Bill Gabbard
Nosler introduced its new line of ammo last fall geared towards the most popular big game animal in North America, The Whitetail Deer. When I first read about the new line of ammo, I was a little confused. The ads claimed that the Whitetail Country was loaded with Nosler’s Solid Base Bullet. The reloading side of me knew that Nosler hadn’t offered their Solid Base bullet for several years. I fired off an email to Zach Waterman at Nosler who confirmed that the old Nosler Solid Base was the basis for Nosler’s wildly successful Ballistic Tip bullets. Zach told me that thanks to new innovation the engineers at Nosler were able to produce the Solid Base with its tapered jacket designed to expand reliably at a wide range of impact velocities with great weight retention. New manufacturing techniques allow this to be done at lower costs so the savings can be passed along to the customer.
Nosler sent me samples of the new Whitetail Country in four popular calibers for Whitetail hunting, 270 Winchester with 130 gr, 7mm-08 Remington with 140 gr, as well as 308 Winchester and 30-06 Springfield both loaded with 165 gr bullets!
Testing the Nosler Whitetail Country Ammo
Thanks to a little help from three of our local competitors, Andrew Neace, Dalton Neace and Richard “Casey” Sandlin, I put together a good selection of rifles to put the new ammo through its paces. Doing things a little different than most gun writers, we had four different shooters using a variety of rifles and scopes. While some might question the validity of this method, I feel that it would give us a real world feel for how the Whitetail Country ammunition performed in different rifles with different shooters. All the rifles used are accurate, with most having half inch or better groups in their resumes and each of the shooters has won numerous matches.
We had a trio of rifles chambered in 7mm-08, A Bergara B14 Hunter, Remington 700 Boone and Crocket Edition, as well as a Tikka T-3 Lite. All three of the rifles managed groups under one inch, with the old Remington pulling the best group of the test with a group of 0.542.
Next up we tried the 270 Winchester ammo in a Browning A-Bolt Medallion, a Savage 110, and a Winchester Model 70 XTR. The Winchester and the Savage both failed to beat the one-inch mark, but the Browning managed to break it with a best group of 0.930.
A couple of our local competitors who love their 308 Winchester rifles were unavailable the day we tried out the Whitetail Country ammo, so we only had two 308 rifles, a Bergara B-14 Hunter and a Heym SR-20. Both rifles handily beat the one-inch mark shooting 0.848, and 0.864 respectfully.
The day following our range testing the “Big Brown Truck” dropped off a package holding 30-06 Springfield Whitetail Country ammo, so wouldn’t you know it, we had to go back to the range. Casey brought a field proven well used Remington 700, and I broke out a couple of Safe Queens, a 1971 vintage Sako Finnbear, and a beautiful 60’s era Sako Finnbear Deluxe. All three of the 30-06 rifles broke the one-inch mark. Casey shot the best group of the day with the Finnbear Deluxe by printing a 0.792 group.
While trying the new Whitetail Country ammo we used eleven rifles from seven different manufacturers in four calibers. These were all bone stock factory rifles, and all but one were equipped with hunting grade scopes. We had a total of two rifles that did not obtain groups of less than one inch. Pretty impressive for hunting grade ammo and rifles.
In addition to the four calibers tested Whitetail Country ammo is available in 6.5 Creedmoor with 140 gr Solid Base bullet, and 30-30 Winchester with 150 gr Solid Base. For our friends who use Straight-Wall cartridges the Whitetail country is available in 350 Legend with 150 gr bullet and 45-70 Government featuring 300 gr bullet. Manufacturers suggested retail is $34.95 for a box of 20 except for the 45-70 which lists for 39.95. If you are looking for ammo for your deer rifle and want accurate, affordable, ammo using a time-tested bullet you might want to check out Nosler’s new Whitetail Country line of ammunition.
Read More: Popular Calibers for Hunting Deer
