Gotta love the Rut!

[Hognuts]

Got this bad boy to come into a bugle/cow call last weekend in the Spring Mountains in Nevada....awesome getting this close to these beasts! We didn't have an elk tag, just playing around while we were out mule deer hunting.













Good luck to y'all on your hunts this fall! Can't wait for October, heading into the Bridger Tetons in the "Thorofare" area for elk/wolf hunt, I have heard bad things about the elk numbers in the Yellowstone area, but I know we will have a blast having a few beverages around the campfire and spending 8 days in the middle of some of the most beautiful country in the world and I really hope to get a wolf in the cross hairs of the 6.5 SAUM this fall! gun)

 

[trucraft]

Great photos and a cracking beast.
One of these days I will head over the water to for fill my dream of hunting elk in the rut.
Just putting together the perfect rifle for the job too a 7mm SAUM.
I'm really interested in the 6.5 too. A gun smith buddy of mine is about to put one together.
What's the spec / photos of yours Hognuts?

The Fallow rut is just a few weeks off here in the UK.
I am just starting to see some signs of fraying and activity on my ground.
Autumn is my favourite time of year

 

[Hognuts]

I will post up some pics tonight when I get home. Mine is built on a long action Remmington 700. It has a Rock Varmint contour barrel finished at 26". Jewel Trigger, McRee folding chassis bedded to action. JP Recoil Eliminator brake. NF 20 MOA base, Barrett Rings, USO 3.2x17x44 optic with MOA Scale reticle. Shooting 130 grain Bergers, not sure velocity yet, need to reverse engineer it through my ballistic program once I finish getting dope with it. I am loading them .063" off the lands (took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to find the happy spot for this one!). 63 grains of H-1000 and CCI BR Large rifle primers. Bought prepped neck turned brass from Copper Creek. It is a shooter!

 

[Hognuts]

here are some pics of the 6.5 SAUMgun)gun)







In the pic it has a NF scope and rings and a Harris bi-pod, it currently has the USO with Barrett rings and an Atlas bipod. A couple upgrades that I forgot to mention above is I added a sako extractor to the factory bolt and had a custom bolt knob installed. Should be deadly on the mountain this fall!

 

[trucraft]

Sweet rig

I have a feeling this calibre is going to be come quite popular once people catch on to the fact it don't have to be a total barrel burner with the right load.

Good luck in the fall.

 

[Hognuts]

Sweet rig

I have a feeling this calibre is going to be come quite popular once people catch on to the fact it don't have to be a total barrel burner with the right load.

Good luck in the fall.

Thank you sir, yeah, I really am liking the round now that I got it to shoot, when I first got this thing together, I was struggling with accuracy, it would shoot MOA/MOA and a half and was not consistent at all, I was just about to give up on it when I found that there was an article on the Berger bullets. Berger Bullets Seating Method for VLD Bullets - A "Sweet Spot" with a Long Bullet Jump will give the best accuracy.

Once I went through the process outlined in the article and found the sweet spot, which ended up being the 130 grain Berger with 63 Grains of H-1000 .063" off the lands it shoots bug-holes at 100 yards!


The group on the left has three through one hole, the other two I pulled, the group on the right was with a pretty warm barrel, that is rounds 20-25 in a 30 round string shot during testing, I had loaded 2 sets of 5 rounds for three different OAL's to test and I shot one of each then fired a second batch the same way. I was able to repeat this with my next outing....loving this rifle with this load!

It puts a ton of energy on target and should have no problem with any game in North America. I shot two deer and an elk with my 6.5 Creedmoor last fall. (two deer at 500 yards and 525 respectively, and the elk at 650 yards) The elk I believe was pushing the limits of that round, my first shot hit behind the shoulder and went completely through the animal jellying the liver on the way, but he didn't drop right away and he turned quartering towards me and I sent another round, it hit him directly in the shoulder and that dropped him. I didn't think anything of it until I skinned it out and I found that second round had only penetrated about an inch into the dense muscle tissue in the shoulder, if that had been my first shot that could have been a bad deal. I think just the shock of getting hit that second time dropped him from the first/fatal wound, but that is what prompted me to pursue the 6.5 SAUM, I like the ballistics of the 6.5, but just wanted a little more punch behind it. Hopefully I will get an opportunity to test it out!