300 Sierra MK terminal performance

[AJBello]

I have the 300 SMKs loaded in my Edge and it's the first year I've hunted with it. Unfortunately my hunting grounds were pretty well fogged in for the 2.5 days I had to hunt this year (coast / 1st season), and I didn't get any shots.

I went back up for the 2nd season opener to help pack out if need be. A guy in our party shot a cow at a little over 700 yards. He's shooting the 300 SMK out of a 338-378 Wby, MV is 2990 FPS (about 170 faster than my edge is pushing them). The bullet entered just behind the near shoulder, tore the heart in half, and exited near the far shoulder. Before we skinned it looked like there was going to be little damage. Once we got to skinning, we found the entire far shoulder was blood shot, extending almost the whole way down the rib cage. This was on a mature Roosevelt cow elk, which was pretty good sized. I found a large chunk of the jacket (base and much of the rest) in the far shoulder. Obviously there was full separation from the core, which didn't really surprise me. The extent of the damage however did surprise me. The bullet definitely put that elk down HARD, but it wasn't fun losing a whole quarter of the animal.

I'm wondering if this is "typical" damage and something that is tolerated in order to put them down hard at long range, or if this was a fluke? I did a lot of reading before I started loading these for hunting and everyone seemed to agree the damage was not too extensive. If losing the entire off side quarter is typical... I'm not so sure I want to stick with them... ? Thanks for any input!

[roadhunter]

Shot my bull at 658 yards with my edge. He was facing away from me and uphill. The bullet enter directly into the spine breaking the low back. I am assuming the bullet fraged into the guts, cause I didn't see an exit. Unfortunately, he was down in a huge canyon, so I boned him out and never gutted him to see what the bullet did.

My first Bull

[BigSkyGP]

I been eating bloodshot, and bruised meat for years, I aint dead yet.

Flush blood out with water, and chill to around 40deg F, 'till you get it packaged and into the freezer. Makes fine sausage, and burger. The more severe field conditions, the more meat you lose.

A good clean, and humain kill is more important to me than a little meat dammage/tenderising.

The pessemist says, "OH, POOP!"
The optomist says, "OOOH, fertilizer!"