I'm hunting in a funny spot, ranges are either real long or pretty short, not much chance of a shot at middle distance short of illegally shooting one right in the road.
It's big canyons with heavy timber and a few clearcuts which have grown up a lot. You'll be limited to seeing about 15 to about 75 yards in either the timber or the clearcuts. The reprod is 30 feet high and thick. The timber might be a hair more open than the old clearcuts. The other kind of shots are long: you can sometimes see down on top of those clearcuts into the holes in the reprod from above on the opposite side of the canyon; that shooting starts at about 400 yards and goes to goofy distances.
Whoever said if the 7mm mag and .45-70 (specialists for each kind of shooting) had a kid, it'd be called the .338 must have hunted here. My computation of ideal is a .338 with 225 grain accubonds. Unfortunately, after shooting up probably 10 boxes of them, I just can't get the accuracy I want. Flat based .338 bullets won't hold enough V to expand for the cross canyon type of shots. Lesser boat tailed .338 bullets probably won't hang together at full speed at in-the-timber distances. It's really a lot to ask of one gun, I know.
Anyways, I wouldn't pick an '06 with 180s here. That's better than not hunting at all, but it's far from ideal. If it were more traditional semi-open elk country where the shots came at 75 to 300 yards, that'd be a different story.
Twist ... yeah, I wondered about that. Checked, confirmed, it's a 1-10".
's ok, I'm past it, moving on, figuring out what to do next. I've literally shot more $$ worth of powder and bullets down the barrel than I put into the Lilja barrel it's installation, possibly could add the cost of finishing that Bansner stock blank, too and come in under the $$ that went into powder and bullets. I'm used up and worn out.
