Best round for hunting?

[parallax]

Soft point.

[stokesrj]

That is one of the wonderful things about the Grendel, it works really well with the conventional cup around a lead core design which is what the Wolf 123 soft point is. That is also the reason the 30-30 worked so well with this bullet of simple design. This same design doesn't work well at all with higher velocity calibers if dense muscle is encountered between the point of impact and the vitals. Often you get a splash effect with massive muscle damage and no vital tissue damage because all the energy and penetration was expended on non vital muscle and therefore failed to penetrate to vital tissue.
I've seen this first hand with magnum calibers and even conventional calibers like 30-06 and .270 Win when used at close range. I had a series of failure to penetrate with my Steyr 30-06 using 165 grain Nosler Ballistic Tips when they first came out in the late 80's. I wrote Nosler and supplied pictures of wounds and failures to penetrate, they in turn modified the ballistic tip design to what it is today, a very solid big game bullet.
Obviously, I had to recover the animals to take pictures, and I will say that I never lost an animal due to this problem but I did have animals that suffered needlessly because of it. Those same fragile bullets work extremely well at close range Grendel impact velocities.
Bob

[LightningII]

Soft point.

are you satisfied with the accuracy of the wolf soft points?

[hm2 clark]

Wolf MPT works just fine @ 200 yards. 2-3 MOA. Plenty enough for hunting.

[Ullr]

I get sub moa with Wolf MPT. Haven't tried the Wolf soft points.

[usmc1371]

i used hornady 123gr amax on a doe with great results. she was dead whenshe hit the ground.

[CPT.CRAZY]

If you can hand load I would use a barnes tsx. I have used them in 223 to 45/70 and have never been disappointed.

[Variable]

Most of the Deer I've killed with Grendels were done with the 120 Nosler BT in my own handloads (which performed very well), but the doe I shot with a 123 factory Hornady load keeled right over and the damage was fine. I've even taken the 120 Wolf MPT load a couple of times when I was feeling froggy, but I never ended up shooting any with it though. I'm still curious about how the 120 MPT load would do on deer.

[stokesrj]

Hi Variable,
I am also curious as I haven't shot any game with the Wolf MPT either. Based on my experiences with other thicker jacket match bullets I would think it would behave similar to a Sierra Match King. The usual result is very good, hardly distinguishable from a standard design hunting bullet. But I have seen some very poor results with Sierra Match King bullets also. Especially when the entry angle is steep, like on a hard quartering away shot and the point of entry is heavy muscle. Some times the nose folds over and the jacket fails to rupture but instead guides the bullet off course from the intended vital organs.
I've never seen a failure of the SMK on broadside rib cage shots and most people get the idea they are fine, and they are if used with limitations, but sooner or later someone goes outside those limitations and that is why I believe Sierra posts notice that the SMK's are not intended for hunting.
Bob

[Variable]

Hi Bob,

Agreed, I've had great luck with Sierra Matchkings (.308 175gr. Talon Match/"White Feather" ammo) in the past, but I don't use them anymore. I believe the key word probably was luck. Almost every shot I make on deer is broadside (I normally shoot out of a stand or blind and have time to pick my shots). The biggest exception is for euthanasia shots at work. I even killed a fair number of them at work with Federal .223 69gr. Gold Medal Match ammo when we still got issued that round. I never had a problem, but again I pretty much always got my pick of shot. I even dropped a doe with a SS192 round out of a FiveSeven pistol once. That was probably kind of irresponsible to some folk, but she was only twenty yards away and I was curious what would happen (she actually dropped within 20-25 yards-- the bullet tumbled and cut the top of her heart off).

You are probably right about the MPT projectiles too. I just can't help wondering though. I can definitely say they do a fabulous job of destroying stamped sheet metal farm gates that are angled away from you about 400 yards off...LOL [insert broken toothed smiley here!]. My buddy had set some jugs out on a hillside and was shooting at them. He told me to shoot at one on top of a post (gate post--:)... Turns out I was low and right of the jug.... A niceish group of shreds through his dad's gate though!LOL

I still might take them along again sometime. Maybe I'll whack something with them this year. My buddy tried last year, but he killed a sapling instead. I'd like to see a hail of the MPTs unloaded on some pigs (hint/request to the Texas guys who blast pigs in bulk). That would probably give some good feedback on their game performance in general.