Thanks. At what range have you shot deer with it?It's been an amazing bullet for us at 2775-2885 fps range. Deers worst nightmare. Also shot a couple bears with it too. They didn't go anywhere
All close. 250 and in.Thanks. At what range have you shot deer with it?
I used it on a ~300 lb Manitoba whitetail buck, out of a 6.5 swede around 2315 fps mv 1-7.5 twist, thanks to member .308WIN helping find a load that shoots good.
Performance on game however left me less than impressed and I will try my best to use a different bullet this year. I too had read of people using them on deer so I figured a heavyish for caliber version at the mild velocity that my gun moves them should be fine for close range shots to the front half of a deer. I got a frontal shot at 60 yards through a few branches and aimed for the left lung to avoid the branches, that shot hit the left lung and put a hole in one chamber of the heart then exited mid ribs on the left side. the buck ran about 20 yards with no blood trail to stand behind a spruce tree where I saw his chin with body behind and shot again just under his chin, that shot broke his front shoulder and stopped in his rear leg bone which was also broken, needless to say he went down at the shot...Temp was around -32C with wind chill if that matters.
So you might say that this bullet performed great, excellent penetration and a dead deer.... however the wound path through the heart lungs was bullet diameter and the bloodshot lung material around the path was about 3/8 inch. In my experience that is dismal, thankfully the load is accurate so I could make good shots, I am convinced that if I had got a broadside lungs only hit that buck would have been alive for awhile maybe hours, probably would not have been able to find or finish him in the thick bush I was hunting.
That golfball size exit is what I like to see. I think your 6.5 creedmoor load would be traveling much faster than that 6.5 swede load (mentioned above mv 2315fps) even at 250 yards. So maybe the eld-m is less reliable beyond 400 yards, where velocity drops below 2300fps.Generally what we see is 6.5mm entry with a golf ball exit or no exit at all. Anything in its path is liquified
I've never used the 140 ELD-M, but have loaded the 123 and 147 for my son in his rifle. He has taken 3 deer with 3 shots. The 123 was used for 2 doe and neither of them took more than a step that was 2017. Then 2019 he shot a buck with the 147, which ran about 50 yds, but didn't make it out of the field. The 123s were loaded with a muzzle velocity of 2770 and the 147 had a muzzle velocity of 2790. The buck and 1 doe were both a smidge over 200, and the 1 doe was about 130'ish. He's also gotten a couple groundhogs with the 147 load. I loaded a 143 load for him, but after shooting both loads, and shooting the 147 in a couple matches, he wanted to stick with the 147. I have 0 issues using the ELD-M series (any weight will work) in a 6.5 for deer/thin skin. The damage has been on par with what I've seen in the past from other "hunting" bullets from hunting bullet companies, and better than my experiences with hunting bullets from match bullet companies.
At 25m a headshot was devastating with 130s at 2800.Thanks. At what range have you shot deer with it?