Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Elk hunting 7mm bullets

My 7-08 Mtn Rifle likes 140 NABs and RE19. Good medicine for elk.

If well placed, anything that will slide down a 7mm barrel should work.

Really? you'd be ok with a 100gr Sierra HP Varminter or 110gr Speer TNT??

Well if it's well placed you can kill them with a 22 LR.

Or so goes the argument...

I'd start with the 150 Partition and see if you can get those to shoot. If not, then I'd try the 140 Partition.

I like a Partition!

I use the 150 grain Barnes TTSX and think it is the way to go for elk if you plan to go through bones or bad angles at all. I had a Nosler Ballistic Tip blow up on the ribs of a good sized bull and leave a palm sized entry wound. He ran over 500 yards before he died - left a spray of blood on the snow every 25 yards or less or if have lost him.

That is the last NBT I'll shoot at an elk. Partitions and Accubond work from my small sample but not as well as the TTSX.

Will need to give it another try but may have found the load for the wife and her 7x57. Nosler 150 Partitions with 50 gr RL 19 looks good, 3 shot group under 1 inch. Just don't know MV yet.

Nosler is in the business of selling bullets, all of their bullets, so of course they're going to push Accubonds or Partitions for elk. Quite a variety of Ballistic Tips have very heavy jackets, the 150/7mm being one of those. They're really stouter than many of their counterparts by other mfg's. I'd put a 150 NBT against a 154 Hdy Interlock any day, and I doubt anyone would question the Interlock's game performance.

As to speed, I got 2,700+ from the 150NBT from my 7-08. The 140 or 150 Partition or 140 NAB would have been my first choice, but that particular rifle didn't like them, but absolutely bug-holed the 150 NBT.

Here's what a 150 NBT did to this mature bull... bullet angled through the ribs, hit both lungs, and was under the offside scapula. That's about 3' of penetration. Bull ran 25 yards and piled up stone dead. Fastest kill on a good sized, mature (6.5 yo+) bull I've ever had. I believe the 150 Partition might have penetrated through the off-side scapula, but it wouldn't have changed the outcome:

I stocked up on 150 BTs a while back after hearing about your friend Mark D's experiences with them. How many elk kills with 150s do you reckon he's been in on?

Smoke, I'm not really sure, but I'll ask him later today. He uses them primarily in his Mashburn, which isn't exactly a velocity slouch!

Plus, they're just damn accurate.

I prefer BT's over accubonds. the 6mm 95gr, 7mm 150 and 30cal 180 are all excellent hunting bullets.

Not near as good as Scenars tho

I've worked up good loads with both the 280 and 7 SAUM with 150 Scenar L's. Just haven't shot any game with 'em yet.

I've not used the 150's, I bought some but the 180's shot so good I never tried them. Sent them to tanner but i dont think he ever got them to shoot consistently.

They have the loong hollow nose like the 155 30cal, so i bet they will perform.

Tanner shoots?

Although I have taken at least 40 elk over the years only about a dozen of them were shot with a 7mm RM or 280. I believe that most of those taken with a 7mm rifle were with NP 160 grain pills but I have used the 160 grain Accubond and Barnes. I have used a .280 quite a bit in Africa on elk size game also. All of the bullets worked well enough but I was a just a little bit disappointed in the Barnes. I now use the 160 Accubond almost exclusively in my 7mm rifles.

I've used the 150 NBT out of a 7mm Rem and a vanilla 280 on elk and several mule deer and seen elk taken with that bullet out of a 280 AI, no drama whatsoever. In fact, when I got my 280 AI it was the first bullet I grabbed to start working up loads. I'd not hesitate to use it on elk.

There are no warts on the 150 Ballistic Tip or the 154 Hornady.

Noslers would be my pick, I'm kinda partial to'em. At the range you specified, you bout' cannot go wrong.

Partitions or Btips Killed elk for me from a 280 and 7rm.

A 7mm 150 gr. Btip from my 280 even busted a shoulder on the way out of a bull as he quartered away from me at 80-ish yards, do not underestimate the Btips for durability, especially from a 7x57....

160 and a few 175 gr. 7mm Partitions slain many a pick-up load of elk from both 280 and the 7rm. with boring reliability. Weather shots have hard angles, bone structure or just plain ol' classic threw the slats the partition works well.