Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 45 Colt Elk Hunting Loads

Pearce was one of the ones I referred to earlier. He's killed elk and bears IIRC with standard pressure loads out of Peacemakers. A hole is a hole.

Of course Pearce could probably kill elk with a pickle fork.

Only if the pickle fork had "SELECT LOADS ".
I wonder if he even knows that he never writes an article without
that stupid phrase?

That said, he knows his stuff.

I believe I can identify any of the writers from the Wolfe mags just by reading one paragraph. They all use certain phrasing, and style. Old JB is IMO the only real writer in the group; the others know their stuff and get the information across, but I doubt any of them are working on a novel in their spare time. Still, I imagine I'd enjoy sharing a meal and a beer with any of them, except maybe Scovill. He seems kinda grouchy. Pretty sure I wouldn't like that new editor either.

I haven't killed an elk with a revolver yet, but have killed all manner of game with the .45 Colt up to and including a water buffalo that went over a ton in weight. It is certainly up to the task. That said any "Ruger-only" level loads should be considered for the additional velocity. A good heavy (300 + grain) hardcast bullet with a large meplat will work well, but if the OP would like to use a jacketed expanding bullet, I would stay clear of the XTP as I have seen them fail spectacularly (a friend shot a red stag that went about 350-lbs and the first XTP disintegrated), but really like the Swift A-frame (300 grain) over a stiff dose of H110/296).

Not used on BG but Lil Gun around 20-21 grains with 300gr gas check shoots pretty good out of my 51/2" SS Ruger Bisley at about 1150 fps. Like the 265 hard cast at about 1100 fps with 2400 (~18gr IIRC) for general purpose.

Are you serious? As in just completely blew up? No damage? I'd love to hear more.

Onside shoulder at maybe 25 yards. It was .45 Colt load with a 300 XTP (Mag) that was running right around 1,200 fps. Very disconcerting.

Drew a cow elk tag here in Arizona, I'll be hunting with the 45 Colt.

SU35,
I'm not a gunwriter, but I've been shooting a 300 gr LBT WFN with 23 grains of H110/CCI350. This load was mentioned by Ross Seyfried in handloader magazine. It's in issue #210 april/may 2001. The article was titled "Loads that have mattered". I haven't taken game with it, but I think it would do well on elk. Good luck hunting

Looks like the performance window was exceeded there!

The regular HP has worked well on whitetails at maybe 1700 from a ML. Pass-throughs and very dead deer, including one that went over 200 live weight., but with rib hits.

Here's an interesting .45 Colt bullet, the 270 gr. Penn Bullets Thunderhead. Huge meplat, does a job on on hogs.

I've not seen it used on elk, but it should smack them pretty hard.

https://www.pennbullets.com/thunderheads.html

DF

Not much I wouldn't tackle with my 4 5/8ths Blackhawk, 270 gr lead SAA bullet, running 950 fps.
VERY controllable, and accurate. Large chunks of lead seem to not stop on impact.

Coming up on 11 yrs since my Alaska adventure where I took this Yukon bull at 15 yds with a 4-5/8" NMBH using my cast 335 gr LBT over Hodgdon's max charge of Lil'Gun.



Now, my cylinder is typically stoked with my 285 gr WFN LBT cast bullet over a healthy dose of 296. Same accurate load works in my Win '92 with a 20" barrel which provides approx 300 fps more. Sorry, no elk yet but still working on it. Trijicon RMR is for aging eyes and load development at the range.

Nice!

Looks like a 5 1/2"

appreciate everyone's input on this

I'm not a gun writer, and I've never killed an elk, but I did kill a big bull muskox with a 5.5" Ruger Bisley using 300gr WLNs and 21gr of H110. This load gets 1150 in my gun and didn't do Mr. Muskox any good at all. I wouldn't hesitate to use that load on elk.

I'm very surprised at the results of the XTP mag mentioned above. Not saying I don't believe it, but both versions of that bullet have been stellar performers for me across a range of diameters and weights. Swift A Frames were mentioned. What sorts of results have you fellows seen with them?

The impact velocity was about 1,200 fps....

I've seen quite a few failures with XTPs. Every now and again they work like they should, and then they lay down the next. A-frames simply consistently work. This one came out of the offside of a Cape buffalo shoulder. Don't know the impact velocity, but they exited the barrel just north of 2,000 fps (out of a BFR in .460 Smith & Wesson). They work well on everything we've shot with them from whitetail to Cape buffalo.

This XTP seperated yesterday, but it went through a 4" concrete block.



how much do anthropology professors make

I've had good luck with Partitions in my reloads. And Buffalo Bore factory ammo.