Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting .260 for elk

cause he stopped milking it...grins

Hind tit on a mad bull, lookout Lee!

arguing with Lee is like trying to pick ticks off a porcupine- Ain't hardly worth the trouble...

Good point Fred, you guys get a little snow lately too?

Sam
No snow on the ground right here in MT City, but there is when I look up into the Elkhorns-
Fred

We got dusted yesterday afternoon. Just enough to make things muddy again.

You know why they call it PMS???

Because Mad Cow Disease was already taken

Nice pic/beautiful country Dave. Congrats on the elk w/irons.

As to the elk in the pic I sent the link on, I will not attempt to judge it's weight, but regardless, does the weight really matter? Seriously?

Not to argue larger animals may die 'slower' but if shot placement is good, is that animal NOT going to die once it reaches a certain size? Is the 6.5mm the best or a great NA Elk round? Maybe not, but is it adequate and capable? I think so. Not what I'd recommend shooting at LONG ranges like the 502 yds shot, but up to 200-300 in a pinch, I would get a good hold and squeeze, having a sharp knife ready!

Good feedback.

Uh, that would be Unit Regula 14.....about 76 parsecs from the Oregon line. In a universe far away......

he didn't just head shoot her, he "put a round behind her ear" at 502. what a load of BS. Maybe that's the handle Lee24 uses on that site.

I got drawn for an Arizona bull hunt this year in unit 4A (Mogollon Rim Country) and I'll be hunting with my 6.5x55SE. I am first and foremost an archery hunter and I bought this rifle for antelope since I prefer to hunt just about everything else with my bow. I only put in for this rifle elk hunt because I put in on a ticket with my buddy and he wanted to apply for the same hunts his dad did which were rifle hunts.

I'm going to be working up a load this summer with these .264" 160 grain Woodleighs Protected Points I got. The numbers look great, BC- .509, SD- .328...if I can find a good load that will give me 2500 fps at the muzzle I'll have a MPBR of 285 yards and the impact velocity at that range falls within the recommended range for this bullet.

I was up in my unit this week since the forest service opened the gates up there and I was playing with my Leica 1200. Most of my shots up there will probably be under 200 yards according to my friend's dad who has hunted up there for 30+ years now. Based on the areas I was scouting and ranging out I can certainly accept that estimation and any shots I get will probably be closer. I'll be keeping my shots to within 300 yards and less if it's really windy like it gets sometimes up there. Being a bow hunter I am used to waiting for a better shot or passing on any questionable shots.

It should be a fun hunt, I'm happy I got this Swede. I hope the twist is good enough to get sub-MOA with these long Woodleighs, but as long as it's close I'll go with them. My second choice was going to be Lapua or Norma bullets in the heavy-for-caliber weight range but I like these Woodleighs a lot so far. Just waiting to get my chrony fixed before I can really start working up the right load. I wanted to start with RL22 but couldn't find any so I got a couple of pounds of VV N160 and I'll see what that stuff can do. I'd like to make sure whatever powder I end up with isn't too temperature sensitive and I'll be doing some cold weather testing up there when the time gets closer to my hunt to make sure I'm keeping the velocities up where they need to be.

In case anyone is interested rifle is a CZ 550 American and I've got a Trijicon Accupoint green illuminated mil-dot scope on the way for her.

I'm bringing along my M1 with an adjustable gas plug, 5 shot clip and something like Federal Game-Shoks with 165 or 180 grain Nosler Partitions for a backup rifle. A friend has promised to hand me down his sporterized 1903A3, but I don't have that yet or else I'd probably just use it for my bull hunt. My CZ is pretty heavy so I guess the '03A3 probably wouldn't be too much different since it's sporterized and the stock is chopped. My Garand on the other hand...I really don't want to hump that up and down any of those canyons up there as much as I'd *love* to take a bull with an M1!

Sounds good to me azsix. Those 160s are supposed to penetrate like bunker busters. I've been tempted to try the 156 Norma Oryx myself. And unless the gun has proven it will do sub-MOA with other loads, I wouldn't worry about it too much if those loads won't quite do it.

I just want to try and get some great groups from the bench while I'm working up. Once I know I have something accurate that is consistently giving me the velocity I want/need I'll be getting away from the bench and shooting from field positions. I loaded up 20 of these just to see how they shot and I was seeing good groups so I have high hopes for them. I'll share as much info as I can about them and whatever loads I end up with since I haven't found too many people shooting them.

I feel really comfortable with this rifle for Arizona elk, but I think I would want something bigger if I was hunting in Grizzly country. I might just have that 1903A3 rebarreled to 338-06 and call it my dedicated elk/moose rifle. Some of you guys here around the campfire have really got my interests picqued in that round. I still really want to bow hunt elk here in AZ though.

I love having the ability to shoot these long 160's out of my Swede. They look like those little pencils you get at the golf course!

nd; Do you know what that cow weighed after she was skinned and the head cut off? "In the quarters", as we say.

I couldn't stand the pain to read all the way through this thread from where I left off a day or so ago, so forgive if I'm repeating anyone with my two comments about posts well back in the sequence.

1. The elk that doesn't look like it weighs the reported 685 lbs. looks like it has the fuzzy neck hair of a calf, though it is hard to say for sure in that quality of photo. Fuzzy hair on neck and face is one of the ways to ID a current year calf as distinguished from a yearling in a late season (Dec.), especially if it is solo, partly hidden in timber, etc.

2. Re: how long it takes an elk to die compared to moose with similar hits. Length of time to die is not really the issue in terms of degree of diffculty to put a tag on the critter.

Moose are generally considered easy to "kill" because many tend to stop when hit, and may even brace their legs to stay on their feet. He may last two minutes or more but drop within ten feet of where he was hit. (Exceptions noted.) Hard to kill but easy to find when dead may say it better.

Elk, on the other hand, tend to travel as far as they can in the last seconds or minutes they live after a mortal hit. In steep mountains, thick brush or timber, that can put the critter a looonngg way from where he was hit and extremely difficult to find or recover if found.

IME with a lot of time afield, I have found WAY more hunter killed dead elk never found/recovered than all other kinds of critters combined: deer, moose, caribou, bears, goats, etc.

Got a friend who kills dry country elk with a 220 Swift. On the other hand, my son who has killed branched antler bulls in public land rainforest general season in WA State for a number of consecutive years, traded in his 30-06 for a .338 Win mag., purely for elk.

One thing you KNOW about a .338- it's gonna work, if you do your part. Not a shadow of a doubt. That's nice.

Duude, last I looked a a round in the rump qualifies are "behind her ear." Five feet behind, but behind nonetheless.

BMT

The ass man cometh.... grin...

Yup.



BMT

O good Lord.

Now you are going to start the whole "caliber vs. motion of the ocean" debate.

... I just hunt with what I got <g>....