Thread: best 308 projectile for shooting sika at close range

Hey guys Im looking for your recommendations on what rounds i should be using for my type of hunting.
Almost all of my shots at sika are close range out to about 100m max. Being a small animal i find traditional 150gr soft point ammo doesnt expand as much as i would of hoped and they quite often run a fair distance before dropping which makes it hard to find them in dense bush.

Ive heard a lot about sako blue tip 308 rounds that expand a lot quicker when they hit the target but shit they know how to charge!!!
I have a friend that reloads so thought if there was something out there you think will perform much better than factory soft point let me know.

Cheers

Sid

Not sure on sika but I just love the 165grain Nosler Ballistic Tips in my 308, perform really well. Reds and Fallow

Been using 125 gr SST they work well

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I'm still running 150gr soft points in my 308 for the whitetail but have been recommended to drop down to a 130gr frangible projectile

I'm picking as above or 165gn nosler partition would be pretty good up close medicine, or pretty much any heavy for caliber soft point or bonded pill for that matter



Edit.....ignore me I saw Sika and read Samba

You could try Hornady SST's or If like you say only out to 100 metres a 150 Round nose any bullet for the 30/30 the 170 grain are a great deer bullet very popular
in the USA,

Yeah i think the trouble is americans shoot bigger animals so their ammo is tailored to that..... i want to shoot small sika and leave a huge exit hole

168eldm hornady ammo. Big hole

Speer 150 grain btsp a soft bullet I read to work in the 300 savage and slower, should work well.

Hey @Sid

A few years back a group of us were playing around with rounds that would work a bit better on fallow. We looked at both the Big and slow 30 cal approach with even subsonic rounds and the Light and fast looking at the frangible approach there.

The best slow projectile there I found was undoubtedly the leigh High https://lehighdefense.com/308-calibe...e-bullets.html but that s more a subsonic round but would meet your needs.

We also used Nosler Hunting Ballistic tips in 168gr at moderate speed. These produced wide wounding to about 3.5-4 inches in light game goats and fallow and good value. Nosler look like as part of the lead free greenie this to have also created these that might be worth looking for. https://www.nosler.com/30-caliber-16...free-50ct.html

The ones we were staggered by the results from the fast and relatively light side of things was the Hornady 110 flat bases. They were like letting a firecracker off in the fallows chest. Real bang stagger flop stuff. We were pushing the remit of the round as it's a really a varmint round and pushing it with 2206H powder was quite spicey. https://www.hornady.com/bullets/rifl...10-gr-v-max#!/
these are really frangible - and I ended up using it largely on goats where I'm just using the back legs

But a good learning for us all - and surprisingly we were expecting if we were going to see bullet blow-up it would be here but to date - nothing.

I may have a few various projectiles hiding out in the garage if you have a pet reloader nearby who wants to try these and I can outline a bit more what we tested load wise for you.

Hope this helps.
CD.

Fallow shot in the throat at about 15yds, massive exit wound out though the spine between the shoulders. Fed blue box. Don't overthink it.

I use the 30-30 160gr FTX with a mild load in my bush 308, it makes big holes in fallow at close range.

Another option would be the Speer 130gr HP, they are a varmint bullet but would go okay on sika and fallow, personally I wouldn't use them on reds.

Most should work.
The 125gn Speer HP value packs come 500 to a pack and they should do it.
120gn Nosler BT have dropped a variety of things for me

Otherwise those Hornady SST,

All depends what's available but I'm thinking light for calibre .30s in the 120-130gn mark will work well around 100m

@Sid it would help to know specifically which 150gr soft points you’ve been using. Not all soft points are created equal…

Is there maybe another issue at play here? Where are you shooting the deer, when they run on? Where is the point of impact and where is the exit? I’ll take a guess it’s behind the shoulder, if that’s the case its more of a shot placement problem than a bullet problem.

Let us know because in my experience flip-flopping between bullets for close range work doesn’t make anywhere near as much difference as shooting them in the front of the chest. Also while I respect the comments above about using frangible bullets the downside is major damage as you can see in Ryan’s photo. The prevailing wisdom is that short range bush work requires a controlled expansion bullet that will not end up looking like the deer swallowed a grenade, and shoot them in the shoulder.

That said, I use a Speer 165 grain BTSP which is a renowned longer range bullet that is soft and very lethal. But recently I’ve been doing much more close range bush work with it, and have had zero problems poleaxing red deer, fallow and goats of all sizes. The bullet is that soft it makes a big flat raggedly mushroom that pulls up fast and rarely exits a red deer at close range, instant collapse and the innards are mush. The flipside is that on a small red yearling or a young fallow, if you hit it too far back you run the risk of literally disembowelling it, guts hanging out the side of the animal. Not nice!

Give the Hornady 150 SST a try, think they'll solve your problem.