balancing the bullet characteristics with the application

[rimrock]

now this is an area where YOU need to make some choices ON what YOU expect from a well placed shot.
naturally your range to the target , the caliber you select,to hunt with,and the bullet design and where you tend to shoot the game and your knowledge of the games anatomy maters here.
it should be rather obvious that a 30/06, 300-340-375 mag hits harder than a 243 or 257 mag, and they should be selected or matched to the application
if you go with a generally lighter weigh thinner jacket fast expanding bullet your far more likely to find you get more drop on the spot kills with heart/lung shots but you'll also tend to have more meat ruined, and busting larger bones tends to produce lots of wasted meat and occasionally only wound, not fatally at least in the immediate time frame, occasionally and your less likely to be able to make raking angle shots reach the vitals, or get exit wounds.
go for the heavier thicker jacket and slower expanding bullets, and you tend to be able to make shots from almost any angle and still reach the vitals but you also tend to have ELK run slightly further or act stunned and stagger around for awhile before dropping, you can bust large bones and still reach the vitals, but every once in awhile ELK act as if you missed even with good hits , when those bullets zip thru with minimal obvious damage.
Ive hand loaded for over 40 years for most of the guys I hunt with, and Ive seen the results, most guys that are average marksmen probably would be better off with the faster expanding bullets and sticking with heart/lung shots.
If your confident in your bullet placement even at longer ranges the slower expanding bullets open up additional options, but they require more precise placement if your looking for (DEAD RIGHT NOW) results

YOUR COMMENTS???

[Greybeard]

The only "dead right now" shot is a brain shot. All others take some time. I started going to elk camp in the early 1950s. In 1953 I was allowed to have a rifle and actually hunt elk on my own. The messages were very clear. You shot them in the high shoulder. You did your best to get close. You always checked to verify a hit if the animal did not go down at the shot; and not just at the spot.

A brain shot is a low percentage shot. Chest and shoulder shots are high percentage shots.

Not too long ago, heavy-for-caliber bullets were the rule for elk hunting and Nosler Partion was the king. In our elk camps, the 30-06 was a good elk rifle; the .270 was ok with 150 grain partitions; the .257 was marginal. This has changed somewhat with the advent of bonded core bullets and more recently pretty advanced copper/zinc bullets.

Elk are big and strong and have a strong desire to live and get away if they possibly can. They do not always drop or even visibly react to being shot. I shot a huge old cow a few years back with a perfect chest shot - through both lungs and broke the offside front leg. She bolted at the shot and disappeared behind brush. One might have thought I missed. But there she was dead about 20 yards away. The big 6x6 bull I shot 3 years ago with a low front on chest shot (through the top of the heart) took off with a leap sideways and disappeared into the brush. He ran about 25 yards and piled up, then slid down the side of the hill coming to rest around a tree. When he slid down, we thought he was slipping away by the noise. He gave a death bellow - the only time I heard an elk do that. I cannot remember how many elk somehow found there way down into canyons to die instead of staying up on top as desired. Message is clear. Check your shot every time and do it carefully.

300 yards is far away. Few people know where 300 yards is.

No one knows what the wind is doing at over 300 yards. You can have a hot rifle cartrige that shoots very flat but the wind becomes very significant for drift beyond 300 yards. A flat cartrige helps with minimizing elevation and distance error but is still affected by wind drift.

I hope that my experiences help with the subject. Greybeard/

[Bushman]

In a perfect world we would all prefer a standing broadside for a h/l shot. I am reminded of a conversation that I had with a buddy of mine who had been out west elk hunting. He had used a .30-06 with something like a 180 grain Core-Lokt or Power-Point. Probably the PP because he always liked the Win./Super-X ammo. Anyway once you have spent major money for a non-resident tag, a quartering away shot on your bull when you are running out of hunting days is good enough. "If I'd only used a Fail Safe bullet I wouldn't have had to chase that elk for three days." That quote speaks volumes to me. His deer bullet broke up on a big hip bone and stopped short of getting up into the important plumbing. He got the elk finally, but it took days and way more effort to track it and bring it out than if he had used a better bullet to start with. Penetration is important, just ask your wife.

[Hi Ball]

Bushman "penetration" is King!!! I have shot more than my far share of large big game animals and yes it does take a good bullet to pull off ALL the various non-broadside presentation type shots.

This is the main reason I insists on a very good bullet that has been tested here at the house long before we ever venture out into the high country for Mr. Wapiti. I agree Nosler Partition was the GO-TO bullet for elk years ago, (still does a bang up job the majority of the time) the very best (excluding Frank Barnes & Bitterroot bullets) a hunter could have in his rifles magazine.

Those other things all experienced hunters learn quickly when hunting elk, dopping the wind, are just another facet in what it takes to become successful when hunting bull elk. Those that venture out passed the 300 yards mark, soon find out those tid-bits that never concerned them at the rifle range back home when shooting 200 yards on paper.

Nowdays we have scope's with built in compensators that let hunters shoot an elk or mule deer out at 600 to 800 yards, however one still has to get that yardage on the money and dope that wind correctly or NO CIGGAR!!! Lets not forget that the rifle more than likely is going to be a sub-MOA gun in the first place, inorder to score a hit that far downrange. Needless to say it still takes one heck of a marksman to pull everything together bare-none.

I myself have always liked the Trophy Bonded Bear Claw and Swift A Frame bullets for shooting big game, no question they get the job done in spades. Yes, they do cost a little more but when you spend the money it takes for an outfitter, tags, fuel, hotels etc. what is an extra .50cents a bullet really going to do to the expense account, except give you the hunter the cheapest insurance policy one could ever buy for half a buck a round.

[GF.]

FWIW....

There's only one application in Elk hunting, and that's killing an Elk. That means you need an Elk bullet- not a deer bullet.

Moderate expansion is adequate; 'high' or 'maximum' expansion is stupid, as is looking for a DRT kill on an animal that size. It's just not possible on a consistent basis, no matter what you're shooting, so it's better to have faith in your own ability to place the shot where it must go and the bullet's ability to perform properly on any shot that you're potentially willing to take - not just the ones you daydream about, but the ones that show up in nightmares as well.

I'll back off for a second, though - the Swift A-frame and the TBBC both expand quite substantially, but have gotten excellent field reports. As has the Partition, but there are tougher loads out there that offer a bigger front end on shorter shots, only because they hold together better and leave more than just a shank passing through. Yeah, there are cowboys who kill an Elk every year with a .30-30 and a Win Powerpoint, but those guys A) aren't looking for anything but a supply of meat and B) usually have 3-4 times as much time to find it as an average non-resident hunter will have. They're not going to shoot holes in good meat, and they're more likely to get a second or third chance than most.

You don't need a big gun; you just need a decent bullet in the right spot. What's that joke about 'Woundaby' Magnums??? Too much gun often = too little precision in the shooting....

And FWIW - shooting an Elk at 300-odd yards isn't hunting, it's just shooting. And winds in Elk country are not at all predictable. Get off your dead ass and get after 'em.

[Hi Ball]

Well now GF, I been using Swift A Frames bullets in my hunting rifles for years, along with those TBBC bullets (Trophy Bonded Bear Claw) that an African PH told me about some years back. They too are great bullets!

I would have rather used either of the above bullets in my .338/06 but it just does NOT like them as much as the Nosler Partition bullets. The .338/06 shoots .750-MOA from the bench at 100 yards with those Nosler's and the others just render me 1.20 to 1.45 MOA. Now at 200 yards the "mini mag" will shoot under 2-MOA if I do my part.