For the 2021-2022 deer season, I chose to test Hornady’s 139 grain American Whitetail Interlock in 7mm-08 Rem. This is a more budget friendly box of ammunition, though prices per box could potentially be double now what they were pre pandemic depending on where you purchase ammo. The cup and core bullet design like the interlock has likely taken more deer in North America than any other bullet design. Combine the time tested reliability of these type of bullets with Hornady’s quality, and it was sure to be a winning combination.
The first deer of the season harvested using this ammo was an Arkansas public land buck during the state’s opening weekend of modern gun. He ended up being a 3.5 year old 10 point, which is the best deer I have taken in Arkansas in the 6 years I have hunted the Ouachita National Forest. The buck was headed up the mountain at an angle, from my right to left, with the wind at my back. He was almost directly downwind of me, so I knew I needed to take the shot sooner rather than later to keep from getting winded and losing what I knew would be my best Arkansas buck to date. He was right around 75 yards away when I had an opening and made him stop with the best doe bleat I could muster while simultaneously dealing with symptoms of buck fever. I squeezed the trigger, and the deer fell right where he stood. The shot was a high shoulder shot. I won’t go too much into the physiology of a high shoulder shot, but I will say it created massive trauma to the deer’s central nervous system. When we skinned the buck, the vertebra directly above where the bullet entered was sticking up like a shark fin (see picture). So far, I was happy with this caliber/bullet choice.
The second deer taken was an average sized Mississippi doe during Mississippi’s opening weekend of rifle season. I took my 5 year old son with me hoping he would get a chance to see some deer for the first time while hunting with dad. It was a warm afternoon, and the doe was feeding with a yearling on the edge of the field. As a side note to parents that may be taking your kids hunting for the first time, don’t refer to the doe you are planning to shoot as a “momma deer.” Anyway I digress. I squeezed the trigger off on a pretty good broad side shot at 175 yards. I hit the doe a little lower than where I had aimed, as it ended up hitting low shoulder blade. The doe kicked her back legs and ran into the woods. Once I found blood close to where the deer entered the woods, I was able to easily follow the blood trail for 50 yards before finding the doe. Once I explained to my son where those good fried deer steaks his momma makes came from, he wasn’t too upset about me shooting a “momma deer.”
The third deer I took with the 139 grain interlocks was a Mississippi public land buck. I wasn’t too excited about anything I had on camera on any of the private land that I hunt in Mississippi, and after binge watching the first two seasons of The Hunting Public, I wanted to give public land hunting in Mississippi a try. It took about 7 hunts to get a shot at a legal buck, but I finally had my chance hunting about 100 yards downwind from a fresh scrape I had found a few days earlier. I had gotten a text from a buddy of a picture of a buck he had killed that morning, and not 5 minutes later a young 7 point Buck walked in front of me 75 yards away. I could not see the scrape from where I was sitting, but undoubtedly he had checked it right before making the tragic mistake of stepping out into the open woods. The shot rang out, and the buck ran full speed 40 yards before falling over “graveyard dead” as Jerry Clower would say. This shot hit where I normally like to shoot deer, behind the shoulder. The shot took out both lungs, leaving a pretty impressive exit wound. I did hit a little further back than I normally try to, and looking back at the pictures it looks like I may have hit liver before exiting. I was able to see the deer fall, so no tracking was necessary (although there was plenty of blood had a tracking job been required).
Three bullets, three dead deer. Despite the limitations of this little factory ammo test, I can say I would definitely recommend the 139 grain Hornady Interlock for 7mm-08 for whitetail.
Let’s talk about a few of the limitations. First, these three deer were all on the smaller spectrum of North American Whitetail when it comes to body size. I still would not hesitate to take this rifle/bullet combo to Missouri or Wisconsin to hunt the big boys within reasonable hunting ranges. Second, I did not collect nearly enough data. I wish I had been able to weigh each deer, take pictures of damaged organs, and measure entry/exit holes. At least one bullet recovery would be nice to measure weight retention and see how the bullet expanded, but I will take large exits with good blood over bullet recovery any day (cue the tongue lashings from the “energy dump” crowd). Another limitation is the infinite number of scenarios that can occur when hunting. All three of these deer were taken at pretty average hunting ranges for woods hunting. It’s impossible to know how the bullet would perform on deer at 10 yards or 400 yards without actually putting it to the test. Next year, I plan to collect more data and have more of a sample size (aka more meat in the freezer).