Gamekings.

[hawken11]

Anyone have good stories on Gamekings for deer hunting. I have loved the SMKs but they are a bit explosive for the youngster I am bringing for the next few years. Don't want to find ribs in the blood trail. Didn't see too much on a search.

Thanks

 

[royinidaho]

Didn't state what cal., weight & velocities you are running.

All that I can input is w/a .277 130gr Gameking MV@3200 the deer (muley any size but not huge) had best be no closer than 150-200yds or its massive blood shot i.e, whole front half. Bullets never exploded but always shed the core, jacket mushroomed very nicely and ALWAYS killed the deer.

FWIW

 

[Bud Meadows]

I shot this muley on 11/13/05 with a 165 gr GameKing out of my .308 Ruger 77V. He was deader than John Wayne Gacy's paperboy.

 

[Derek M.]

Mr. Meadows, nice deer! Congratulations.

 

[hvyw8t]

I shot a few mule deer with 130 grain game kings out of my 270 weatherby. It kind of made a mess. I think with standard calibers on deer size critters they work fine. For elk i like a little stouter bullet. Cheers

 

[hawken11]

Thanks. Nice muley also.
I shoot a .300 win mag. Every is great for me like I said and don't mind bloodshot or bruised. Don't even save the ribs. I just don't want so much ripped tissue and pieces of meat in the blood trail for my 9 year old to see at this stage of the game. I may switch to triple shocks and shoot for the shoulder.

Thanks for info.

 

[Coyboy]

I've shot quite a few deer with 100gr .243 spgk, and 165gr .308 hpgk. They always killed the deer, and for the most part had core jacket seperation. Very few exits if you hit heavy bone. Most times I would find a chunk of lead under the off side hide. Externally the damage never looked gruesom.

 

[oldfamily]

Out of my ruger 300 win mag these are the best that I have loaded for. Less than .5 in five shot group at 100 off bipod and nothing else. Also have shot through a black jack tree the size of a baseball bat and killed the deer. With the bullet holding up after all that. It expanded twice its size. The one thing that I did not like with them was that it would dump every thing in the chest cavity on the ground, just little or no blood trail. Deer would go no farther than 100 yards, just was hard to follow with no blood. Oh the tree thing was the result of a hurried shot after finding out I did not chamber a round when I got in the woods. One other thing was that the ribs on the deer shot with this bullet would have to off side ribs broke next to the spine. Lots of force and that was not a hot load out of my rifle.

 

[tylercleary]

Hawken11,

I understand that you don't want to gross out your little hunter and possibly turn him or her off to hunting before they have a chance to enjoy all that it offers. The problem I see here is even if you manage to keep a nice and tidy entrance and exit wound, you're going to have to field dress your trophy and dump all the blood and guts on the ground anyway. What are you going to do when you skin and butcher your animal? The experience of hunting with kids gives you an opportunity to explain not just hunting techniques, but biology and nature (even the gut pile doesn't go to waste).

I have two girls that love to go out to the woods with me. The oldest wanted books on animal tracks and loves the outdoors, but doesn't like hunting - yet. My youngest gets mad if I don't remove the brains and eyes for her to examine.

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The one thing you can be sure of is that a bullet and its wound channel can be hard to predict. Do a search of this site and you will see that even premium hunting bullets can fail and come apart

I would hunt with the bullet your using if it's more accurate and explain to your young hunter why and how it may be more humane for a quick kill.








T

 

[jameslovesjammie]

I agree mostly with what Cowboy said. All we use for deer hunting in northeastern Montana are Sierra BTHP Gamekings. Have used 100 grain .243, 130 grain .270, and 150, 165, and 180 grain in 30-06.

Here is a video I took this time of year 2003 of a deer being taken at ~225 yards with a 130 grain .277 bullet at ~2950 fps MV.

http://jameslovesjammie.zippyvideos.com/4637863221086156/deer_hunt_2003/

I'm going to check my hard drive, I think I have exit wound pics of that deer somewhere here.

I rate the Gamekings very highly. I would recommend them higher than the Hornady Interbond or Speer Hot Core as far as performance, and got much better accuracy out of them than Nosler Partitions or Ballistic Tips.

 

[hawken11]

Shot another doe tonight with the SMKs. It was only my second, but not too bad as bad as the first. I understand what you are saying TAC and do all the same things you mention. I just remember a bad outing with my oldest son at 7 when he picked up the first squirrel of the season with a .17 cal. A mistake on my part I did not want to repeat on a larger scale. Thanks for the info guys. Glad I asked. I will likely by some gamekings next.

 

[wildcat338]

All we use is Gamekings also, used it all over the world for anything really and pretty happy with the results thus far.