In 1948 John Nosler revolutionized the big-game bullet when he introduced the Nosler Partition. It’s still one of the best hunting bullets made, but ammunition loaded with Nosler Partitions is not cheap. One round of 308 Winchester Nosler Partition ammo will cost you more than $3. That’s a small price to pay for a trophy buck, but it also works out to $60 for a box of 20. With this in mind, the engineers at Nosler set their sights on designing bullets capable of taking any whitetail deer and loading them into cartridges that cost significantly less for hunters. The result is their latest line of ammunition, called Whitetail Country.
Nosler Whitetail Country Ammo Overview
Nosler loads Whitetail Country ammo with two different bullets, both brand new. All of the bottlenecked cartridges, like the 6.5 Creedmoor and 308 Winchester, get a flat-based, boat-tail spitzer bullet. These bullets have a tapered jacket and a lead-alloy core just like Nosler's Ballistic Tip and AccuBond bullets, but instead of a plastic tip and/or bonding, they have an exposed lead tip. Also, just as with the Ballistic Tip and the AccuBond, the tapered jacket and lead-alloy core help to control bullet upset over a wide velocity range. The two straight-wall offerings—350 Legend and 45-70 Government—are loaded with what Nosler predictably calls its Straight-Wall bullet, which more closely resembles a pistol bullet. It too has a tapered jacket but employs a pure-lead core to help modulate expansion or bullet upset at the slower impact velocities of those cartridges.
The reason these bullets are less expensive than Partitions, Ballistic Tips, or AccuBond is because Nosler figured out how to manufacture them without using the more time-consuming and costly impact-extruding process used for their flagship bullets. Suggested retail for Whitetail Country ammo ranges from $34.95 to 39.95 per box of 20, which works out to about $1.75 to $2.00 per shot. Less-expensive deer hunting ammo sounds great, of course, but only if it shoots well and delivers a level of terminal performance suitable for quick and clean kills on whitetail deer. So, I recently tested the Nosler 6.5 Creedmoor and 308 Winchester Whitetail Country loads for precision and terminal performance to see what we can expect from this new ammunition line.
Nosler Whitetail Country Ammo Test Results
Out of my son’s New Ultra Light Arms (NULA) 6.5 Creedmoor with a 24-inch barrel, the Whitetail County load printed sub-1-inch, five-shot groups. Out of my daughter’s OutKast Arm’s stocked Kimber, the 308 Winchester load delivered five-shot groups in the 1.5-inch range. With the NULA’s 24-inch barrel, the average velocity for the 6.5 Creedmoor loads was slightly faster than the advertised 2650 fps, and out of my daughter’ rifle, which has an 18-inch barrel, the 308 Winchester loads were only 22 fps slower than advertised. Clearly, both loads have the potential to shoot well, but as always, results will vary from rifle to rifle.
From a terminal performance standpoint, these loads performed very similarly to other conventional jacketed lead big-game bullets, such as the Remington Core-Lokt. I fired them in blocks of clear ballistics at 50 yards, and on average, they retained between 60% and 75% of their weight and deformed with a frontal diameter of between 1.5 and 1.7 times their original caliber. Penetration ranged from around 19 to 21 inches, which is a little deeper than what I’ve seen from comparable loads. So, put simply, this new ammo opens up like your typical deer bullet but penetrates a bit more, which should give you just about optimal performance on whitetails.
As for the straight-wall Whitetail Country loads for the 350 Legend and 45-70 Government, according to Nosler, you can expect near double diameter bullet upset at close range, with penetration comparable to the 6.5 Creedmoor and 308 Winchester Whitetail Country loads. Out as far as 200 yards, this newly designed Straight-Wall bullet from Nosler should still upset with a frontal diameter of about 1.5 times its unfired weight and penetrate even deeper.
Final Thoughts on Nosler's Newest Ammo
Over the years I’ve shot a lot of whitetail deer with Nosler Partitions, Ballistic Tips, and AccuBonds, and I’ve never had a complaint. That’s not surprising, as Nosler has built a great reputation on the performance these bullets offer. However, I believe these new Whitetail Country loads, with their more cavitating performance, might be a better option for whitetail deer than the other three. One thing’s for sure, they are a less-expensive option, and that is something just about every hunter can appreciate.
