im glad it’s as simple as that. I have friends who use the 150gr sst and I used to. I stepped up to the 180gr because I got a deal on a few boxes when I bought a bunch of reloading stuff off a friend. I have been looking up different bullet choices and kept coming back to the noslers. I think I’ll order a box and do some accuracy testing. I’ll try them this year on some hogs and see how they do. Thank you

Many millions of critters have fallen to .30cal bullets at average velocities.

You'll find a bullet you like.

Enjoy the process. The search is part of the fun of reloading.

-Jake

sadly it will be a year before I can test on deer. I can test on hogs but it’s a different comparison with our thick hogs. Will be fun testing either way

While your .308 with 180gr bullets is effective, you might consider calibers with better bullet expansion for shorter blood trails. Look into .270 Winchester, 7mm-08 Remington, or 6.5 Creedmoor. These offer good bullet expansion at your hunting distances (100-250 yards) while remaining manageable to shoot. They also avoid the overkill of a .444 Marlin for those ranges. Before switching rifles, consider trying different bullet types for your .308, designed for better expansion at impact.

The .444 Marlin is in no way "overkill" for Whitetail. The most common load for a .444 is a 240gr PISTOL bullet. I've seen a ton of deer (and I mean that as a literal of at LEAST a ton) shot by my Dad with a .444 Marlin. That old Marlin of his was one of his absolute favorite Whitetail rifles. He very rarely had to track anything he shot with it but when he did it was usually like tracking a waterfall. One of his favorite bullets for it was 240gr Rem corelokt. Another was I think a 265gr hornady interloc but don't quote me on the weight, it's been quite a few years.

As far as the OP's issue. It isn't the cartridge. The .308 has dropped almost as many big game animals as the 30-30. As has been mentioned, you need to switch bullets and definitely drop some weight. Since you mentioned hogs I am assuming you are down south somewhere. Southern deer are nowhere near northern deer size. That's BODY not rack. What you need is an easier expansion type bullet. The above mentioned 150gr Nosler is a fantastic choice and is usually quite accurate with the right powder. I have found the 150 Spitzer ballistic tip to be about perfect for the smaller southern deer. They expand a little too rapidly on the thicker hide and muscle on these Illinois brutes but they just create an internal mess on the lighter thinner southern brethren. Not at the house currently but I THINK I loaded mine up with IMR 4895 and was getting somewhere in the low 2800's if I am recalling correctly. I'm not a modern rifle hunter usually. I love my front loaders. But I usually do get out a couple times a year on out of state hunts to fill the freezers so I take a longer range weapon. We still have a ton of family in Tennessee so I take the twins down there every year and we usually connect with several Doe.

The biggest deer I ever killed was with a .243 80 gr boat tail hollow point. There was no exit and little blood trial for the maybe 50 yards it ran. When I field dressed it, it looked like a grenade had gone off inside of it. The bullet hit a rib, tumbled and came apart, makeing mush of heart, and lungs, I do not know how it ran at all as there was nothing that looked like a heart.

I’ve shot a few deer & feral goats wi 30-06 180gr SST reloads. They all went down, little blood tracking, but they didn’t go far. The SSTs dumped most of their energy into the animal, as I believe they’re designed to do.