820 Yard cow elk pics

[goodgrouper]

I just shot this cow elk Wednesday (01-26-05) in my backyard so to speak. It is the Mt. Timpanogos late season cow hunt.
I was shooting 180 Nosler Accubonds, and as you can see, they worked pretty well even at long range. The bullet went through both front shoulder bones and was literally stuck to the hide on the far side! Not bad for a non-ultra mag huh??
I ranged her at 820 yards with my Leica 1200 LRF and then dialed 14 minutes into my Leupold Vari-xIII 4.5-14x40 and let it fly. The cow never knew what hit her! The first shot broke her shoulder/leg bone and she wasn't gettin' up after that one! It's not BEYOND BELIEF, it's just beyond ordinary. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Fiftydriver]

Nice shooting!!! Beautiful country as well. Looks like home.

Kirby Allen(50)

 

[Dave King]

Nice job...

Keep that bullet! Folks are always asking about bullets and long range.

What was the altitude and temp...and muzzle velocity (trying to determine remaining bullet speed upon impact).

Was the bullet just at the skin on the off side or did you need to dig a bit?

Thanks in advance for the additional data.

 

[littletoes]

Nice job! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[goodgrouper]

Thanks Dave.
The altitude was 6320 ft. and the temp was 38 with a humidity of 95 (there was actually a huge fog bank that was creeping up on us the whole day). Muzzle velocity was checked last week at an avg. of 3060 (slow lot of RL22, acts more like RL25) and my actual bc of the bullet is averaging around .480 due to a highly eroded throat.
All those factors say that at 820 yards, I needed 14 minutes from a 285 yard zero, and my velocity on target was 1885 fps. and my energy was 1420 ft/lbs with a time of flight of 1.027 seconds.

The bullet was poking through the far shoulder meat in plain view and was touching the hide.

 

[Dave King]

Thanks for the update on the data.

1885fps and a nicely mushroomed Nosler Accubond projectile caught on the off-side at the skin.

It's better to have hard, hold-in-your-hand data than textbook stuff.

 

[rost495]

Very nice. Nice shot. Great info. And the best result-- an actual resultant bullet recovered. I'm begginning to get faith in plastic tips again a bit....

Jeff

 

[Varmint Hunter]

Goodgrouper,

Congrats on a <font color="blue"> great </font> shot. Makes me jealous. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[tdv75098]

Nice shooting Goodgrouper! How about a few more shots of that scenery in the background? What a beautiful place.

 

[3sixbits]

Man I just love to see the real world in action! I to have found RL-22 to be a great powder for the overbore 30's. Great pics. I would love to see your trophy room pics of that cow pacted in your frezzer! Nothing tastes as good as elk! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[alremkin]

Great shot and pictures. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif While bullet performance was near perfect in your shot, I wonder what would happen with the same bullet and shot on a big 6 point @ 100 yards? I don't mean to infer there's anything wrong with your bullet choice, but rather pose an academic question about bullet performance.

Something I'd like to hear as a new-comer to this board is how you knew to adjust 14 minutes of angle.

Also as an Elk hunter, if you'd like to take the time to explain it, would you explain how you chose your location to hunt. From the look of the country I'm guessing you took a high spot over looking a large area you knew held game. This is a technique I sometimes use here in BC.

Good article.

 

[Niet]

Goodgrouper: Nice shot and beautiful pictures...thanks for to share your successes with us.
Regards
Niet

 

[goodgrouper]

Thanks everyone for your responses today. I am trying to sit up straight to type, but my sore body aches from packing out all that meat!

Al Remkin,
Pop over to bullets,barrels, and ballistics and read my post on the topic about velocities needed to open up a Nosler Accubond and Partition. Those Accubonds work long and near!

After chronographing my load and sighting in my rifle, I entered all the data from the load and conditions into a ballistic program. It then spit out a drop chart in MOA, and I clicked in the 14 minutes it said to go and shot. Experience and practice shooting long range did the rest!


My hunting technique was nothing too elaborate. I really wanted to take a 1000 yard shot, but I told myself that 800 yards plus would be ok too. So I glassed the area over and over and found the general area where the elk hung out throughout the week. Then I looked at possible places I could get the long shot I wanted. I marked a few areas on my map that would make good shooting "benches" overlooking big areas. When we found the right herd about 2 miles away, and hiked up to get 1000 yards away from them. But, the lay of the land would not permit a shot that far from our angle. So we went up the highest peak above the elk and set up for the shot. There was about 100 elk in the vicinity, but only five were far enough away to make my minimum 800 yard shot. The rest of the story is history.

As for more pics, I will try to find time in the next few days to put some more pics of the hunt on here.
--Goodgrouper

 

[bucknutz]

awesome post! i wish i had your soreness from packing out meat! mine comes from an hour of cardiokickboxing then an hour of tae kwon do.i have that same scope and will be carrying a nickle when i get gun back from (50).