OP said the primary focus was target shooting but also that the largest game in his area was mule deer.
He mentioned his particular rifle liked a couple different types of 180 grain pills and didn't do as well with heavier ones.
And he asked if there was anything else out there he may not have tried that provided good accuracy from such a thing.
So...mule deer are not some heavily armored animal that are hard to kill.
Accuracy, for the primary function of target shooting, is the priority.
And it'd be nice if said bullet was also effective on north american game at least up to the size of a good mule deer, and considering possible future hunting trips, maybe larger.
My take on it....
There isn't much of anything in this hemisphere a sturdy constructed 180 grain .30 cal full power cartridge won't bring down at anything most people would consider "ethical hunting range". There are a few things in the other hemisphere it won't handle but they are few, very large, and cost you as much as a new car to go shoot at.
A .300WM is pretty much a faster 30-06. It might take you a small step up in game at the extreme top end but it mostly lets you do the same things farther away. More velocity, flatter trajectory, and more distance while supersonic.
Everything doesn't have to be the latest, greatest, longest, heavy for caliber boat tail bullet to work well. His rifle likes 180 grain and that's just fine. It's plenty of oomph and it'll do a number on both paper and mule deer.
So I think the question is what other loads in the 180 grain range have you found to exhibit good accuracy?
'cause it's plenty enough rifle for whatever he might do on meat.
I will say the all copper bullets tend to be longer for a given weight as copper isn't as dense as lead. This "might" cause issue with your rifle stabilizing them due to the bullet length, not weight.
The upside as far as hunting goes is you can generally take a step down in bullet weight you'd typically use in lead on the same animal. This because copper is much harder material. It doesn't shed weight along the way like lead does. So after a bit of penetration the copper bullet that started out lighter is now heavier because it didn't shed a bunch of material along the way like the heavier lead bullet did.
As long as you have the accuracy and the reliable expansion at whatever impact velocities you expect to have, you don't need a long, heavy lead bullet to allow for losing a quarter or half of it along the way.
Makes a 165 grain '06, or 180 grain .300WM, or even a 150-164 grain .308 or 140 grain .270 or 7mm punch above their weight with regards to penetration and damage done along the way.
There's also an advantage in light barrier penetration, like house walls or vehicle bodies or windshield glass as even if those "petals" fold back or even shear off the majority of the projectile stays together and keeps going. There is no shedding of lead or jacket/core separation. There's nothing to separate.
Getting off into the weeds here but I think the OP was asking, "here's what I've found to work well. What else in this range have you found to exhibit good accuracy and oh by the way it'd be nice if it could also bring down a mule deer".
You don't need moose loads to do that. Bullets far less advanced than what we have available to us today have come close to wiping out entire species.
Ya, I hesitated hitting the post button but I did it anyway.
