I shot a Doe last year at approximately 65 yards. I was using the 160 grain flex tip hornaday ammo. I took her about 3 inches below the backbone just behind the shoulder. She dropped and the other doe following her bedded down right beside her. The wind was blowing 35 plus I doubt the other deer every heard the shot, my son didnt hear me shoot and he was 180 yards from me. The round exited and there was no sign of tip residue as one might exspect. I've heard others say they will not use them because of that. However I shot 3 rounds into a 4 or 5 inch of oak block awhile back at 25 yards with the same ammo. I had the block set up in a dirt pile. When I went to measure how high the bullets where, I found the copper jackets laying on the ground just behind the block. I thought it odd that all three parted from the core. I didn't dig after the cores because the jackets where peeled back like a banna very evenly. I was impressed. I have killed more that 40 deer with a 30-30 and have used 125hp's they lacked penatration every time, 150 silvertips deer always ran 30 yards with just behind shoulder shots and one with the gummy tips DRT. Im' going to use the gummies this coming season to see if my expierence is normal. I hear the Winchester 150 HP's perform DRT to, I have my wife's 94 Winnie sighted in with the 150 hp's .I hope to get back this year with a comparrision.

 

The Lever-E 357 and 44 in my test are not too swuft. The "deer grenade" is a good bullet but does not perform any differently on any of the animals I've shot than standard HP's.
I try everything that comes out because that's all I have to do all day and night. Normally, I'm excited about Hornady ammo but the pistol lever-E is a bust. The velocity
is also very disappointing. There are very few Buffalo Bore ammos that justify the price or perform much different than conventional, the 32 H&R +P is one that does work better.

If you accept these as 125 yard rifles, You cannot beat the all around performance of the 357 158gr, or the 44 240gr JSP, off the shelf cheap ammo.

If you accept your 30-30 as an easy 150 yard rifle, you can't get better than $13 Blue-Box, 170gr Federals.

I have spent your tax dollars on all sorts of exotic ammunition to play with, save your money.

It really depends on what you want.

 

As I've posted before, the rubber tips really didn't do anything fantastic when I've used them. I've gone back to the Nosler HPs, cheaper and don't shed their jackets. Never recovered any of the rubber tips and seldom recover a Nosler. One of the few times I did, it bored through the pelvis from behind, left about a 1" hole and ended up under the hide right behind the left front leg. Bone was just pulverized. Critter dropped right there, cup still had the core intact. So good enough performance as far as I'm concerned.

Stan S.

 

Speer Gold Dots and Winchester Silvertips hold together in whitetails too.

 

And cost a whole heck of a lot less! Don't buy in to the marketing hype. Like Willy said, there are plenty of bullets out there that will perform on deer.

 

Milk jugs have roughly half the expansion caricterisics of ballistics jell so if you line up two jugs and shoot thru them it will give you an idea what the round can do. I have seen some crazy things happen to bullets. So maybe you got a fluke. Or a bad batch. But Test and see

 

those buffalo bore grenades have a high velocity, 1935fps at the muzzle of a 20" 1894 barrel and 1925 ft/lbs of energy, thats higher than any other over the counter 44 i can find. and theres just something about them that makes me think that they can drop anything in their tracks. must be good marketing on their part lol.
ive noticed when i dig slugs out of the berm that i only find the jackets from the hornadys, but the cheap winchester soft points i plink around with are all a solid mushrooms. but thts not really a fair ballistics test because a deer isnt made of dirt. i seem to be rambling right now, it might be the pain pills im on from my knee surgery i got on monday. I guess what im getting at is i want a high velocity/engergy round that stays together on impact but still mushrooms.

 

I was looking at BB before I started reloading and the round that got my juices flowing was the personal defense round its just a straight wad-cutter in a 225gr? area.. now I dont know how it would feed in a marlin but if I was going to spend alot of money (on something that winny white box do just fine) thats what I would be looking for. anything that claims crazy expansion expecialy at relitivly low velocity- 1 is going to be very unperdictible ie. expand too early or not at all. 2 going to ruin some yummy meat *(i dont get down with that)..

 

I'm running the 210gr Winchester Silvertip at 1960fps out of my 20" 1894 in 44-40. Every deer that I've hit with this load has been dead right there.

 

I have used the Buffalo Bore's in a 336 in .35 Rem, and I can tell you they are very accurate in my rifle, and a big improvement in terminal performance over the regular "Reminchester" stuff, but in that particular caliber they are loaded above normal pressure and the boxes are marked "for Marlin rifles only".

As for the Hornady's...
I have shot several whitetails with the .45-70 Leverrevs.
All have been one shot kills.
ALL have violently expanded... exploded even... almost immediately upon impact with the animal.
In most cases the ENTRANCE wound was several times the caliber size, and the EXIT wound, if any, was much smaller.
In one case the bullet failed to exit.
This tells me the bullet is shedding it's jacket at best, and at least in the one case, fragmenting.
Wounds have been massive... innards pureed... lots of hydrostatic damage... but very shallow penetration.
Deadly medicine whitetails and other thin skinned light boned animals if you are willing to wait for the broadside shot ?
Yup.
But if your after something heavier, like bear or ?, I would look to a sturdier bullet.
They have heavier hides, a lot of fur, and a lot of mass in their shoulder bones and rib cage.
That's a lot of animal to punch thru to hit the vitals and you wanna make them leak out both sides.
Can you kill one with light, fragile, expanding bullets ?
Yup.
If you had a perfect broadside shot, and birds were chirping, and the sun was shining, and all the stars were in alignment, and God was smiling on you, and Moses parted the Ribcage Sea.
But is it the right bullet ?
Nope.

 

I've had good luck with the .45-70 gummy tips. Probably killed 14 deer with them. All one shot kills. All complete pass throughs so I don't know what the bullets looked like but the damage to the inards was impressive.

 

looks like im going to have to get a box or 2 of the buffalo bore and do some tests/ have some fun

 

The terminal performance of the BB 35 remington SUCKS unless you are shooting an engine block. I tested one box of these
on some Axis and big Hogs and had the nerve to crack open wrapping on the second plastic box but didn't use them.

HCDISTAD, all you can do is try it. They are cookin when they leave the barrel and have a slightly diff point of aim (at first)
then I swear they seem to drop velocity quick and the performance you get when they hit a target ain't any better than JSP.