6.5 mm ?

[bigngreen]

For elk I would drive a heavy well constructed bullet as fast as I could. That would be a 264 winchester or 264 STW. If any long range is in the plans the 264 STW. I have most of the ones discussed here and that is the one I would pull off the rack for elk if I chose a 264. Understand you are not talking BC's here for elk. You are talking a well constructed bullet and that does not include the high BC vld's unless it is monometal like the cutting edge. The Barnes ttsx, accubond, swift scirroco type bullets are what you need to look at for elk in a 6.5 mm cartridge. The others will lose to many animals by blowing apart. To small a caliber for a blow apart bullet on elk.

Haven't lost or tracked and elk since switching from TSX and thick jacketed bonded bullets to Berger or Matrix VLD's. Our elk hunting has been much more enjoyable and successful since changing over but we aren't shooting them light and fast in major over bore cals either. We have yet to catch a 140 Berger in a game animal and if anything they may be a little slow to open.

 

[Hondo64d]

In your opinion what is the best 6.5mm for hunting...........? Deer, Black Bear, and Elk

In a short action, I would go with the .260 or 6.5 CM, and in a long action, the 6.5-06.

John

 

[J300UM]

I'm a big fan of the 264WM. That round with a 140gr AB or similar is deadly medicine for anything hit with a well placed shot.

 

[Long Time Long Ranger]

Bigngreen, Hope you have continued success with them. However others have had different results. The small caliber Berger is very unpredictable with some that pencil through and some that explode on elk. I know of quite a few animals lost using that bullet. A quality hunting bullet is much more dependable on elk than the construction of a vld type target bullet.

 

[Greyfox]

Bigngreen, Hope you have continued success with them. However others have had different results. The small caliber Berger is very unpredictable with some that pencil through and some that explode on elk. I know of quite a few animals lost using that bullet. A quality hunting bullet is much more dependable on elk than the construction of a vld type target bullet.

I have spent a lot of time using the Berger VLD's. The big issue that I have seen is a lot of hunters using them at velocities that are too high, 3100+ FPS. This seem to give erratic results. I hve not used them on elk, but several big bodied mule deer, and white tails I have not seen a bullet failure from the 6.5 140VLD when driven at 2950-3000 FPS. 1" entrance, 2-3" exit with severe internal damage. I have a few buddies that have experienced the same.

 

[Long Time Long Ranger]

I use Berger bullets in several of my rifles with good success on deer and antelope. The 87 grain 6mm is a deer and antelope nightmare. Explosive kills out of my big 6mms which push it 3600-3800 fps.

I know some guys that stopped shooting the 140 grain berger 6.5 bullet on elk after some problems. They were using various 6.5's from the 6.5-284 through the 264 STW. Doesn't matter to me what a guy shoots just letting you know some people have had problems with it on elk.

 

[Catfur]

I have spent a lot of time using the Berger VLD's. The big issue that I have seen is a lot of hunters using them at velocities that are too high, 3100+ FPS. This seem to give erratic results. I hve not used them on elk, but several big bodied mule deer, and white tails I have not seen a bullet failure from the 6.5 140VLD when driven at 2950-3000 FPS. 1" entrance, 2-3" exit with severe internal damage. I have a few buddies that have experienced the same.

If you're going to be smacking meat with bullets travelling over 3000+ fps, you're probably pretty close, and the loss of BC from using something heavy duty like a mono-metal, Accubond, or Partition is likely more than gained back from a bullet that won't disintegrate.

 

[Greyfox]

If you're going to be smacking meat with bullets travelling over 3000+ fps, you're probably pretty close, and the loss of BC from using something heavy duty like a mono-metal, Accubond, or Partition is likely more than gained back from a bullet that won't disintegrate.

Agreed, but what I have experienced is that the 6.5mm Berger 140 VLD gives good expansion and penetration traveling in the velocity window of 2800-1800 FPS which translates to a range window of 150-1000 yards. That also translates to having 1000 ft/pds of energy for deer at 1000 yards, and 1500 ft/pds of energy for elk at 700 yards. The issue is that the the bullets you mention like a 140gr Partition, are hard pressed to deliver those ballistics in 6.5mm unless driven at velocities in excess of 3200FPS. Lots more powder, recoil, blast, and shortened barrel life. Unfortunately those designs do not match the BC and sectional density of the VLD and take a disproportional amount of velocity increase to make up the difference for long range applications.

 

[bigngreen]

We've been taking game running the 6.5 140 Berger at just shy of 3200fps, awesome performance and wound channel have been very, very consistent through a variety of game and shot angles and we have yet to recover a bullet from point blank shooting to over 600 yards, not ultra long range but this year it' well be farther for sure. In the number of game animals we've taken with just that particular bullet we would have seen many different wound channels with a harder bullet, I see way more consistency coming from the VLD's and way better wound channels through the animal in more varying shots.
Bergers don't just grenade like a Vmax unless you've done something to contribute to that like shooting a 7mm 140gr in a STW or RUM or shoot a way to aggressive twist that is pulling the jackets but then you would be better to shoot a harder bullet but what your doing is compensating for doing something that your rifle does not like, not shooting a better bullet!!!!

 

[Greg Duerr]

Has anyone used the 130gr Scirocco II ? All I have heard is that they are hard to get good accuracy out of .............they have a high BC and are suppose to preforme like a A-Frame in performance.

G