Factory deer hunting ammo

[Double Naught Spy]

It sounds like the Hornady 123g sst has issues with expanding, so I'm thinking of striking that off the list.

I must have missed the reference to this, but I don't think I have ever considered SST as having troubles expanding. Some people report accuracy issues, but I can't recall expanding issues. If anything, you may not like how much SST can fragment. Since you are deer hunting, I expect that you want to save as much meat as possible and SST may not optimize that as much as other bullets such as Federal Fusion and other bullets that stay together better.

Take your pic ton's of hunting ammo out there.
Hornady sst
Federal 120 fusion
PF sells tons of hunting loads
Nosler 129 ablr (I think it's available now)
Hendershots has loads

PF is Precision Firearms (in case you didn't know). https://www.precisionfirearms.com/48m8/a...-ammo.html This isn't budget ammo and they can be slow to fill orders if they don't have it currently in stock (I assume because they do runs for each cartridge that they offer and if they don't have it right now, you wait until they make the next run of it). You pay for quality and you get quality. So if you find something they have listed that you think you want for deer season, don't order it the week before deer season. Order it now, ahead of all the other people ordering just before deer season. Like A5BLASTER said, they have a lot to choose from and I think you will find several other options to consider as well.

If you are tight on money, Federal Fusion seems to perform exactly as designed (at least on the hogs I have shot with it).