another good deer bullet option for the 30-30, .30 Herrett, etc.

[Bobby Tomek]

About five years ago, Sierra introduced the 150 grain Hollow Point Varminter in .30 caliber. I've been wondering about its performance at 30-30 level speeds, and today, I finally ran some into test medium. I already knew the 135 grain version of the same bullet was too fragile for my liking but was curious to try its big brother, so to speak.

I actually loaded them in my 24" Van Horn .300 Savage barrel, and the MV (measured at 15 feet) of the load was 2484 fps -- virtually the same as one can get with a 30-30 and powders such as LVR and CFE-223.

I used a water-wet media mixture and also thawed a chunk of heavy hide, shield and fat from a recent boar that was then placed directly in front of the media. I recovered bullets at both 100 and 175 yards and fired a total of 8 rounds into the medium (four at 100 and four at 175).

The BC of this gaping-nosed bullet is just .334. The impact speed at 100 yards averaged 2242 fps. At 175 yards, it averaged 2075 fps.

As one might expect with this bullet, it did shed a good bit of its weight. The wound channels were impressive, the penetration was more than adequate, and the retained weight ranged from a low of 59.9 grains to a high of 82.4 grains. None of the bullets lost their cores, though, and all were fully mushroomed and featured frontal diameters that ranged from .578 to .674. They were remarkably consistent in their final shape.

For deer-sized game at these speeds, this bullet would do quite well and certainly would destroy more tissue than some of the more traditional 30-30-type projectiles. I'd have no problems trying it on hogs and plan to do so at some point, though a fully broadside presentation would be much preferred on any bruisers. But for deer, this bullet would shine in the single shot 30-30s.

Lastly, while I don't put much stock in energy figures, for those who are curious, this 2484 fps load still retains 1363 ft./lbs of energy at 200 yards, so it does pack a punch.

Some day, I'll try these at lower velocities and see what the threshold is for adequate and reliable expansion. But I've run out of steam for now and am taking it easy inside the house.

[BT]

Another great review. You’ve mentioned in the past that you check velocities down range, but I don’t think I’ve seen you say how you’re setting up the chrono to do that. Which one are you using?

[Bobby Tomek]

Another great review. You’ve mentioned in the past that you check velocities down range, but I don’t think I’ve seen you say how you’re setting up the chrono to do that. Which one are you using?

Thanks.

I use this one along with an old Pro Chrono. I set them up directly in front of the test medium using one of my re-purposed Calumet studio light stands. With the light stand, the setup is stable, and the height is very easy to adjust to exactly the desired level.

Years ago, I had an Oehler 35 but sold that quite a while back.

[BT]

That’s a really awesome method. Adds another level of info. Have you compared calculated velocity from the muzzle end to get down range numbers to actual down range results?

[Bobby Tomek]

Yes, I have. Most of the time it's pretty close, and one has to remember that even small atmospheric changes/differences can influence the results. There have been a couple of bullets over the years, though, that seemed to have quite the optimistic BCs listed LOL. One that quickly comes to mind is a certain 140 grain flat-based spitzer in 6.5mm. It was listed right at 0.5, but it never quite measured up for me. It was a great game bullet but certainly didn't live up to the billing of its listed BC.