A-Max Performance on Deer

[Jon Bischof]

Anyone who has had real experience with A-Max bullet performance on whitetails please respond. I would be using 155 grain A-Max in a .300 Win Mag. What are your experiences with the A-Max on game?

Is there a danger of the A-Max blowing up and failing to penetrate on a shot taken at a deer within 50 yards?

Thanks in advance for your experience and advice.

 

[James Jones]

Yep , the A-max is gonna blow up at pretty much any range and the speed of a 300mag at 50 yds you may as well call it a V-max!
I have used the 168's out a 308 for a while and found that the Sierra Match Kings were a little stronger and more accurate so i went to those.
If your gonna use an A-max in a 300 then I would suggest the 178gr. at least its a little longer and may hold together a little bit more.
But if you want to use a 150gr class bullet then I'd check out the new Hornady Interbond or Nosler Accubond I have a couple boxes of the 150 accubond on order now.

But in short the A-max bullets are a good bit more fragile that a Balistic tip of the same weight.

 

[Ian M]

JD, JC
I shot some mule deer this fall with 168 A-Max and actually had great performance but the shots were all fairly long. Never had a close shot except one at 45 yards through the neck, did not have too large of an exit as I recall. One memorable shot was at 525, deer was across a coulee, standing head-on feeding, head down in the crop. I put the elevation and wind on the Nightforce and let go. Dropped like a stone - hit him right between the shoulder blades. Shot a couple more out past 500 and they exited, side shots, about 1 1/2-2 inch exits - this was with my .308 Win. ROCK rifle. Gave a bunch of that ammo to our farmer buddy and he killed several deer with them, liked them equally to the Nosler Comp. Supreme, Speer and Sierra match bullet he had been shooting deer with on the cull. He killed quite a few deer but do not know exactly how many. He would hunt and shoot with them anyday.

I am NOT disputing your suggestion that they are not as heavy jacketed and cannot say either way about close shots since we did not do many on the cwd cull. They are very accurate bullets and usually shoot a bit flatter in our rifles than the hollow points. Your suggestion to use Interbonds and Accubonds is a good one, we killed quite a bunch of deer with these bullets with excellent success. I used both the .308 and .300 WSM with these bullets and both worked great. After all that shooting the last couple of years I could not say what my favorite bullet is - we had very good performance with everything we tried except the Triple Shocks at real long range with the .308's (500-650 chest shots)- they were not opening enough to transmit shock, never smacked them like some other bullets will do.

 

[Mysticplayer]

Keep impact vel under 2800fps and you will be fine with the Amax. This is not a bone crushing bullet by any means so aim accordingly.

I did some water filled milk jug testing a while back. Used 168gr Amax, J4 and Ballistic tips out of a 300Wby. Vel was 3150fps for all three bullets.

At 50yds, the ballistic tips penetrated the most at vaporizing the first two jugs and splitting the third. The Amax and J4 both blew up two jugs and put holes in the third. That third jug was almost in one piece but leaking.

Jerry

 

[kraky2]

I loaded some 178's for a friend with a 'o6. Didn't think he'd try em on deer but he liked the accuracy. He shot a medium whitetail doe at about 75 yds broadside and didn't get a exit wound. Deer jumped and ran about 50 yds and fell dead. For what you described I sure wouldn't recomend them. Buy yourself some good old cheap 180 hornady interlocks or if you have to go "high tech" get some interbond or accubond. No sense in limiting yourself to certain shots with an improper bullet when the right one will do better from all angles!!??

 

[41mag]

Can't give you anything on magnum velocities, however I have used the 140 in .264 on several hogs as well as my daughter taking a nice whitetail with her 6.5x55.

At the time I worked up the loads, they had just come out, and the Hornady folks were rabid about not using them for hunting. However at the low velocities we shoot them at they work just fine.

Your results will be much different I would imagine, and I would really look at the other bullets mentioned first.

 

[Varmint Hunter]

I just loaded some 162gr A-Max's in my 7STW. I intended to use them on Wyoming antelope this September. I chose the A-Max because it has a high BC and will resist the unpredictable wind better than some other bullets and because I figured that the antelope are rather easy to kill. Similar to small deer. Shots are expected to be about 400 yards.

OPINIONS???????

VH

 

[Jon Bischof]

All of you fellows are making good sense with your replies. I am afraid the .300 Win Mag pushes the 155 grain A-Max a little too fast for reliable penetration on close shots on deer. This is reloaded ammo and I don't have a chrony but I assume that the MV is a little over 3,000 ft/sec.

I don't want to discourage Varmint Hunter from using them on antelope, though. Pronghorn are not big-boned and you will probably not get any close shots anyway. At 400 yards, or even at 300; you don't want a bullet that is too tough to expand at lower velocities. So a soft bullet like the 162 grain A-Max is probably going to perform well on pronghorns beyond 200 yards. And I think the A-Max would have enough penetration to kill them at any distance with a broadside shot. But I would shy away from any quartering shots with the A-Max if you are under 150 yards--especially with the 7mmSTW--your A-Max is probably hauling *** faster than my lighter bullet out of the .300 Win Mag!

I will probably use the rest of these A-Max's on paper and just use 150 Barnes X on the deer. But the accuracy of both of these bullets is soooooo good in my rifle--one hole. I may have to try one on a doe just to see for myself. But then I may find myself crawling around for miles on my hands and knees looking for blood /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif.

 

[Charles A]

Do a search for "exit wound pics", there's some photo's of 178gr A-max's and deer. The 178's would be better, but the 155's will work.

 

[Pete Lincoln]

Guys you are feeding the anti's material, match bullets should not be used on live game. Ethics, Ethics Ethics.

 

[justice]

[ QUOTE ]
Guys you are feeding the anti's material, match bullets should not be used on live game. Ethics, Ethics Ethics.

[/ QUOTE ]

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[justice]

[ QUOTE ]
Anyone who has had real experience with A-Max bullet performance on whitetails please respond. I would be using 155 grain A-Max in a .300 Win Mag. What are your experiences with the A-Max on game? Is there a danger of the A-Max blowing up and failing to penetrate on a shot taken at a deer within 50 yards?

Thanks in advance for your experience and advice.

[/ QUOTE ]







not whitetails but axis deer in texas-quite a bit sturdier animal but not elk by any means-shooting ltr .308 with the 150 grain-shot one axis deer at a little over 100 yards and it blew up on impact-saw the deer two days later walking around still with the blood stains on its side but other than that it was just fine-shot another axis deer (next day) at a little under 300 high shoulder shot and had it not been for one frag making it into the body and into the heart it would not have taken the animal-i knew something was up when it didnt drop in its tracks like they usually do with the high shoulder shot-upon examination cleaning the animal it did not make it but around 6" into the animal-no where near enough to get to the spinal column that it was intended for-went back to noslers and had no issues-i have shot match kings in the past with no trouble at all with clean ethical kills but so much internet chat about "match bullets" led me away from them-if that is all i had i would not hesitate at all to use them as long as you know proper shot placement and are a confident enough trigger to put it there-placement is everything-but i would still rather have one punch through with minimal expansion than to have one blow up on impact-you have to get to the vitals or the nervous system to put one down humanely.

my thoughts only,

justice