Opinions on 25-45 87 grain sierra varminters!!!!!!!

E

east tn_yote

New member
Jus kinda testin the waters and seein if any of yall have shot any deer with the 87 grain varminters bullets!? They shoot about .3 inch group in my gun and kinda wonderin if i could use em as bck up rounds for deer huntin! They are shootin about 2750fps soo i wasnt sure since the velocity is a lil lower if it would be alright for deer. Thanks alot!!
 
Whenever I see the monicker ‘varmint’ bullet I think frangible. You could also look at Sierra’s web page or reloading manual for a description of the bullet construction. For me, the 243 works great on deer, IF one is using a proper big game bullet. There are a fair amount of ammo choices that are not suitable or ideal for deer hunting, 243.

With the 243 I usually error on the side of a god bullet, even if there is a slight sacrifice in accuracy. Most of the time it hardly matters with my 50 yard shot anyway. That may be a 95 grain partition or similar 85+ grain bullet.

With some testing, you may not be far off shooting different loads with the same zero. That may allow one to shoot fragile bullets at varmints & coyotes, then others for deer. It could require a slight scope adjustment.

I don’t like seeing wounded game trot off.
 
I shot two deer with that bullet in my 25-45 Sharps last year. They were clocking in @ 2822 fps out of my SRC 18" barrel. They were accurate but I wasn't really impressed with the bullet performance. At 100 yds, I shot a big 6 pt cull buck and he ran off after the shot. Complete pass through, blood on the tree stump behind him. He made it to my CRP field and I lost his trail in the wet broomweeds. There was very little blood to follow and my neighbor found him the next day. The coyotes had already found him and he was a total loss. I shot a good sized doe @ the same place and she ran off as well. Again, very little blood trail but I was able to find her about 100 yds from where I shot her. Both shots were behind the shoulder and were double lung hits. I will not shoot deer with that bullet again, I'll save it for hogs and coyotes or for target shooting. I switched to Speer 87 gr SP bullets for deer. It is the same bullet SRC uses for their factory loads. BTW, when the Sierra was the only 87 gr bullet I could find, I emailed Sierra and their tech guy told me that although the bullet was a "varmint" bullet, they would be good for deer at my velocities. Not so much in my experience. I shoot a lot of Sierra bullets but won't be buying any more of these.
 
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