If you can pick your shot,...
Should we be so lucky.
Yup. It doesn�t always work that way.
When I lived in Minnesota I went through two winters with standard tires on my car � no money for snow tires and no place to store the regular tires. Drove to Iowa through several bad blizzards, and always made it to my destination safely. Even in MN, although the snowfall was unusually heavy one of those years, the standard tires got me where I was going. There were some really tough drives, though. At the time I considered myself lucky and decades later still believe that. These days I run a 4x4 with aggressive tread when the snow is on the road. Much better.
When elk hunting we don�t always get to pick our shot opportunities. We may be able to wait and get the perfect broadside of our dreams or we may end up with tag soup instead. While I am OK with waiting and passing on bad angles and ranges beyond my comfort zone, I�m not willing to compromise on bullet selection. Bullets that may pencil through at low impact velocities are of no more interest than bullets that may blow up at high impact velocities. Give me a bullet in the middle, something that provides reliable but controlled and limited expansion with good weight retention across as wide a velocity spectrum as possible. In my limited experience (30+ years hunting elk) such bullets may or may not produce two holes but they do penetrate deeply and put animals on the ground with authority.
What concerns me is not what a bullet will do on a well-placed broadside � almost any bullet will work in that situation. I�ve often felt a 40g V-MAX from my .22-250 would reliably put elk in the freezer with such a shot. My concern is what happens when things go south � the animal moves and placement suffers or a wounded or possibly wounded animal is heading away and your only options are a bad raking angle or THS. The last thing I want in the chamber on such occasions is a bullet that can�t reach the vitals. We�ve had very good results with high DRT percentages using Barnes TTSX and MRX bullets. So far we have always had two holes, even on front-to-back shots on mulies. North Fork bullets don�t always provide two holes but animals have dropped straight down often as not (or more) and none have run or made it more than a few steps. I�ve driven a 7mm 140g North Fork from ham to sternum on a mulie that turned and stepped forward as the trigger broke. That buck dropped straight down instantly. The old style Speer Grand Slams were my choice for 20+ years. Two holes were the norm and while game didn�t always drop straight down, a high percentage did and none went far. I didn�t recover a Grand Slam until the last year I used them and that one destroyed both shoulder joints of a 5x5 bull before coming to rest under the off-side hide. The only reasons I don�t still use those bullets are A) Speer changed the manufacturing process, B) the BC was relatively low, and C) accuracy was acceptable but not as good as with other options. These days I use mostly Barnes TTSX (and some remaining MRX I have loaded), North Fork SS, Nosler AccuBond, and Swift Scirocco II.
This year I will be using a Ruger American .30-06 Dad gave me before he passed and I haven�t had time to work up loads for it. That rifle seems to like white box Winchester 180g Power Points, though, so that will probably be what I use for elk. I�m not at all worried they may splash on impact or fail to penetrate afterwards because the bullet design is well suited to the velocity and application. A thin-skinned A-MAX might work but after seeing how a 168g blew up on my son-in-law�s antelope, no thanks.
