Ankeny
Well-Known Member
I went out yesterday afternoon to get some meat for the freezer. I live about an hour from where I hunt elk. The terrain is tall grass mixed with sage where it's flat, with deep and steep boulder strewn canyons surrounding the basins.
So I totally blow a sneak on 16 elk and they bust across the basin to join up with a herd of 175-200 elk feeding out on a hillside. I walk the hour and a quarter back to the truck, drive into the basin, stash the truck, then creepy crawl up to a ridge where I can shoot across a canyon at this big fat cow. OK, she was the nearest critter. The range is 487 yards. A little cranking on the turrets and I am good to go. The sage and grass is too high for prone and too high for "conventional sitting" so I put the bipod (medium height Harris) on my toes. Not the best but you do what you can. Blam, the elk lurches forward then takes off like a bat out of Hades followed by that familiar whack sound. The cow goes behind a little ridge with 50-60 other elk. All of the elk that reappear seem to be traveling well so I figure the cow either expired or layed down behind the ridge.
I don't have a lot of time before dark, but I wait a reasonable amount of time then down the hill, across the dry creek bed, up the other hill, and around the ridge. The elk is down looking the other way. I sit down to finish the task and the cow gets up and starts trotting off like nothing was out of the ordinary. She comes to a stop quartering away and I torch one off with the cross hairs right behind the front shoulder. She turns broadside and looks at me like I am retarded. She takes a few steps towards the coulee from hell and by now I have had enough of this business so I body slam her through both front shoulders and down she goes. The range was about 150 yards for each finishing shot. I field dressed the elk and headed for home.
This morning a friend and myself went back to retrieve the elk and I surveyed the damages a bit more closely. I was kind of suprised. I am shooting a .30-.338 launching the 200 Accubond at 2950 fps. I love this load for it's accuracy, but this is the first big game animal I have taken with the load. I switched to the Accubond from the Partition for the higher BC.
The first bullet entered mid-way between the last rib and the front leg. Just about right from front to back, but a bit too low striking about 5 inches above the brisket. The bullet dead centered a rib, blew a huge hole, fragmented, and part of it turned and went through the diaphram nicking a gut. There was no sign of the bullet or any part of the bullet hitting the off side of the body cavity.
Bullet number two entered behind the front shoulder and hit a rib blowing a huge entrance hole. A couple of fragments barely made it into the off side of the chest cavity. The cow was dead on her feet with this shot. The third shot hit the shoulder dead center, traveled through the shoulder and into the body cavity with what was left of the bullet penetrating about an inch into the off side shoulder.
I am a huge fan of Nosler bullets and I really hate to judge a bullet's performance by one experience, but holy crapola, any premium bullet should have sailed right on through the cow on all three shots. I am going to call Nosler on Monday and have a chat with a techinician. Any ideas here?
So I totally blow a sneak on 16 elk and they bust across the basin to join up with a herd of 175-200 elk feeding out on a hillside. I walk the hour and a quarter back to the truck, drive into the basin, stash the truck, then creepy crawl up to a ridge where I can shoot across a canyon at this big fat cow. OK, she was the nearest critter. The range is 487 yards. A little cranking on the turrets and I am good to go. The sage and grass is too high for prone and too high for "conventional sitting" so I put the bipod (medium height Harris) on my toes. Not the best but you do what you can. Blam, the elk lurches forward then takes off like a bat out of Hades followed by that familiar whack sound. The cow goes behind a little ridge with 50-60 other elk. All of the elk that reappear seem to be traveling well so I figure the cow either expired or layed down behind the ridge.
I don't have a lot of time before dark, but I wait a reasonable amount of time then down the hill, across the dry creek bed, up the other hill, and around the ridge. The elk is down looking the other way. I sit down to finish the task and the cow gets up and starts trotting off like nothing was out of the ordinary. She comes to a stop quartering away and I torch one off with the cross hairs right behind the front shoulder. She turns broadside and looks at me like I am retarded. She takes a few steps towards the coulee from hell and by now I have had enough of this business so I body slam her through both front shoulders and down she goes. The range was about 150 yards for each finishing shot. I field dressed the elk and headed for home.
This morning a friend and myself went back to retrieve the elk and I surveyed the damages a bit more closely. I was kind of suprised. I am shooting a .30-.338 launching the 200 Accubond at 2950 fps. I love this load for it's accuracy, but this is the first big game animal I have taken with the load. I switched to the Accubond from the Partition for the higher BC.
The first bullet entered mid-way between the last rib and the front leg. Just about right from front to back, but a bit too low striking about 5 inches above the brisket. The bullet dead centered a rib, blew a huge hole, fragmented, and part of it turned and went through the diaphram nicking a gut. There was no sign of the bullet or any part of the bullet hitting the off side of the body cavity.
Bullet number two entered behind the front shoulder and hit a rib blowing a huge entrance hole. A couple of fragments barely made it into the off side of the chest cavity. The cow was dead on her feet with this shot. The third shot hit the shoulder dead center, traveled through the shoulder and into the body cavity with what was left of the bullet penetrating about an inch into the off side shoulder.
I am a huge fan of Nosler bullets and I really hate to judge a bullet's performance by one experience, but holy crapola, any premium bullet should have sailed right on through the cow on all three shots. I am going to call Nosler on Monday and have a chat with a techinician. Any ideas here?
