Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game 270 wsm on Elk?

As much as I fall on the Elmer side of the fence rather then the Oconner side I lost a tremedous amount of respect for Elmer after reading a few of his books which had bogus information. As an example he wrote many times about Bullet failure. Phrases like bullets "bouncing off" of sheep and elk( I strongly doubt that). This was my favorite: The elk was shot perfectly through the heart but the bullet failed and we lost it as it ran off without a blood trail to follow.

If it was lost how was it known the bullet was perfectly through the heart? If it was perfectly through the heart how did the bullet fail in a way that the elk lived? How did the elk remain alive with a hole through it's heart?

I believe in the Elmer throry of big diameter and heaveir bullets. Actually it's not a theory it's a proven fact. I have seen well in excess of 1000 big game killed in my work and the bigger the bore the better the crumple effect. This is VERY consistant. Anyone can see a few animals fold in thier tracks with a very high velocity rifle bullet and assume it will happen to all of them. However if you see 100 animals shot will all react the same? I know they won't becasue I have seen those high velocity bullets allow game to run plenty of times.

I think the big difference here is resolution of events. So many people base their entire ballistic belief system on only a few personally witnessed kills and a few stories from others. Who can blame that? It's human nature to believe what you see, I have done the same thing.

When the numbers go from a few stories and personal events to 100's of personal witnessed events I would bet that those feelings would change. I would also bet that if you shot an animal with that laser flat lightweight bullet and arrived on the site to see one tiny drop of blood you would also have a different opion when that animal cost 1000-1250 bucks and you will spend the next day and a half tracking those tiny specks of blood every hundred yards.

When you shoot that same animal with a bullet of bigger diameter and proportional weight the exit will show you blood and then an expired animal, after a short tracking job. This opinion was not formed by anyone forcing it on me. This opinion was formed after seeing many hundreds of big animals shot and the level of work to locate them afterwords.

I owned and shot a 300 weatherby for ten years. I have seen animals killed with it as if hit with a bolt of lightening from heaven. However I have also seen animals like a coyote shot behind the last rib quartering away run 200 yards dragging it's intestines behind it. That High velocity bullet blew bits of coyote to high heaven and that coyote still ran a very long way. Had it been an 800 pound elk I would have never seen it again! I have also seen antelope in Wyoming shot broadside run 500 yards before falling in plain sight. If that animal was in a forest or mountain situation it too would have been lost for good. Not a drop of blood was on the ground the entire way walking to fetch the dead antelope. Who would think an antelope of 130 pounds could travel that far with a 180 grain 300 weatherby bullet through the chest, with an exit hole? When we opend up that antelope it was a mass of jello and one shoulder was completely bone pulp and purple goo. But not a drop on the ground!

I saw a Zebra shot with that rifle run straight away with a group of a dozen others as we waited for it to fall. They all made it to the bush and vanished. We could hear them but could not see them anylonger. Then they appeared again about 250 yards to our left and moving but no way of knowing which was the wounded one for a follow up. Then they began running towards us again in a big circle. That Wounded zebra was falling behind and the others put a big gap between it and them. As we were still standing by the truck we waited for that lagging zebra to give us another shot and we saw it fall only 100 yards or so from the truck. When we arrived there was no blood on that zebra at all. No exit and what seemed to be a zebra that died of a heart attack! It took quite while to locate the bullet hole too! I tracked back to see where this zebra had fallen looking for blood just to see for myself that it was not bleeding. As our tracking began we all searched for blood and found nothing but specks here and there. Most looked like red grains of sand. After about 200 yards we saw where the group of zebra split from this single zebra. Had we tracked it the correct way from the beginning as if it were lost, rather then backtracking would we have followed this set of tracks going right back to the beginning? or would we have stayed with the group running off away from us? No blood to point the way.

It was many events like this that caused the sale of that rifle and get a bigger bore gun. Yeah I saw the 300 weatherby crumple game many times, but it was not the norm it was the exception. Had I seen only those few exceptions I too would be posting here about the fantastic performance of those ultra fast 30 and under calibers. Fortunately for me I have had enough experience to see through that. I understand reality now based on high resolution of animals shot, not the limited success of only a few events.