Tikkamike
Well-Known Member
I have a friend who had never really hunted much but wanted to get into it so last year I found him a Tikka 300wsm stainless on here for a good price and a nice little leupold 3-9 to go on it. nice basic little set up. He killed a couple deer with it using some factory ammo with 165 gr partitions. I told him he needed to go buy some 180's for elk if he could (thinking he would get the same ammo with 180 partitions) he shows up with the HSM ammo loaded with the 185 berger hunting VLD. (Anyone who knows me this was not at all what I had in mind) but I thought what the heck this will be a good opportunity to give the Bergers another chance. Its just a cow elk so should be fine. Well we get out there and Immediatley spot elk from my look out point but they are still up and moving and havent bedded yet so I decided we would sit tight till they bedded. well several people come and go and see the elk (roughly mile and a half away)and go back down to the bottom below them to try and sneak up on them. I knew this wouldnt work because those elk were moving still and by the time they got there they would be long gone. so we just sat there, I called my dad and told him to come up cause we had elk spotted. Once he got there the elk had gone over the top and out of sight but I knew where they were going. so we circled around and got up on a knob where I expected to see them and spotted 3 bulls who had been bringing up the rear all morning. Then I looked down country and there were the rest of them about 1000 yards down in the bottom. bedded. DOWN wind... with no real way to get the wind in our favor without being in the wide open we decided to take our chances with swirling wind. we got down to where the elk were within range and (400 yards cause my buddy is a novice hunter/shooter and only had a Duplex) We couldnt get any closer without ending up on top of them and we were too low to see them so we went up another hill to the west to gan some elevation and I was able to see necks and heads. so we all laid down and got ready and one of them spotted us and stood up and the rest followed suit. I told my buddy to shoot first and just keep shooting till it was down and dad and I would get a couple before they all left. I told him to hold about 6" - 8"above the shoulder and squeeze one off. He did that and I saw her drop like a ton of Bricks (AMAZED) well at his shot they didnt do the typical mil around for a second thing they hauled *** so Neither dad or I got a shot. No big deal though we had plenty of work to go around now. we cross the small canyon and are about 100 yards from where I thought it was and I hear something, then all the sudden she is up and running for the trees so I pull up my 338 in a panic (225ttsx) and yank the trigger while its pointed in her general direction and got lucky cause she skidded to a stop on her chin about a half a second later. We get over there and he had made a perfect high shoulder hit. probably 6" down from the spineit had blown a huge hole in the hide and down about 2 inches. The hole was a good 6" across it was a big crater... but no more, He just shocked the spine and knocked her down and she recovered shortly after when she heard us. This would have been a lost elk if I had not gotten lucky and hit her. This is the EXACT kind of fail I have seen with 6.5 140 gr bergers on whitetail does. I know some of you have good luck with them, but I have had nothing but fail after fail with them on shoulder shots. Needless to say we will be loading up some 180 TSX for next year.
