Harren Custom Rifle and cow elk

[Buffalobob]

I posted pictures and a write up of the Rifle that Eddie built me previously. It is not a long range rifle and I did not need long range. The Hunt is in the Manti La Sal NF of Utah.

On opening morning I got up at 4:45 and made some coffee and breakfast and hiked down the mountain to where I had killed an elk last year. About 9:35 a bull and cow appear about 200yards away. I had the light weight 260 Rem Eddie Harren had built for me and the shot was very easy except for the sun angle. I had replaced the Leopold with a Nightforce 2.5-10X. The Berger 140 Hybrid went through the lungs and broke the offside shoulder. Interestingly enough the cow did not die and I had to finish her off. I have seen this happen with other animals which are lung shot and fall so the entrance and exit holes are closed up. This prevents the collapse of the lungs and with the animal immobile there is enough oxygen transfer going on to allow them to stay alive (my opinion).




Three fragments of the bullet exited and the knife blade points to the exit wound.

Things happened in a hurry so there was no time to video the shot on the cow but after the shot I took a video of the bull who wandered off rather aimlessly.

 

[ICANHITHIMMAN]

Bob

Nice going, looks tasty. She sat right down where you shot her though right? What are you impressions of that scope? I have been drooling over it for some time now

 

[Buffalobob]

I encountered two problems with the scope and one with myself

Scope problem #1 No sunshade made the shot extremely difficult.
Scope problem #2 The left side knob is not parallax adjustment but rather an illuminated cross hair adjustment knob. I really feel cheated with no parallax adjustment being as I have never shot an animal using an illuminated reticle and probably never will. It is my own fault for just assuming that knob was parallax and not doing my homework on the scope. At longer distances under hunting situations the problems becomes significant. The medium velocity reticle is nearly a perfect match for the bullet and easy to use (???).

My problem--- All of my other rifles are set with a 100 yard zero so it is very hard to remember that this one is different. I wasted nearly 10 rounds of ammo trying to adjust the zero because I could not remember to divide every thing by 2!

 

[eddybo]

Good deal. I am not getting to elk hunting till mid December, but am getting trapped out in NM for several weeks entertaining business associates.

 

[JackinSD]

Well done! Looks like you had a great time.

 

[Wingnut]

BuffaloBob,
Thanks for posting about your experience with the 2.5-10 NSX. I was just about to pull the trigger on one for a 6.5-284 for sheep hunting, well a lighter weight carry gun anyways. I will never draw a sheep tag! I think I will go with the 3.5-15. Thanks again and good shooting!!!

 

[Browninglover1]

Would you use the 140 Hybrid on elk again?

 

[Buffalobob]

Would you use the 140 Hybrid on elk again?

I think the hybrid Berger performed well on the elk. It was a big cow and the bone it broke before exiting was really destroyed. A 20 inch barreled 260 does not get a lot of velocity out of the bullet so performance cannot be compared to things I have used before such as a hot, long barreled 257 Wby with 130 gr Wildcat bullets.

I had the rifle built for shooting hogs in the South Carolina swamps at close range and I think the 140 Berger Hybrid will be a good choice for that. Shooting the elk was just a test run for the rifle.

I am going to test the bullet on small Maryland whitetails in late December and then I will know better how it performs on thin skinned smaller animals.