7MM Rem Mag vs 6.5 CM at 600 yards on cow elk

[GunHawk]

The first elk got 2 shots (6.5 + 7), the second only 1; you can't compare the 2, regardless of caliber.

 

[P7M13]

You brought a spoon to a gunfight. Whacked two elk with said spoon, and both walked away. Does that not say enough about your effectiveness with that caliber at that range?
Where were you hunting? Lucky you that you could shoot a cow. I have stalked elk and come upon cows 2x but my tags were minimum one branch or better.

 

[DaveR]

One lesson here may be to get a better rangefinder.

Edit - Do you think a better rangefinder might have helped?

 

[RebelGuard]

Listen, some of you guys sound infallible like a mistake has never been made. I have always hunted elk with .30 cals. I had so many people swearing to me about the 6.5cm, I strayed from my normal cartridge of choice to try it. I am giving an honest recount of this one experience with it for elk. Consider it objective data, do with it what you will. First time ever losing an elk like that so that's the last time I'll ever grab that gun in the future, regardless of how many people swear by it. You guys all make it sound like you've one shot dropped every animal you've ever shot at hats off to you then for being above the rest of us humans.

 

[WahooYahoo]

To the OP:
Be careful. Opinions, even really bad, unsubstantiated, total BS opinions are abundant.
Lots and LOTs of elk have been ethically put down with 6.5 creed and frankly much less. .243 and 257 roberts and wooden sticks with sharp rocks have accounted for a LOT of dead and recovered elk.
My son got his this year with a Creedmoor and factory 143 ELDX @400 yds,1 shot. She turned and walked 20 yards then tipped over. The additional 200 yards really compressed your odds of success. I consider 450ish my personal limit with the factory Creedmoor. I would also recommend shooting them until they go down.
I can't make a strong enough recommend for a great RF with a solver, like the Revic BR4.
It sounds like you had a reasonable hit with a visible stream of blood from distance.
Sorry you didn't recover her.

 

[vancewalker007]

Wow, there are a lot of comments here. Let me try to address most of these in one post. Let me just state that only 2 elk were shot as we had 2 tags. The first elk was shot a total of two times and the second one once. We waited several minutes before firing, deciding what we would do. There was no hurried shooting into the hillside blindly. This was my first time taking the 6.5 elk hunting. I love that gun for plinking and deer hunting. I have learned my lesson and will likely grab the tried and true "elk" guns in the safe from now on. I am aware of the ethical debates that can go on forever, however like i said it was the last day and i needed meat in the freezer. Lesson learned from this one haha, sorry to get some of you fired up. I had no previous reference for how the 6.5 was going to perform on the elk with these loads. Both guns had handloads. 7mm was cruising out at about 3050-3100 fps and the 6.5 was coming out about 2650-2700 fps. Using the velocities and our exact bullets and loads, both of my calculators put both rounds at approx 1800 fps +-100 and 1200 ft/lbs +-100. The 7mm obviously has a lot more potential with bigger and better BC bullets, but that is just what my buddy is running in his. The only info I was talking about with damage on the animal came from the elk we recovered. Lesson learned, I will admit there was some poor judgement but I had to at least try the 6.5cm for elk hunting. I am confident with our shot placement as we had a third member of the group who was calling ranges and watching with spotting scope. However, I concede that you guys are right and i royally messed up this time around ha. Thanks for all of the interest and input. Moral of the story here, not enough firepower for that much animal at that range. I regret losing the second elk and wished i could have spent another day looking had it not been past end of season.

I am really sorry you lost an elk its bad feeling to loose a game animal. At that distance its easy to make a marginal hit. Marginal hits can be minimized some by more firepower, but as you said your buddies ballistics were very similar to yours so the straight forward conclusion is his hit was on the mark and yours was not. A marginal hit from the 7mm would have likely produced a bad result as well. I know you said it was a good hit, but you don't really know because you can't see the results. Its easy to be high in no-mans land or low in the brisket at that distance. A hit in the middle of the heart and lungs would have killed that elk with that much velocity and energy. Bubbly blood can come from a high hit in the chest cavity. Your second shot was more than likely too low as you said it moved and you didn't adjust you elevation. A high front shoulder might have been a better choice if the elk was more or less perpendicular to your shooting position. Quartering away I would have shot for the crease as I assume you did. Half the chest, then shoot at the middle of the lower half like on an African antelope. High behind the shoulder shots on them produce lost game with any cartridge and as US hunters we tend to favor that shot a lot. With a quartering-to view a high front shoulder on the point of the shoulder would have been my choice or wait for a better shot. I think US hunters get caught up in the "don't waste" meat mind set and should be more focused on kill/anchor as fast as possible by knowing the anatomy clearly and thinking through the angle at the moment. I try to think more like an archer when shooting long range. Not that you didn't do all those things, some times stuff just goes side ways.

 

[Reelamin]

One lesson here may be to get a better rangefinder.

Edit - Do you think a better rangefinder might have helped?

I have not used every brand available. I have used Swaro, Leica, Leupold, Vortex, Bushnell, in both stand alone and three in Bino versions. NONE of them give reliable readings in fog even if not socked in to a 100yds or less.

 

[Txcowboy50]

At 500 yards a 6.5 CM with Hornady 147 eldx cartridge has 1308 ft/lbs of energy less than what I consider suitable for elk. Compared to 7mm rem mag with Hornady 162 eldx having 1772 ft/lbs of energy. If you hand load you can get more but not that much more from a either cartridge. I know it is also about good shot placement but I think shooting distances where energy level falls below 1500 ft/lbs for elk is ill-advised and not worth loosing game.

 

[Backcountry sports]

Let me start by saying this isn't a "which one is better comparison." Just sharing some events from most recent elk hunt. Also, we weren't planning on taking long shots this time around hence why the 6.5 was brought along, so I'm aware that the 6.5 is a bit on the light side for long shots at elk. Now for what happened. It was the last day of our hunt so we were getting desperate, having chased (unsuccessfully) 7-8 elk we spotted through thick timber the days prior. We decided to head to some more open areas the next morning. As we were coming around the ridge, boom right there across the valley are 3-4 cow elk standing broad side not noticing us. We get set up and my buddy calls the ranges. It was overcast and rainy and his rangefinder kept spitting out anywhere from 585-620. We decided since it was the last day now was our chance. I was running the 6.5 creedmoor with a 143 Eld-x and my other buddy was running a 7mm rem mag with a 150 gameking. I take my first shot, hit right behind front shoulder. It takes it like a champ and and starts walking down towards the timber line where we would lose her. At this point, my buddy takes his shot where she then walks 10-20 yards and drops. I pull back up at the last cow elk still standing broad side. Boom, I hit a bit low since I maintained my holdover for my first shot which was slightly closer. It hits what appears to be somewhere bottom of the chest towards front shoulder, and I can see a huge blood mist from the impact even at that range. Sweet, that's a gonner for sure (I thought). We spend the next hour or two getting over there since it was across a canyon. We find that first one dead on the ground and start quartering it out. I will skip that PITA chain of events hiking all that meat to the nearest trail. We see an obvious blood trail for the second one. I'm seeing bright red bubbly blood with patches on the ground ranging in size anywhere from pennies to paper plates. Great, this shouldn't have gone far. Long story short, we spend the remainder of the day tracking that elk across the entire mountain and ended up losing the trail in really thick brush/timber. We searched as hard as we could but no body was to be found. I couldn't believe it. I guess all those stories of elk being bullet proof really were true after all. Anyways, we got meat so still successful. But after seeing the the meat from the first elk and seeing the 7mm obviously did the most damage, I was curious. I did some calculations at at that range with those bullets, they are almost exactly the same velocity and energy! On paper they should have been the same but in the real world that 7mm dropped it where my 6.5 was faltering at that range. Anyways, share your thoughts and experiences.

Use a 7mm 6.5 has wounded so many elk and a 7mm won't better knock down power

 

[LVJ76]

Just a thunk for all to consider with this, we're all trying to referee a game we didn't see. Anyone who hasn't messed up is either a liar and or they haven't gone to the plate very often and taken many cuts....

IMO the 6.5 CM is plenty of an elk gun and I would absolutely run it on elk to 600 with the right circumstance. As well, there are plenty of circumstances where I wouldn't take the shot at 600 whether I was using a 6.5 CM or my .340 Wby!

Just depends on the circumstance and set up and the longer one goes the thought that need go into the choice to shoot or not.

Just my 3 cents

Well said, we have all made mistakes and hopefully learned from them.

 

[mnoland30]

I hunt aoudad and occassionaly oryx. Both need a shoulder shot because the heart and lungs are further forward than American game. I love it when an animal drops in its tracks. A shoulder shot will usually do that. I tried it with a pure lead 400 gr. bullet out of my muzzleloader, and the bullet cracked the ball joint, then split in two, and fortunately 1/2 went through the neck and 1/2 through the lungs. I've lost my share of elk with a muzzleloader, and it sucks. Using the right bullet has made all the difference.

 

[snox801]

I may be on my own for the most part but I think the 6.5 creed is fine for elk.
I think you learned a lesson also which we all have. Even more than once in my case.
What I can tell you from my experience is that the bullet you chose and more than likely shot placement was the issue. I do almost all my hunting with my creed because I'm most comfortable in all positions with it. After having recovered many larger animals with multi shots with that exact bullet I realized I did not like that bullet for anything more than deer. Basically made the switch after my oryx.
I have had no such issues since switching. I've shot cutting edge and currently hammers with no issues.
In fact just got back from my friends ranch in CO and they take many elk every year with the creed and were using Barnes until recently now are also using hammers.
Don't get to beat up things happen and you tried to recover. Even with a bigger round people still lose the animals sometimes.

 

[Chase723]

Personally, in 6.5/.264 caliber I don't think the ELD-X is a good hunting bullet, especially for long range. Some peoples experience are definitely different, but that's just me. The alloy seems to be too hard for it to expand/transfer energy/create large wound channels etc and at distance death isn't emphatic. I've seen that a few times even with whitetail deer.

At autopsy, where did you hit the 1st elk? Did you hit heart/lungs/major blood vessels?

My guess is that the 2nd elk you shot you hit in the brisket. Heart shot animals or animals shot through the lungs that have a sucking chest wound or pneumo/hemothorax typically don't go more than 400 yards at best, even elk. Pure muscle wounding can produce what appears to be significant bleeding but ultimately they travel farther than most people are able to track.

While 600 yards is pushing it a little with the 6.5 Creed, I think your experience would have been different if you were using something like a Berger, ELD-M, or a Hammer. You want something that is going to either penetrate 3-4"and then grenade in the chest +/- around the spine (if you shoot high shoulder) or does similar but also has a high likehood of pass through. You want to take their effective lung capacity or cardiac output to 0 as fast possible, but design and terminal effect on target have a lot to do with that specifically. Because of that 6.5 Creed with the 143 ELDX in particular isn't ideal for what you were trying to accomplish. That's just me.

While this topic always gets lots of opinions (which I'm sure you're beginning to appreciate), this topic has been pretty handily discussed on here a lot.

 

[Chase723]

@snox801 I noticed we posted at the same time with the same experience.

@RebelGuard don't sweat it. The only way to gain experience is to take an educated guess and try something. If you shoot the rifle well, I'd just change bullets. The 6.5 Creed is totally capable at 600-700 yards.