I posted about my weird success yesterday in this thread:
http://thefiringline.com/forums/show...98#post5300498
Shooting .308 Winchester; 168gr Nosler Ballistic Tip over 43.5 gr Varget; velocity unknown but they group very very well on paper. The shot was inside of 50 yards, and carried enough energy to take down two does. The deer that I hit intentionally had an exit wound about 1.5" in diameter. The bullet continued on to the 2nd doe and did enough damage to take her down as well. I had been playing with 150gr NBTs back in the summer, but I ran out of them before season opened, and figured I'd just roll back to the 168gr that I'd already dialed in.
I feel like this was too much bullet I guess. I would think that ideally, you'd want to dump all that energy into the animal without too much collateral damage to the meat, and without risk of the bullet exiting and going elsewhere in an uncontrolled fashion.
The deer here aren't typically "monsters".. biggest buck ever taken back on the farm where I hunt was 280 lbs. The typical shot distance is inside of 200 yards as well.
For .30 caliber, do you guys think I should maybe go with an even lighter weight like 125gr? Or maybe try a different bullet type all together next year? Or am I just over thinking about it? My cousin shoots 90gr VMax out of his .257 Roberts back there (last year at 400+ yards!) and has never lost a deer.
The .308 is what I'm stuck with for now. What do you guys think?