Moose Down 778m

Scrubbit

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 1, 2013
Messages
100
Location
Yellowknife, NT Canada
First post here. I'm from Canada, but got tired of the ethics crowd preaching at me on Canadian Gun Nutz. Would like to trade experiences and information with like minded long range hunters. Had done a lot of shorter range shooting (pistol and rifle) out to 500m in the Military, and got into long range shooting a couple of years ago for the purpose of long range hunting. Live in the Northwest Territories so have a lot of fairly flat land with lots of sloughs, lakes and rivers. Info on this falls' moose hunt below.

Long Range Weapon

Remington 700 XCR/300 Win Mag/Bedded and braked by Alberta Tactical Rifle Supply in Calgary Alberta/Timney trigger/H and S Precision bottom metal and mags/Vortex Viper 6-24 FFP scope/Win fireformed and fully prepped brass/CCI 250 primers/H4831 SC powder/210 gr Berger VLD match bullets/Bipod/Load details avail sepcor

I do almost all my hunting based out of a boat, so details are as follows:

Crestliner Commander 1850/150 Merc 4 Stroke/9.9 kicker/19p prop

Max load for the above boat is 3 pax/600 lbs of gear/500 lbs of dressed Moose/Two thirds of a tank of gas

Gets on plane and rides nicely, but takes a while to get there.

Other equipment

Leica 1600/Vortex Viper 10 x 50 binos/Wind and weather meters/

Transited from Yellowknife, NT on Great Slave Lake to a large bay about 30 nm. Arrived early afternoon. Had already camped there previously, so know a good campsite right next to a rocky knoll about 50 ft high that overlooks the entire inside of the bay. longest site lines are about 1100m. Most of the bay is 2-10 ft deep, at least the inner part. Set up camp and started calling throughout the afternoon. Approaching dusk, glassed a moose at 1050m for about 20s before he went behind some trees. Continued to call and about 20 minutes later he came out of the brush and into the water past the reed line. Was broadside about 30 feet outside the reed line. Had plugged temp/press/humidity/spindrift/coriolis/wind into my ballistics calc. Added range of 778m and took first shot. Moose went down hard on his side. Found out during butchering that the first shot hit the spine more towards the hindquarters but didn't break the spine and he got up about 10s later. Made a mess of the backstrap on near side. Moose very slowly took 4 or 5 steps toward deeper water (farther from me) and stopped broadside. Took second shot and that one was a miss. Could easily see the splash low and left in the water. Adjusted point of aim (held off instead of adjusting scope) and put the third bullet through the heart. Moose took two stumbling steps and went down hard on his side. Thrashed for about 10s and it was done. Probably 40s or so from first shot to the moose being still. Very interesting that as he had no cues (sight/smell/sound) as to my location he didn't run. Left one spotter at the shooting location with HH radio and my other hunting partner and I took the boat to moose location. Was pretty shallow, so used my small kayak to attach a rope. Closed the snout with rope as well and towed the moose to our shoreside campsite. Moose do float.

Hopefully that info is helpful to other serious long range hunters. Intend a very similar hunt next fall.
 
Forgot to mention in the initial post, but I'm very interested to find out if the hunting 210 gr Berger VLDs stay together better than the target version. Would have preferred that the first shot break the spine.
 
That was great! Thanks for sharing. "towed the moose to our shoreline campsite. Moose do float." That's what I call having it figured out.
 
Forgot to mention in the initial post, but I'm very interested to find out if the hunting 210 gr Berger VLDs stay together better than the target version. Would have preferred that the first shot break the spine.

You might check out this thread.

http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/f19/comparing-berger-210-vld-215-hybrid-88657/

The 230 hybrids would also be an option to consider. In the 300 WM, I would recommend Retumbo.

Having thicker jackets, the Hybrids "should" hold up a little better, especially heavier ones.
 
Thanks Montana. Great thread. May have to give the 215s a try when I run out of 210s, although I don't think they'll fit in my H & S Precision mags as the 210s are max length. Got a lot of H4831 sc right now, so will probably shy away from the 230s until I run out.
 
Heading home
 

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Hi No Fear, don't load them too hot, and the temp was about 42 deg, so energy on impact was about 1450 ft lbs. Notched a rib on the way in and lodged against the far side rib. Impact velocity was just over 1800 fps. Didn't recover the fragments as I gave that quarter to one of my fellow hunters. Hopefully he'll find it.
 
Thanks Montana. Great thread. May have to give the 215s a try when I run out of 210s, although I don't think they'll fit in my H & S Precision mags as the 210s are max length. Got a lot of H4831 sc right now, so will probably shy away from the 230s until I run out.

You can get extended mag boxes for 700 actions. Wyatt's makes them in a 3.82" and a 3.99" Inside to inside. Not too hard to install if you have something like a Dremel. I seat the the 230's in my 300 RUM 700 action to just off the lands in my rifle and they just fit into the 3.82" mag box. If I had a longer throat, I could seat them a little farther out easily with the longer box.

I'm sure you could run the 215's or the 230's with H4831 sc. It would probably work best with the 215's. Retumbo or H1000 would probably get you better velocity and I've always got better velocity with Retumbo over H1000. Some guys like Retumbo better and some H1000.

If you can get some 215's, there's always guys looking for 210's. They shouldn't be too hard to sell.

Congrats on a good hunt!
 
Thanks Angus.

Montana, I'm getting about 2875 fps when the outdoor temp is around 55 deg with a 26 in barrel and H4831 SC. Get about 2810 when it's about 0 ambient. How does that compare to Retumbo and H1000?
 
Very nice write up!! Although it scares me with the target bullet not breaking the spine. Being I've worked up an awesome load in my 300rum with 230gr targets! I'd be very interested in hearing more about this.
 
Scrubbit, I saw the flack you got on Gun Nutz...pretty brutal...You'll find more likeminded people here than there, who have actually killed stuff other than paper.
 
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