300 LRH & 236 gr Chinchaga bullets vs moose

[Swamplord]

***I'm stealing my own posts from the Wildcat Cartridges and Custom Rifles FaceBook group to share my recent tests with the Chinchaga .308 caliber 236 gr RBT ULD ST Hybrid bullets..... ****

Got some shooting to do today but it's still dark out and a bit nippy, when the sun comes up it'll be a lot warmer (-2* F)
Loaded up a "look fer" velocity/pressure test batch of the Chinchaga Hybrid 30 cal 236 gr bullets with Reloder 50 ..... This will be a maiden voyage for the 300 Long Range Hunter cartridge, rifle, bullets and powder .... my first time with all .......

Didn't get to go shootin till late in the day and ran into darkness and cold , Shooting at 100 yards with truck headlights lighting up targets .....

Temp dropped to -8* F when the sun went down , but ammo was in truck at all times at 70* F temp, 1 round was brought out at a time and fired immediately ..... barrel was allowed to cool between the 3 shot groups but not cleaned for entire string of 27 rounds fired .......

Forgot my binder with targets at home and had to make some up with what I had available, a jobsite clipboard with plain paper, green sharpie and a paint mixing stick for a straight edge and a roll of Gorilla tape to stick the targets up ..... bang, bang !

300 Long Range Hunter
30" 10 tw 5R Bartlein Light Palma contour barrel

the Burris XTRll 3-15X50 was absolutely phenomenal in low light and dark,
way, way...... WAY better glass than my Vortex PST and even surpassed the Sightron Slll in clarity and ability to see shyte in fading light, did not have my Nightforce ATACR to compare to on this trip ......

BIG thank you to Mark Fox at Bad *** Gunworks for sending me the Burris XTRll for a hands on test .......y'all ain't gettin it back ! haha

236 gr RBT ULD ST Chinchaga Bullets and Reloder 50 powder

3.645" cartridge oal
2.846" to ogive
.025" jump to rifling

94.0 gr
2812 fps
2923
2906

95.0 gr
2937 fps
2972
2948

96.0 gr
2949 fps
2965
3006

97.0 gr
2970 fps
3024
3012

98.0 gr
3030 fps
forgot to put in my earplugs after warming up in truck, after the shot had to take a little break, **** ... was bringing the chrono into warm truck after every 3 shot group to keep it at room temp .... forgot to plug in magnetospeed for next shot and ****ed, blasted off the third ....

98.5 gr
3054 fps
3076
3074

99.0 gr
3084 fps
3103
3063

99.5 gr
3117 fps
3119
3109

100.0 gr
3144 fps
3154
3142

No signs of pressure on case heads, primers and bolt lift was "pinkie light"
the super slow RL 50 can probably be loaded compressed in this case safely , at 100 gr I'm at about 95% case fill with no signs of pressure at all , will probably work up in 1/4 gr increments after 100 grs ......
I can see 3250 fps !

My sixteen yr old daughter shot the best group and is now ready to hunt ! She has a winter cow moose draw tag that we have been saving to test the Hornady ELD-X bullets on at close range (100 yards and less) but the bullets haven't showed up yet, tag expires on Christmas Day and we aren't waiting on the ELD-X bullets anymore , gonna plug the moose with these 236 gr Chinchaga Bullets !
Dale Janzen at Chinchaga Bullets is a master bullet smith !
these things were easy to make shoot and shot extremely well with all powder charges from 94 gr all the way up 100 gr , I have never encountered this before , can't wait to go 500, 800 and 1200 yards with them !

 

[Swamplord]

We waited until 12:30 pm so the Post Office would have the mail sorted and in the po boxes ..... Gave It one last try but the 30 cal Hornady ELD-X bullets didn't show up...
PLAN B !
My daughter drew a winter cow moose tag for Nov thru Dec 25th and the plan was to test the 220 gr Hornady ELD-X bullets on moose at 100 yards or less, with a shoulder shot in order to determine it's potential effectiveness at short range....... in the event of a bear encounter while moose hunting where shooting the bear was unavoidable ,
but the bullets never showed ..... her tag expires on Christmas Day and we had 2.5 days left to hunt ........ Plan B was to use the Chinchaga 236 gr RBT ULD ST bullets, in my recent load developement and shooting session they were so freakishly accurate with all powder charges from starting to max loads, I have never seen that with any bullet in my 27 years of reloading ammunition ..... My last 3 shot test load consisted of 100 gr RL 50 and averaged 3146 fps for the three rounds, with the sub moa groups we experienced it was definately going moose hunting ....

Around 2pm we came across a bedded moose about 200 yards off the trail, I figured we'd just walk towards it until it stood up and let it rip, Couldn't get a closer look as I'd left my bino's on the kitchen table ... (yep, always something ! ) As we were about to go I decided to "scope" it with the Burris XTRll at 15x and found out that it was a fork horned bull with skinny twig like antlers , a legal bull in Aug/Sept but her draw tag was for cow moose ..... Dang ! Moving on ..... a short time later my daughter spotted a moose around 60-80 yards and it was a cow

While we set up I told her to place the reticle just off the shoulder and about a third of the way up to lung shoot the moose so It won't run further off the trail, it worked !
at 2:31 pm (7 hrs ago now) she sent that bullet exactly where we talked about placing it and the cow stumbled and crashed !
60 yard shot and I got it on video ! By 5:10 pm (2 hrs 40 min) I had the moose skinned, gutted, quartered and in the back of my truck ! Packed out the 8 pcs on my back and got the hide out too, 9 trips total !
A good workout in 4* temps, my lungs were on fire !

Muzzle velocity 3146 fps 5183 ft lbs energy
60 yards impact 3058 fps 4900 ft lbs

I no longer own the 300 Long Range Hunter rifle .....
my daughter claims it's hers now ! She turned 16 in Sept and I was out moose hunting ! time to pay my dues , lol

 

[Swamplord]

Bullet smacked a rib so hard on the entry side it shattered one next to it but that didn't stop the bullet, it plowed through shredding the lungs and ended up 1/2" from exiting the offside shoulder .... the entire chest cavity was filled with a frothy mess indicating it was an instantaneous kill from the bullet eruption inside ....... gonna be some serious long range hunting bullets, no hp to get plugged up and pencil through, these baby's will open up when that tip gets shoved back

This bullet is more of a long range hunting type of bullet where guaranteed expansion is greatly desired, given the velocity at impact and the penetration the bullet achieved I would say it performed admirably, sure the recovered bullet doesn't look like a pretty AFrame but it did the exact same thing ........ I will say that a full on shoulder bone hit may have shown a different result but why would anybody shoulder punch a moose at close range ? You have a huge target area to aim at that range for precise placement of bullet, we spend countless hours working on load developement to create ammo with the nth degree of accuracy and plenty of range time to get proficient with the rifle system and ammo , the bullet has no reason to go anywhere but just behind the shoulder into the boiler room for an immediate shut down of the operating system ...

 

[Swamplord]

Here is that legal fork horn that managed to evade 100's of weekend warriors in Aug/Sept during the general moose hunt, lady luck smiled on him once again as we were looking for his sister !

 

[oldno7]

Outstanding!!!

As a guy who raised 2 daughters, hunting and shooting, Well Done!!!!

 

[FEENIX]

That's awesome and thanks for sharing. Congrats all around. Cheers!

 

[royinidaho]

Good goin'. Ya, those females have a way of taking over a firearm they like. You're a good Dad!

I'll have some of Dale's 270 offerings coming my way soon. And some 375s when he gets them going.

 

[codyadams]

Congratulations from Wyoming!! Way to get it done right

 

[alcesgigas]

Absolutely superb. Great hunt; great post.

 

[Bravo 4]

Very cool, didn't you mention a video?

 

[Swamplord]

Very cool, didn't you mention a video?

Yes, I got the shot on video and finally had time to update my youtube channel on Christmas Eve
it's titled "300 LRH vs moose 2015" and can be found here

https://m.youtube.com/channel/UC8jeD-Glp6S04kK13rs-iPg


**** Disclaimer*****
My hunting vid clip edits are purely amateur and not very well done, my apologies if the music doesn't appeal ...... Like the song goes ....
"I love Rock N Roll " "So I put it in my video clips baby !"
I made that last one up, haha ! btw, NOT gonna do cRAP music, hell no !

these were meant for family and friends, I posted a couple clips to my Facebook page and got a lot of requests for you tube links .....have a few more I'll be uploading soon ....... enjoy !

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!!!!!!!!


Swamplord

 

[codyadams]

Nice video!! Any clean kill is a good video. And I'm currently listening to Iron Maiden anyway...so rock is kinda my thing ha ha. Tell your daughter good job, I bet your proud.

 

[Swamplord]

I posted a couple other videos some time back on you tube as "500snw" but forgot my password and had to use another account ......
A couple of those videos will show you I am biased in favor of "RockNRoll " ......

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TLdE-2byKAE


https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCEAb2HKLLL8rG8UUvGvWJRQ

 

[Rugerdiggs]

Thats AWESOME, thanks for sharing. I have two young hunting girls and have lost a new 300 blackout bolt gun already, worth every penny, that makes for an awesome day to be a DAD. Good Job!