6.5 Caliber 140 gr. too lite for Elk ?

Great bull, congrats to your son. I just shot a 5x5 raghorn in Wyoming with a 6.5 GAP (Len's Mountain Rifle) with Copper Creeks 156 grain Berger. DRT at 250 yards, made a mess of the front shoulder (complete pass thru). I got 2850 fps as an average speed off a LabRadar and the barrel isn't fully broken in. This ammo shoots sub 1/2" at 100 yards. I get the same results with the 140 VLD, I just wanted a heavier bullet.

Doug Herold said:

In the recent past I have smiled at posts questioning the competence of the 6.5 having enough horsepower to anchor big tough animals such as elk. My son returned last week from a hunt on a public land wilderness area of Colorado which I am attaching photos. This bull was shot with his 6.5Gap4s shooting a Berger Hybrid 140 gr at 3150 fps. The Berger warmed up the elk at 578 yds., it took one step and was DRT. The shoulder was broken, chest cavity organs were turned into a jello smoothie, and the bullet was recovered lodged in the hide on the "off side". The 140 gr bullet retained 80 gr (57%), lost 60 gr. (43%)... typical of expected Berger performance. This big bull scores 364" B&C . Another bull which was bigger was being watched at 1770 yds, but this one walked out of the timber and daylight was going to be an issue as far as getting to the larger bull. No bullet "blowing up" on impact, no excessive destroying of meat, no long-suffering animal, no failure of the bullet to penetrate.

Click to expand...

Congrats..Very nice Bull. Gotta be proud of that one. And helpful info on bullet perf.

Great Bull and great shooting. As with all one shot kills bullet placement and angle of the shot is critical. Most average hunters would have lost that bull at that range with any cartridge so great shooting!

A friend got 6 Elk in 8 years using his M70 Westerner 264 Win Mag and the 140 grn bullets.

One guide made comment to him that very few one shot kills were witnessed by him and he was impressed by the 264 Win Mag.

All this was in the 70s and early 80s.

Doug Herold said:

In the recent past I have smiled at posts questioning the competence of the 6.5 having enough horsepower to anchor big tough animals such as elk. My son returned last week from a hunt on a public land wilderness area of Colorado which I am attaching photos. This bull was shot with his 6.5Gap4s shooting a Berger Hybrid 140 gr at 3150 fps. The Berger warmed up the elk at 578 yds., it took one step and was DRT. The shoulder was broken, chest cavity organs were turned into a jello smoothie, and the bullet was recovered lodged in the hide on the "off side". The 140 gr bullet retained 80 gr (57%), lost 60 gr. (43%)... typical of expected Berger performance. This big bull scores 364" B&C . Another bull which was bigger was being watched at 1770 yds, but this one walked out of the timber and daylight was going to be an issue as far as getting to the larger bull. No bullet "blowing up" on impact, no excessive destroying of meat, no long-suffering animal, no failure of the bullet to penetrate.

Click to expand...

The 140 gr. .264 bullet was the heaviest factory load for the .264 Win. Mag. for years. Many a good size animal surcomed to it.

Rick Richard said:

Nice going. I killed a 5 X 6 last season with the same, but at 367 yards. So, yeah they do kill, but I wouldn't want to push it on elk past 600 yards...just my opinion.

Click to expand...

I've killed a pile of elk both bulls and cows between 800 and 900 yards from an 6.5 SS, same results as 3, 4, 5 and 600 yards, dead within a few steps.

IMHO You can't just say 6.5 as there are several levels of velocity & energy in the different 6.5 calibers. It's like all the various sizes of V8 engines. A 6.5 Creedmoor & a 6.5-300 Weatherby are quite different in power.

BrentM said:

So many people don't understand terminal ballistics. Velocity and bullet design put energy on target vs threw the target. I don't understand why people struggle with the concept. A pile of elk in my circle have been killed with the 140-143 grain bullets. That's berger, nosler, and Hornady and with creedmoor's.

Congrats to your boy. My neighbor killed a 370 bull in Wyoming a week ago with a 143. 1 and done within a couple feet of the impact.

Click to expand...

Congrats to your son on a great bull

Nice bull. We're going to run a 140 Accubond out of my 6.5 SAUM for my sons late bull hunt here in Az.

flylo said:

IMHO You can't just say 6.5 as there are several levels of velocity & energy in the different 6.5 calibers. It's like all the various sizes of V8 engines. A 6.5 Creedmoor & a 6.5-300 Weatherby are quite different in power.

Click to expand...

Exactly... 6.5-300 WBY at 450yds is equal to a 6.5 Creed at the muzzle.

Awesome Bull Congrats,

I want to thank all of you for responding to my post. Enjoyed reading all of them. Since there has been so much interest, I'll go ahead and give you the "rest " of the story and also try to respond to some of the questions which were raised; as well as "try" to post the picture of the bull they were looking at at 1770 yds.
Here goes:
Actually two bulls were shot about the same time. The first bull was shot with another 6.5 Gap, however it had a can on it. I'll post the pic. This was the herd bull and my son's friend had first shot. Because the rifle's report was so muted, the second bull was not alarmed so as the boys were back slapping, the BIG bull walked out of the timber. Bull #1 was at @ 660yds. Bull #2 @ 578. All the while this was going on, they were watching an supposedly BIGGER bull through my spotting scope bedded at 1770 yds. (which I will attempt to post — pic is fuzzy due to 60 pwr and distance). The boys were shooting from up on a cliff, so they had to take the horses around the side of the mtn and down to the bottom to the two elk. By the time they had them gutted and were back in spike camp it was 3 am. per text on InReach. It took all of the nxt day to get the two elk worked up and back to camp. It was certainly a hunt they will cherish in their memories forever. The big elk weighed @ 1000 pounds. The exact location of their hunt is somewhere just North of Trinidad.... Just kidding !!! .... and yes, you guys are exactly correct about ballistics and science.

I

Stgraves260 said:

Thanks for sharing this. Congrats to you and your son. I use my 260 Rem on everything with the 140 grain Berger bullets. It's never failed me yet. I would not hesitate to shoot a elk with my 260 Rem out to 1200 yards at 6,000 plus altitude.

Click to expand...

Thought the idea was "hunting" not just shooting.
If you were 1200 yards, how much closer could you have gotten?
No flame intended just wondering.
The rules of Fair Chase says and animal must have an escape route.
How close could you have gotten if you were truly hunting using wood craft and all.
Just throwing that out for thought.
My record book bull was taken at 35 yards, my book pronghorn was taken at 50 yards.
I personally love trying to get close, sometimes I get busted, sometimes they get busted.
Everytime I get busted I learn a lot more than when I kill.
1200 with a .260 seems like a long poke, if it were me I would figure that is maybe 1150 yards I could maybe cover to get in real close.
I can shoot at long range but I for myself only choose not to as the rush of going in mano y mano is for me to great to tempt a low percentage shot at least for me, I am human after all.

A

PBR driver said:

I

Thought the idea was "hunting" not just shooting.
If you were 1200 yards, how much closer could you have gotten?
No flame intended just wondering.
The rules of Fair Chase says and animal must have an escape route.
How close could you have gotten if you were truly hunting using wood craft and all.
Just throwing that out for thought.
My record book bull was taken at 35 yards, my book pronghorn was taken at 50 yards.
I personally love trying to get close, sometimes I get busted, sometimes they get busted.
Everytime I get busted I learn a lot more than when I kill.
1200 with a .260 seems like a long poke, if it were me I would figure that is maybe 1150 yards I could maybe cover to get in real close.
I can shoot at long range but I for myself only choose not to as the rush of going in mano y mano is for me to great to tempt a low percentage shot at least for me, I am human after all.

Click to expand...

Although I lean towards being in your court (I'd rather archery hunt), this is "Long Range Hunting", probably not the best place to take that kind of stance. Let's stick together as hunters and just be happy that it all worked out for them.

I have to assume that someone that can execute a shot at that distance on such a hearty animal has likely spent as much time honing his shooting abilities as I have my woodcraft/stalking skills.