Hunting Bullet for Tikka Tactical .308

Hopefully this should be an easy one. I'm looking for a high performance hunting bullet in .308 for use in a new Tikka Tactical rifle (1:11 twist). I have a bit of reloading experience in a variety of calibres and have a good target load for this rifle using 168g Sierra MatchKings over 43.5g of N150 loaded to factory OAL (in order to fit the mag). This runs very consistantly at a hair under 2600fps and gives me half minute of angle or better on a good day - not too shabby out of a 20 inch barrel.

I have planned a hunt where I intend to take deer and goats with this rifle but it must perform well at distance on these animals. There could be boar in the mix as well, although this would be at close range. I have no experience hunting with .308 calibre. Most grateful if anyone could recommend, from personal experience, a really accurate bullet which has good knockdown performance in the 150g to 170g weight range.

Thanks.
 
I have a Blaser in 308, it has a 1:11 twist and I think the barrel length is something just less than 22 inches, All my shots are within 250 yards and I use two bullets for hunting:

A 150 grain Hornady Spire Point which gives me 3000fps when hand loaded. This has always performed well on deer for me and is very accurate indeed with my particular load. I did a general internet trawl and found that most people were of the view that this bullet was accurate for them. I am also in NI and so know that the supply of bullets etc. can be difficult so the spire point seemed like the most common bullet out there. The boat tailed version of this bullet also seems very accurate though, to be fair, the Blaser for some reason is pretty accurate with nearly anything. I recently shot 20 of the boat tailed Spire Points into less than 2 inches while forming some new brass to my chamber - no brass prep, no idea of the COL or anything I just threw a reasonable powder charge in the brand new cases and stuck the Spire Point on top and after 10 minutes had a nice neat hole in the paper. I've never recovered a Spire Point from a deer and all the deer shot with them have died.

A 150 grain Nosler Partition - I've only ever shot one of these over a chrono and it was giving me 2680 which is probably around the 2700 at the actual muzzle. I tried the Partitions just because I fancied giving them a go and not because of any particular problem with the Spire Points. The Partition is the only bullet I've tried that puts sika down immediately with a chest shot, though not every time clearly. I shot a red hind in the chest with one at the start of the year and the stalker with me was convinced I'd shot her in the head she went down so fast. It isn't quite as accurate as the Spire Point but is more than good enough for deer at realistic stalking ranges. The Partition didn't give any pressure signs over the same load as I use for the Spire Point and so it may well be possible to get 3000fps out of it as well but it just wasn't as accurate with this higher load so I eased back on the powder charge quite a lot. I'm currently using the partition as my deer load.

If you want to shoot very long range game then the Berger hunting VLDs get a good reputation for that, though I've never tried them, I also had very good accuracy out of the 165 grain Sierra GameKings but decided on a 150 grain load and so have no idea what velocity I was seeing with them, nor did I ever shoot a deer with them.

Hopefully that helps or gives you some ideas.
 
Thanks guys. Caorach, your 150g load is not hanging about at 3000fps. I think you may be referring to the Hornady AMax bullet, or possibly the Interbond? The latter is double the price of the former and definitely premium quality and might be difficult to find in the UK. The GameKings have always worked very well in my .243.
 
No it is not the A-Max but the normal 150 grain flat base Spire Point I'm shooting, I think they are branded as Interlocks but they are basically the Hornady entry level cup and core bullet and the part number is 3031.

I didn't intend for them to be going so fast but worked up from an accurate load which was marginal in making 2450 to the next accurate load which, to my surprise, turned out to be giving 3000fps over the chrono. It is a book load, and the one printed on the website for the Reloader 15 powder I'm using and there is no sign of pressure plus the brass has been reloaded on quite a number of occasions now with no problems.
 
Hornady interlocks 150g. Sub MOA out of my rifle (factory ammo and stock rifle). It's what I use and drops everything I've shot pretty darn quick. Which the consistence of this load, I don't bother looking for something else. Although I am a little curious about the non toxic bullets
 
Just use the same load, and swap out the 168 gr Sierra Matchking for a 165-gr Gameking. Use the same die, same setting, seating the bullet to the same length to the ogive. Shoot a few through the same hole to verify, then go hunting.
 
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