Decided to go with the 300 SMK's as my go to hunting bullet this year. Bought 500 of them. They are shooting great. If anything, I'm having to force myself not to overcompensate for the wind as I do most of my practice shooting with a 308.
I decided to use the 338LM to fill my speedgoat tags, as a way to test bullet and equipment prior to the elk and deer hunts. My original concern with this bullet was over-penetration without opening up and transferring its energy. After filling my doe/fawn tag, this concern was alleivated (yes, apparently I am a baby killer...but they taste sooo much better than the full-sized ones).
OK, so this time it exited. By the way, the shot was taken at 654 yards, prone off of a sandbag, 10 mph crosswind from 3:00.
Then it was time to fill the buck tag. After dinking around trying to take the biggest buck I had seen all season (in my area) with my bow, rather than with the rifle, and spooking it into the next county, then spending 4 hours unsucessfully trying to get back on it, I finally decided to settle for this one:
I took the shot at 490 yards off of my Stoney Point Tripods Sticks. There was about a 10 mph quartering wind. He was quartering towards me at a little more than 45 degrees. When I hit him, he went down hard and was DRT. This is how he went down:
This was the entrance wound:
But I couldn't find an exit wound, even after skinning him. I noticed that his back leg was broken near the hip and figured that was where the bullet ended up. Later when cutting him up, I found the jacket just past the broken leg bone, completely shed of the lead core (sorry no pics). I also found a few chunks of lead scattered around in the hind quarter meat. The really strange thing was that the meat in the hind quarters, even around the broken leg/hip, was not at all blood shot or damaged.
Anyway, I don't know how this bullet is going to perform on a large elk, if it doesn't exit from a measly speedgoat. I mean, I guess 'dead is dead' and the antelope was DRT. Should I be concerned? Also, FYI, the 300 gr SMK has a MV of 2700 fps, and is averaging 0.4 to 0.6 MOA accuracy.
I decided to use the 338LM to fill my speedgoat tags, as a way to test bullet and equipment prior to the elk and deer hunts. My original concern with this bullet was over-penetration without opening up and transferring its energy. After filling my doe/fawn tag, this concern was alleivated (yes, apparently I am a baby killer...but they taste sooo much better than the full-sized ones).
OK, so this time it exited. By the way, the shot was taken at 654 yards, prone off of a sandbag, 10 mph crosswind from 3:00.
Then it was time to fill the buck tag. After dinking around trying to take the biggest buck I had seen all season (in my area) with my bow, rather than with the rifle, and spooking it into the next county, then spending 4 hours unsucessfully trying to get back on it, I finally decided to settle for this one:
I took the shot at 490 yards off of my Stoney Point Tripods Sticks. There was about a 10 mph quartering wind. He was quartering towards me at a little more than 45 degrees. When I hit him, he went down hard and was DRT. This is how he went down:
This was the entrance wound:
But I couldn't find an exit wound, even after skinning him. I noticed that his back leg was broken near the hip and figured that was where the bullet ended up. Later when cutting him up, I found the jacket just past the broken leg bone, completely shed of the lead core (sorry no pics). I also found a few chunks of lead scattered around in the hind quarter meat. The really strange thing was that the meat in the hind quarters, even around the broken leg/hip, was not at all blood shot or damaged.
Anyway, I don't know how this bullet is going to perform on a large elk, if it doesn't exit from a measly speedgoat. I mean, I guess 'dead is dead' and the antelope was DRT. Should I be concerned? Also, FYI, the 300 gr SMK has a MV of 2700 fps, and is averaging 0.4 to 0.6 MOA accuracy.
