Reduced Recoil Hunting Ammo
 

Anyone have experience on white tail deer hunting using Hornady 308 Win. reduced recoil ammo .... 125 gr. SST bullet? Looking into possibly setting up a kid for deer ... 100 yard max.

I had two bad experiences with the SST one year on deer and elk and immediately went to their Interlock to handload for my .243 Sako, a 25-06 Ruger, and 3 30-06s. When I use the 30-06s for elk I go up to their Interbiond that shoots to the same POI as the Interlocks, thus not requiring rezeroing any scopes. I have been very impressed with them and will use them the rest of my hunting days. If I were you, I would get that Hornady Custom Lite ammo in their round nose Interlock that they are now making, rather than the SST, especially for a kid shooting a max of 100 yards like you mentioned.

In general, I have had good luck with the SST, but I will say that those experiences probably aren't relevant for the caliber/charge consideration we're talking about here.

Based on my experiences with the SST, I'm not sure that a "light for caliber" SST at relatively low velocity would be my first choice. It's a great deer hunting bullet in 'standard for caliber' weights, and at 'traditional' or 'magnum' velocities (i.e. 30-06 150grn or 165grn, trucking somewhere around 2900fps from the muzzle), but if you're looking at a youth or compact 20" .308win rifle, flying somewhere in the 2200-2300fps from the muzzle with a 125grn SST, I'm just not sure the expansion and penetration are going to be what you want.

I WOULD be confident, that at 100yrds, a well placed 125grn SST will kill deer, even leaving the muzzle at a relatively low velocity, but I'd have to think about it more to decide whether it'd be my first choice or not.

If you go this route, please do report back on performance.

I used the Managed Recoil shells in my Bolt-Action 30-06 and really like them a lot,they were also 125 grain and was only 1/2-1 inch difference in point of impact in my regular bullets I was using plus less recoil in a larger caliber was nice!

Sorry no experience with managed recoil but what about one of the Allen or limbsaver recoil pads? They reduce felt recoil by half.

Why 125gr out of an 06? U sure thats right ?

Lighter bullet = less recoil.

ive shot the reduced load 06...definitely brought the felt recoil down, id say it felt like 7mm-08 round or comparable. No experience with how it does as far as terminal performance tho

Check out the remington managed recoil loads

I bought my son a Kimber Montanna in .308 the day after he was born,figuring he's be able to use it by the time he was 12 which used to be the min age to hunt in Pa.Several years ago,they approved a mentored hunt program so I bought him a .243 when he was 7.He's had good success with that rifle for the past two years but this past spring he kept pestering me to let him shoot the .308.I figured is would knock him on his rear as it weighs about 5.5lbs naked.I worked up a load with 125gr ballistic tips and 41gr of IMR3031 just to see how he's handle it.Accuracy was very good and he's shot 100 rds this summer so far with no issues.I just got done loading 125 accubonds with the same powder charge and that's what he'll be hunting with.I have little doubt it will perform well.

A SST is a interlock bullet not a varmint bullet.Keep the velocity around 2600-2800fps and it will kill deer all day long.

I don't know where that varmint bullet statement came from because nobody on here has said the SST is such! Yea, they may kill deer, but there are also a lot of people like myself that have had a number of bad experiences with them and have gone to something else. How many deer and other bigger critters have you shot with them to make that "kill deer all day long" statement?

I've killed about 7 or 8 with 180 gr SST's out of my 300 wsm.None of those deer took a step and all had a fist sized exit wound.I killed two with 165 gr SST's out of my .308.Neither made it out of sight.From what I've experienced,they're similar to ballistic tips and a little on the fragile side if pushed too fast.Keep the velocities reasonable that they'll do fine.A youth load with 125 gr bullets isn't going to be breaking any land speed records so a bullet on the fragile side isn't a bad idea.

That is exactly my point! The mulie buck I shot with one at about 100 yards with a 150 grainer in my 30-06 put a bigger than your fist size hole on the ENTRANCE side. The other hit a cow elk on an onside rib at about 125 yards and absolutely blew up. She took off right at dark with a herd and before I found her the middle of the morning the next day I lost over half the meat to spoilage. I have never lost 1# of meat from any other animal in over 60 years of hunting. Needless to say, I shot the rest of them at paper and then moved to their SP and BTSP for game and have had no problems since.

My cousins son killed 5-6 deer and a bear with hornady 139 gr 7/08 none of them took a step. Not reduce recoil ammo but sst bullets worked for them none of the shots were past 120 yards they ranged each before the shot with him shooting to make sure there in his comfable range he practices at.

When my son started hunting at 6 years old, I would hand load his 308 with 125 grain bullets and reduced powder charges to practice with. When hunting, I brought full strength loads with 150 grain Barnes XXX bullets.

SST's are pretty fragile in my experience.If you push them too fast or shoot them at heavy-boned game,you stand the chance of running into problems.I certainly wouldn't use them on elk unless it was on the heavier side for the caliber.I have no doubt that the 125 gr SST's will work fine at reduced velocities used designed for a youth hunter.I would't use 125 gr sst's at screaming 06 velocities but reduced loads out of a .308 will work fine.