I’m still not sure what a premium bullet is. I believe in buying and using the very best you can and bullet that kills the animal is the cheapest bit of the hunt but what makes the bullet premium? Is TBBC a premium bullet? I had a 300grain .375 calibre one, in factory load fail to break cow buffalo’s shoulder from 50m on a straightforward, square shot. Bullet hit the shoulder and turned nearly 90 degrees and ended up in the guts. I know this cause I finished the animal 23 hours later. Didn’t like it. Is Sierra GMK premium? It’s soft to be sure. But I’m yet to see it fail to kill. However at short range and on a tougher built critter it does tend to fall apart. Below is a picture of a few of them taken out of several european boar shot at short ranges - 10-50m using factory loads at standard 308 velocities. All where one shot kills, all animals ran, none of them gave exit wounds. One was shot on fresh snow, ran off without leaving a drop of blood. I followed the tracks through some rather thick bushes, this is at night under the moonlight so somewhat stressful only to find it dead at the other end of the thicket some 50 meters from where it was shot. No blood to be seen, I gutted it and the lungs were completely liquefied, but the bullet hole had closed up and so left no blood trail. Core had separated from the jacket and the bullet bits were lodged on the inside of the rib cage on the offside. The pig was only about 80kg so no giant. I now use 375 for this kind of work as it drops them on the spot with great authority. I’ve shot Red, Fallow and Roe deer with the GMK with great success though.
