Hornady SST bullet opinions?

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I use the SST bullets exclusively for hunting in my Sako .308... 150gr SST.

Dropped two deer in their tracks and another ran about 50 feet due to my poorly placed shot. There was a good blood trail so it was recovered rather easily, other than a nasty drag through the swamp.

They're accurate and they hit hard, I've had no reason to look elsewhere.
 
I use them in 243 but not for deer, they are super accurate. Sorry I could not be of more help.

Jim
 
I developed a load for my .270 using the 150g SST bullet going about 2750fps. I got a shot on a large Axis buck this past June. He was standing broadside at about 100 yards and I shot him in the shoulder hoping to pile him up right where he stood. He jumped forward at the shot and limped down into a ravine where he laid down and bled out in a very short time. He went about 40 or 50 yards. When skinning and quartering I found the jacket of the bullet under the skin on the off side where it came to rest after shattering the facing shoulder and angling through the chest cavity. I was pleased with the performance of the bullet and will continue to use that load in that rifle.

I'm sure the 243 bullet will perform well, too.
 
Fantastic hunting bullet IMHO. I use them in 150, & 165 on .308 and 129 grain on 6.5 Grendel. I haven't tried any in 6mm but I am sure they would do as well as they do in 6.5.
 
The key with the SST is to ensure impact velocities that work with their performance envelopes. Close range with hot loads and there is a good deal of anecdotal evidence from the field that they open/expand/fragment without deep penetration. This has been especially true with the Savage 10ML II crowd who were getting much higher impact velocities with SST sabot rounds than the BP crowd. If you are loading for impact velocities within their performance envelope and not shooting at 25 yard deer, they are super. I love the FTX in my 30-30.
 
Rprny I drive a 139gr sst at 3400fps out of a 7mm rem mag. I have shoot deer so close I had to circle the scope and all I had was fur. Maybe 20 feet. And at distance out to 385 yards so far, Never had to look for deer. Even the camp meat doe at 20feet was a center of chest hit . Sure did find most ever thing n it was fragged but place your shot well and problems tend to not show up. I never shoot for the shoulder. If I get a frount shot, the base of the neck works fine too. Nothing fancey . Started useing them around 1998. Even the 125gr in the 308 works great at close range. There not as explosive as the old ballistic tips.
 
I use the SSTs in .30-06 for whitetails. Never tried it in .243, but there's no reason why it wouldn't be just as effective. I handload them, but don't hot rod them, so that shouldn't matter. I shot a doe this morning in fact with one of the 165 grain variety. She went about 20 yds before piling up. I shot her quartering away and the bullet penetrated 20+ inches before coming to rest just under the skin on the other side. Mushroomed perfectly. Retained weight was 108.8 grains.
Good bullet IMO.
 
I have only used the 300 gr in a 12 ga. I shot a running deer at about 40 yards and hit him right above the shoulder. He did a summer salt in the air and landed DRT. the bullet traveled up his neck and exited the other side just below his ear with a large exit wound. I wasn't able to recover the slug. From an Remington 870 I can hit bulls eye all day long at 150 yards from a rest. it shoots almost as flat and accurate as a rifle within 150 yards. very impressive.
 
I had one enter hitting a rib just behind the shoulder go straight down and gut the animal. I will not use sst anymore and am leery of all plastic tips
 
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I used 95 grain SST in my 6mm, which is just a bit hotter than .243. I shot 2 or 3 deer with it, I liked that non-deformable tip. What I did not like though was that it often did not exit. One particular white tail buck, I was very confident I hit it, but I could not find a drop of blood. It took me more than 30 minutes of walking around in circles before I found him, probably not 50 yards from where I shot him. When I shot him, he went right, but what I didn't see was that he circled back left behind a small rise and then fell over. The bullet had gotten his lungs and I think part of his heart and stopped just under the skin on the far side, perfectly mushroomed.
Anyway, as you well know, two holes usually bleed better than one and it can be right tricky to find a deer in the brush if he's circled around and you didn't know it. I've moved back to 100 grain Core-lokt as I've had better experience with them doing just as much damage with the addition of an exit hole.
Now, 150 grain SST out of my SX-AR .308, no problem whatsoever on deer!
 
Been playing with them in handloads for semiautos, using 165gr .308s in a PTR-91 and an M1A. The PTR feeds in such a way that standard pointed-soft-point bullets get fairly hammered going into the chamber, which hurts accuracy. The polymer tips of the SST's don't deflect at all. In fact, in the testing we've done so far, all else being equal (which quite literally was the case) they showed better accuracy than Matchkings from both rifles. Add to this the facts that the SST's are an expanding round, and they retail $2-3/box cheaper than the Sierras, and it's a no-brainer that we plan to make them our standard loading for MR/LR shooting and hunting...
 
I can honestly say I've never had one deer complain. And usually watch them go down in the scope. The entrance and exit are not impressive but the damage inside is.
 
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