Favorite 150gr 30cal hunting bullets for accuracy?

[opngrnd]

I went out today to shoot my standard Remington 700 30-06 that I hope to get a deer with next year. I'm new to shooting past 100 yards for most purposes. My load was 150 grain Hornady Soft Points over 50 grains of Varget with Fed Match primers. FPS is a little under 2800. The bullets came free with Hornady purchases, so their use wasn't necessarily intentional. I was just hoping to get some trigger time on the rifle. Target looked like this at 350. A hair under 6 inches, not bad I was thinking.

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I was wondering what you other hunters are using for accurate 150 grain bullets. It's tempting to go for accuracy alone, but I don't want to wound an animal and have it run off. This is a new area of reloading for me, so I appreciate the info or experience anyone would like to share.

[LDM]

I've had good results from Hornady SST for a while now, but this year I went to Nosler Accubond.
Both are very good on deer sized animals.
I have not shot a hog with the Accubond, but I suspect it would perform well.

[HKGuns]

Hornady SST 150's here as well, I dropped one DRT at 230 yards with my Sako .308 using them.

[opngrnd]

Thanks for the replies. I'm pretty sure I saw a box of both SSTs and Accubonds locally, so I'll pick up a box of each and give it a try. Either one has much better BC than the Interlock bullets I'm using right now.

[Malig8r]

I really like the Nosler Accubonds; I get .5 moa with them out of my Tikka. Haven't tried the Hornady so I cannot comment on those.

[HKGuns]

I really like the Nosler Accubonds; I get .5 moa with them out of my Tikka. Haven't tried the Hornady so I cannot comment on those.

Yes, I loaded a hunting specific 16X gr load using them but haven't had a chance to shoot them. They are supposed to be excellent as well.

[opngrnd]

I picked up two 50 count boxes of the Nosler Ballistic Tips since that's what was on the shelf today. When I was poking round Nosler's site, I noticed that the Accubond and Ballistic Tip in 150 grain had an identical BC. I called Nosler, and they said the two bullets are virtually the same, excepting the jacket is bonded to the core in the Accubond version, and that they should fly essentially to the same.

Comparison pictures between the Hornady bullet (BC of .338) from my first post and the Nosler BT (BC of .435).

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The second picture shows the 150gr Nosler BT, 150gr Hornady Interlock, 77gr SMK W/C, 69gr SMK, 55gr Hornady FMJ.

I'm pretty interested in how the BC effects trajectory out to 350.

With the Hornady loaded to 2775 FPS, sighting in at 4.5" high at 100 yards I had 16" drop at 350 yards. In fairness, they were loaded 1.6 grains below max using Varget, so I've loaded up in increments to 51 grains of Varget (max is 51.6 in my manuals). We'll have to see what a safe max load for the Noslers does to trajectory and accuracy. I may end up finding I'm beating a dead horse to try to improve on what I already have.

[LDM]

I used Nosler Ballistic Tips for whitetail hunting for several years. They expand very quickly in soft tissue (like a lung shot) with devastating results.
However... if it hits bone first (e.g. shoulder) you may not get adequate penetration to kill clean. I have had this happen.
The Accubond are bonded, will hold together better, and punch through. You will get more consistent, and cleaner kills with Accubond.
The good news is you can use the less expensive Ballistic Tips to work up your loads and sight in your rifle, and then should transition smoothly to Accubonds.
There is a reason the Accubonds were probably sold out.
The Hornady SST has an internal crimp that help it hold together better than Ballistic Tips.

[opngrnd]

I used Nosler Ballistic Tips for whitetail hunting for several years. They expand very quickly in soft tissue (like a lung shot) with devastating results.
However... if it hits bone first (e.g. shoulder) you may not get adequate penetration to kill clean. I have had this happen.
The Accubond are bonded, will hold together better, and punch through. You will get more consistent, and cleaner kills with Accubond.
The good news is you can use the less expensive Ballistic Tips to work up your loads and sight in your rifle, and then should transition smoothly to Accubonds.
There is a reason the Accubonds were probably sold out.
The Hornady SST has an internal crimp that help it hold together better than Ballistic Tips.

That's the route I was thinking I'd take. I figure that 100 bullets will go pretty quickly during load development, and I'll look for the bonded ones once I get that far. Yesterday I took 20 more of the interlocks out for a little more load development, and they still don't look too bad. I'm going to hold off till I get the Lee Collet Neck Sizing Die and Lee FCD before I go any further. I might also pick up some more brass rather then using the same 50 pieces over and over again.

[bfoosh006]

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