The bullet entered in the center of the rib cage, traveled towards the hind quarters, and remarkably stopped just under the fur about 3 inches forward of the rear leg. She ran maybe 20 yards and was down in 5 seconds. I retrieved the slug and I will post a picture...very nice mushroom. That shot obviously left almost no blood trail...but then I watched her fall over so no blood trail was needed:-)

I looked into this exact same question with these exact same rounds two years ago when I was deciding what to use through my Rem 700. I even made a graph to compare the energy and trajectory of the three rounds.

I decided on the 165 as being the best. If I remember right it was almost as flat-shooting as the 150 grain in terms of trajectory, yet almost as much energy (knock-down power) as the 180. If I can find the graph when I get home I'll post it.

[quote=Teach Deer;3566439]
My brother's deer was shot at 30 yards, the bullet hit the shoulder blade and disintegrated...400 yards later following a trail with 3 drops of blood, we found the deer. Sharp bullet fragments shredded everything internally...looked like jello...not a single internal organ was intact. Without the exit wound, very little blood was lost even beneath the dead deer.

Jello for lungs, heart and liver yet 400 yards???
WOW!!