Long range elk "mistake"

I agree with your take on the expansion of the bullets you mentioned but they are all a little short on b.c. for a marginal caliber like the 6.5 so distance for minimum velocity for expansion becomes even less. The Scirocco might be the exception, but I have never found them to be accurate enough for extreme long range........rich
p.s. I think I'll just stick with my 300 with bullets that expand down to 1300':D


What 140 grain bullet were you using?

The A-max's would perform well close to 1000 fps in my experience but hat isn't with the 6.5's but with the 308's.
 
What 140 grain bullet were you using?

The A-max's would perform well close to 1000 fps in my experience but hat isn't with the 6.5's but with the 308's.

The A-Max is the one bullet that I think would work well at that velocity. I didn't post which bullet I was using because I don't want to start something! Most people probably have a pretty good idea which one it is:D......Rich
 
The A-Max is the one bullet that I think would work well at that velocity. I didn't post which bullet I was using because I don't want to start something! Most people probably have a pretty good idea which one it is:D......Rich

Gotcha! Always blame it on something else than user error right!

I think this is why your thread is getting such good comments, folks appreciate your honesty and accepting that YOU made a mistake, not your gun or bullet or whatever!

Bravo Friend!
 
I agree with your take on the expansion of the bullets you mentioned but they are all a little short on b.c. for a marginal caliber like the 6.5 so distance for minimum velocity for expansion becomes even less. The Scirocco might be the exception, but I have never found them to be accurate enough for extreme long range........rich
p.s. I think I'll just stick with my 300 with bullets that expand down to 1300':D
The Scirocco I think may well be the exception. With factory Remington 180's I'm getting under .6MOA at 1080yds.

I've got a few boxes of custom loaded 130gr Sciroccos coming for my 260 and hopefully I'll get some time to shoot them next week.

I'll post the results.

I know what you mean in general though. Finding a bullet that meets both the VLD BC's and great terminal peformance on game IS a challenge.

As soon as I get some more brass saved up I'm going to start loading for it and I've already got some of the Hunting ballistic tips and when I get them ready to go I'll post some results on them as well. I'm betting though that the Sciroccos fly much better.
 
Rich, sorry about your outcome, I had one "dead" animal get up and run off on me on aproach, It sucks knowing If I had been a little more observent/preparred, I could have prevented it.

I've been waiting for my buddies to e-mail me the pictures before I tell the story of my LR elk this year. It turned out sucessful but started with a few misses??, created by a couple of horses??, a sighter shot on a rock?? and then 3 shots with 2 being solid hits.

It ended with a nice 5x5 folding up on the third shot. The distance was 1202 yards, with an edge and 250 AB at 3010 MV. The recovered bullet that stopped on the off side hide went thru the shoulder meat and took out the spine,(about 1" behind the scapula.) The recovered bullet weight 165 grains.

I am going to write up an article for Len on it because I think there are some good lessons in the story that will help others who are trying to extend there range.
 
That ground shrinkage can be a bitch for some guys. I have never seen this but it would upset me.
I helped some game wardens out on some of these cases in the past with tracking and tracing.

Disgusting.

One of the places I used to lease for bird huting also leased to bow hunters only for deer hunting.

I would find literally dozens of carcasses at the end of the season that had obviously resulted from just this kind of thing.

Personally I think it ought to be a minimum 10k fine for each offense and loss of all hunting and fishing privileges for ten years for each offense as well.
 
There was a fellow who shot his first mtn goat this year on ben loman (sic). Fell and broke a horn. Shot three more before he got one he liked. How about that!

Everyone that was on the mountain that day turned him in, I believe. . .

The story was on the news one evening..... about a month ago or so.
 
There was a fellow who shot his first mtn goat this year on ben loman (sic). Fell and broke a horn. Shot three more before he got one he liked. How about that!

Everyone that was on the mountain that day turned him in, I believe. . .

The story was on the news one evening..... about a month ago or so.
What a ***. Hopefully he'll get out just in time to see his grandchildren get married.
 
Rich, I'm sorry that this happened to you. This is a terrible way to be humbled.
Have you had good luck with soft tissue shots (lungs, lower chest, etc.) at long range on elk?? I've either shot elk or have seen elk shot in the ribs / lungs at various ranges from point blank to 800 yards with nosler ballistic tips, partitions, accubonds, sst's, bear claws, bergers, sierra MK's, etc. and not a single one of them provided me with evidence that they were adequate for the purpose of quickly and humanely dispatching an elk. I know alot of guys subscribe to the theory of intense soft tissue trauma in long range shooting, which may work for things like deer and antelope, but I've witnessed a much higher failure rate in this type of shooting in an animal who can run for miles on 1/2 of a single lung functioning.
I shot a 4 point bull in Colorado one year that we saw in muzzle-loader season (late august) that had obviously been wounded by a bowhunter, and I killed it in 4th rifle season (mid-november). It came limping by me, and I dispatched it, and I called the game warden. The game warden issued me a tag for it, but not before opening it up to discover an 11" chunk of carbon-fiber arrow with a broken 4-blade broadhead inside. One lung was completely crispy green and black with no function...sounding like a paper bag crunching, and the other lung was almost 2/3rds gangrenous and filled with fluid. No way he would have made it through the winter, but he made it 2 1/2 months with that type of injury.
Having witnessed that, and also having shot plenty of elk through the lungs leaving holes you could fit a baseball through and watch them run for a half-mile I now subscribe to a different school of elk killing. I either have the ability with gun and bullet to completely break both shoulders / major bone structure, or I don't shoot.
I'd like to get an idea of what most guys are doing when it comes to ELK specifically at long ranges. I understand something in the 300 grain category could be valuable for such a task, and I also understand smaller caliber weapons with frangible bullets hitting an animal at the terminus of the spine and shoulder causing instant death as well, but you're also talking about a coffee-can sized area to hit as well. Where I hunt we simply cannot risk an elk running even 500 yards because it enters private land, or runs off into a wilderness canyon where the retrieve will be a gruelling technical climb to get the meat out. The two long range bulls I have killed were both high double-shoulders and single shot kills with Barnes TTSX. I've had the opportunity to shoot at some bulls farther away, knowing full well that I could hit body, but not both shoulders specifically, so I opted not to shoot.

My family and I have ALWAYS went for the boiler room and NEVER the shoulder. I have never seen an elk with 2 blown up shoulders or even one for that matter not have the majority of the shoulders meat ruined. We have lost 2 elk in 81 total combined years of hunting Elk. If I would include my extended family we are now talking in the 200 years range and to my knowledge the number of lost elk would not be much more than a handful. That is a TON of dead Elk over those years that were successfully taken with heart/lung shots. Thats also a huge amount of meat that didnt get ruined because of deliberate shoulder shots. Not saying we never hit a shoulder because we have and we all get mad as heck when we do. While I can see where shoulder shooting has a legitimate purpose, I for one would rather have the meat. To me hunting is for the meat first, horns second. If your that worried about grounding them on the spot, shoot em in the head and save your meat. Elk have heads that are as big as the boiler room of a decent deer or Antelope. When it comes down to hunter ethics there are so many gray areas and to me shoulder shooting and ruining the meat is for sure in the gray area. You have to use the right bullet for the type of shooting you do. Boiler room shots are not as effective when using a bullet designed for the shoulder shot and visa-versa. Just my .02.
 
Like others have said, thanks for writing up your "mistake". While there may not be a lot of us that find ourselves in a similar situation anytime soon, maybe reading your post will make us all think. Sometimes it is easy to get a little overconfident when we have "been there, done that" and that overconfidence lets us take a shot that a few years back and a few dead critters back we would have made sure we had all the T's crossed and i's dotted. The important thing about mistakes is if we let ourselves learn from them, you obviously have and thanks for having the humility to let us learn from it too.

As for Elk, I agree with Shawn's comment. I like lots of "horsepower"! I have hunted and guided for elk for a long time and have a lot of guys ask me about the suitability of a particular cartridge for elk. When I tell them a .338 they usually proceed to tell me how many elk they know of that has been killed with a .270 which is what they have and want to hunt with. Yep, darn near any gun right on down to .22 LR will kill an elk, at the right distance and when shot in the right place. For me, I want horsepower, that is a big bullet going pretty darn fast. Turns a marginal shot into a recovered dead elk more often.

Keep your chin up, and just think you will get reminded of this everytime you have to go to the grocery store and buy some sorry hamburger instead of having those good elk burgers hot off the grill! :D
 
Now that this thread has been around for a couple of days , I would like to personally thank everyone for being so encouraging rather than judgemental! There are a lot of other forums around where a guy would be humiliated so badly he probably would never go back. Besides all of the wealth of knowledge and great hunting stories, the thing I like most about LRH is the quality of the folks that subscribe. God bless all of you......Rich
 
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