The 2022-2023 Whitetail season for me was probably my best yet. I found what I believe is a great combination of rifle, cartridge, and factory ammo in my Browning X-Bolt 30-06 Sprg with Hornady Superformance 165 SST loads. Looking ahead to the 2023-2024 season, I had in mind to try a totally different rifle, cartridge, and ammo, but a trip to the range caused me to change my mind.
To give a little bit of a back story, I went to the range late in the spring planning to chronograph the 165 SST loads out of my X-Bolt and send my data to Leupold in order to get a custom turret since I was so pleased with those loads. Without getting too deep in the numbers, I wasn’t too happy with the velocity spread (lowest velocity to highest velocity) of the SSTs, and there were obvious fliers that occurred whenever there was an oddly low velocity. I had taken a brand new box of Barnes 175 grain LRX factory loads with me, and I decided to see how they grouped out of my rifle. The first three shot group was right around 3/4 of an inch at 100 yards. I adjusted my scope to zero the load, and I shot two more times. The velocity spread on these loads was not stellar, but it was much better than the SSTs. Oh and I forgot to mention that the last two shots after I adjusted were touching.
I have been wanting to take a trip out west to hunt Elk and/or Mule deer for several years now, and I have had my mind made up that I would take my X-Bolt in 30-06 Sprg and shoot 180 grain Federal Trophy Copper factory loads since the rifle likes them. The only downside would be that I would have to re-zero my rifle with 180 grain Trophy Copper for elk season, and then re-zero it before deer season with my 165 grain SSTs. It would be nice to have a rifle/ammo combination that would be effective on game animals from small deer up to elk/moose and not have to waste time/ammo with the re-zeroing. I have killed several whitetails in Mississippi with those Federal Trophy Copper 180 grainers out of a 30-06, and the results were not very impressive to say the least. I don’t know if the 30-06 just doesn’t push those bullets fast enough to expand on thin skinned game like whitetail, or if it is just simply a poor choice for whitetail due to the mass and momentum of the bullet. To be fair, everything I shot with it died and was recovered. I shot two does broadside just north of 100 yards away and one buck quartering away at 40 (ish) yards. The bullets penciled straight through the does’ vitals, and they both ran between 75-100 yards with no blood trail. The buck that was quartering away never knew what hit him and dropped in his tracks. I personally think that since the bullet had further to travel through the buck it was able to open up and do what it was made to do, and the higher velocity of the bullet due to the buck being only 40 yards away worked in the copper bullet’s favor as well. My thinking could be totally wrong, but I do believe that 180 grain Trophy Copper ammo is a poor choice for smaller whitetails if you like quick kills and blood trails. On the flip-side, it is a tough, accurate bullet that I would not hesitate for two seconds to hunt anything on this continent with (as long as my grizzly guide had at least a 375 H&H).
But I digress. Back to the 175 grain LRXs. I bought this ammo to see how it grouped in my rifle compared to the Trophy Copper, and if it shot well enough I would use it out west instead (the Barnes ammo at the time was cheaper and easier to find). The LRX bullets are designed to expand at lower velocities, so they aren’t quite as tough as typical mono metal bullets like Trophy Copper, Hornady CX, and Barnes TSX or TTSX. I called Barnes right after I left the range that day and asked what kind of minimum effective velocities I would need for this bullet to expand to “caliber and a half” diameter on small Southeastern whitetails, and the Barnes representative told me that the bullet would expand reliably to 1.5x caliber diameter down to 1600 FPS. He said if I got it closer to 1800-1900 fps, it would be more like 2x caliber diameter. That is crazy! If he is right, then this particular rifle, cartridge, and ammo combination could potentially be effective out past 650 yards (according to my ballistics app the velocity at 650 yards would be 1705 fps and the energy would be 1129 ft-lbs). I don’t plan on shooting anything that far, but hopefully I will get a chance at a deer across a hay field at least 300 yards or so.
So to sum all of this up, my goal this year is to see how well the Barnes 175 grain LRX out of a 30-06 Sprg will perform on Whitetail. I am pretty confident from everything I have heard about Barnes ammo that it will perform tremendously on Elk at reasonable distances, but could this ammo be the last I would ever need to shoot out of my X-Bolt if it is to be my do-all North American Big Game Rifle?