Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting In defense of big rifles

There is an outfitter in the area I hunt and I know some of the guides and packers quite well.They have bad mouth the Partitions for a lot of years. They claim most of thier long tracking jobs stem from partitions. Don't know,but that is what they claim.

My trouble is that I am usually in the nasty stuff already when I do see elk, so them falling in any worse stuff is academic. The 220gr RN , .06 at 20 yds smacks them hard enough for me.

"The advice of "getting closer" is generally good but not always possible."

Agreed. When I've exhausted my possibilities and realized that a given animal is outside mine or my chosen rifle's capabilities, I accept it and move on. That's the part that I struggled with as a young man...not to exceed my limitations, self imposed or otherwise, my equipment or my own physical limits. I welcome the challenges when presented and work hard at making it happen. The difference now is I recognize when it's time to try something else rather than make a marginal situation worse.

I've chosen the 45-70 for a myriad of reasons and I'm happy with it. It suits me and I'm content living within its constraints. For those who choose something flatter shooting, harder hitting or generally more sexy I say more power to ya, hope to see you on the mountain.

That's my 340's favorite pill as well. With it my .340 basically twins the trajectory of my 7mmRM favorite 150 TSX load but packs a lot more attitude on arrival. Good stuff.

I got my 35 whelen encore barrel on the classified and I am heading towards a 9.3 x 74r barrel to replace it.
Brass is a bugger to get and bullets hard to find but the more I read about this cartrige the more I like. Slightly more powerful than the whelen but in a long rimmed case. pressures are at about 40,000cup. It is a medium range round at best but should do the trick inside 300 yards.
I do not need this round as I have the .340s and the 338s and a 375 H&H but I do want to play with it. I hear they are just one of those rounds that is accurate in most guns. Like my first wife they are very popular in Europe.
This is all Goodnews fault as he shared those pics of that new double rifle.

Saddlsore, I know you're relating what you've been told,so not directed at you.

IME if you have a long tracking job with a Partition,there is one place to look for the problem.....in the mirror.

Bob,I agree with you totally,but it would seem that over many years there might be something to it. Then again, a lot of guys on outfitted hunts may not be the marksman that they need to be.
I still an old C&C guy not pushing anything over 2500fps,I don't use them,so I don't know.

Personally my take on the Nozler thingy is that some outfitter got it under his skin that they were gonna give him issues. Most likely it came out of a client or two's rifle ability and truly not from the bullets ability.

I've taken and seen a lot of elk taken with 175 and 160 Nozlers and have no issues with them.

As for the notion of "just get yourself closer", my position on this is sometimes it's possible and sometimes it's not. And anyone who says that's the way to go just hasn't hunted elk in enough different parts of the world and needs to get out more b4 they make such a statement!

Case in point, where I hunt the opener the shots can be long (well lets say they can be a lot longer than I like to take game at and I have no problemo under my right conditions taking elk to 700). If a fella goes and the two or so days he gets to go for the year is on the opener and he wants to fill the freezer then he'd be best off prepared. If he tries to get closer then someone else is gonna take out his elk.

Now where I hunt late in the season not many go, and there I can exercise the old notion of getting closer. I like to call this area the "death zone"...

Someday, I'd still like to set my old 700 into a 375 Rugger and run 260 Accu's in it....

Dober

I'll take a guess and say that was directed at me. Probably shouldn't reply but here goes.

Well, I agreed that sometimes getting closer was possible and that sometimes it wasn't. I don't believe I said it was "the way to go" for anyone else besides myself either. If you choose to take those 700 yd. shots on elk...fine, great, good for you. If a person feels pressured to take a long shot at an animal because he's afraid someone else will "take out his elk", that again is a personal issue and I have no problem with it...it's just not how I choose to hunt.

I'm not interested in hunting anywhere other than where I currently hunt and if that makes me less of a hunter in your eyes I guess I'll have to live with that. I'm confident in my abilities, my equipment and my 30+ years of filling the freezer so I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, you do what you do and we'll all be happy.

I apologize to the thread starter for the hijack.

Actually RG it wasn't, I just recall the idea of getting closer coming up during the course of the thread as it always does and I just made a comment that was meant to say, hey we can't always do that. Some times we can, in some country we can and a lot of it depends on ones desire to fill the freezer in the time alloted to hunt if that makes sense.

Trust me, I wasn't trying to toss any gas on a fire, just making a comment or two.

Have a super day!

Dober

And about your 45/70 thoughts, I totally love the Guide rifle. Had two of them, set them both up to rock with XS rears and fiber optic fronts, got them perking (although that took about 3 minutes, man do those guns shoot!).

Then like a stoodge sold them both so now I am Guide less and I think it's one of the coolest rigs going. I'd love to settle in and hunt with one a bit and no of some country where I could sure do it.

What do you power yours with?

Thx
Dober

I've been carrying an LTD II with 24" barrel for about ten years now. I had a standard 1895 before that and a #1 prior to that. Just something about that Volkswagen sized slug (I've loaded 400 gr. Speers and 430 gr. Lasercast) over a respectful pile of H322 loping along at a moderate pace that just works for me. I've got a real dislike for bloodshot meat after some bad experiences with other calibers/bullets and I've never had that sort of trouble with it.

The only time I scoped a 45-70 was with the #1. My eyes aren't what they use to be and the Williams peep isn't cutting it anymore so I'm seriously considering putting some glass on the LTD now. I'm thinking either a fixed 2.5 or that 1.5-5 that Leupold puts out.

As to the previous replies, my response was obviously overboard (I knew it as soon as I hit the submit button) and I took something personally that I shouldn't have. My apologies sir. Good hunting to you.

No harm no foul is the way I see it, the internet can be tough to get a feel where we're coming from trust me I know this all too well.

When I get another Guide I'd be tempted to stick my 3X Leo with a Dot in it on it on some kind of QD's. I really dislike the idea of having a scope on the rig, but my eyes are more and more in need of it.


You ever shot any of the Beartooth bullets? I've used them in my M29 and really like them.

Thx, and make it your best day!

Dober

Dober,

My Guide Gun was set up as you describe- XS rear, fiber optic front. I still have a stainless 44 mag Marlin set up that way.

IMHO, the GG is tough to scope. At least for me. The comb of the stick ain't right for it. When I get another 45/70 I'm thinking the standard pistol-grip version will work better for me. The straight-stock GG also really slaps my face under heavy recoil; again, just my experience.

When I did scope my GG, I used Leupold QRW rings on Warne bases. Very solid, and returned to zero well.

saddlesore: I know you've shot more elk than me and one thing I took special note of the last bull I killed two years ago was that an elk has a pretty substantial amount of body over the vitals,in the upper third of his chest.

I sometimes wonder how many tales we all hear of "chest-hit elk" getting away are the result of a bullet landing "above the lungs" but not catching the spine,so that these elk are still mobile, recover after a hit,and sometimes bullets and cartridges get blamed for wounding, when the real culprit is a hit too high above the vitals.

Not trying to set up a debate here, just mostly thinking out loud

I've read some about Beartooth and heard good things from those that use them. I decided to try the Lasercast trueshots in part because they're manufactured in my backyard and heard good things about them as well. I'll be honest though and say I've not yet taken an animal with them so I can't testify as to their performance but my rifle sure likes them in terms of accuracy.

Every animal I've taken with the 45-70, regardless of rifle, has been downed with a single Speer 400 grainer so it's been tough leaving them at home. I'm thinking this is the year the trueshots get a try though.

Bob, For sure, bad bullet placement is probably the real culprit of a major portion of the claims of bulet failure or super tough elk. A clipped lung, or one lung shot can still let an elk travel a far piece.A good centered double lung, heart, or spine shot and any elk will fall over pronto
I have shot a goodly number of elk with the much maligned Sierra Game King. I have found some with text book mushrooming, some that the core can bep lucked out of what isl eft of the jacket and some with the jacket and core not very close. However, all those bullets were dug out of dead elk,and all of them didn't go bu ta few yards when shot

Saddlesore: Thanks for that observation; it all gets back to placement,huh?

Mark �

My Marlin .45-70 is a standard 1985, not the Guide version. Like you, my eyes prefer glass more and more each year. As a result, the Marlin is topped with Warne Quick Disconnect bases and Maxima rings. A Leupold 2-7x sits in the rings, providing a very comfortable 4.9� eye relief at 2x. (It still took me a long while to shoot the 1812fps, 460g Cast Performance loads with the scope on, though.)

I shoot a wide variety of loads, about 19 total, from 300-350g hardcast over a few grains of HS-g for 1100fps fun to 350g North Fork bullets at 2183fps for elk to 460g hardcast at 1812 for those pesky backyard rhino. (Still waiting for rhino, but they destroy everything else pretty well...)

These days I would try 350g Swift A-Frames if starting fresh with load development for elk. The 300g Partitions are history but I like the 300g Speer Uni-Cor FP bullets and shoot them a lot for practice. Have never felt comfortable loading the Barnes bullets in the tube mag, although they are supposed to be safe.

There are three common ways that good bullets get a bad reputation I believe - maybe more:

1. Some people assume that a good bullet somehow forgives the errors of poor shooting. When they are used - on guided hunts in this case- and they don't do well, who's going to blame the "money" - in this case the client?

2. Some people, perhaps using a bullet early in their experience, misinterpret what they see and blame, obviously, the bullet. (Hey, it doesn't look like the ones in the mag ads and articles.)

3. Some folks combine what they don't see - bullets which pass through leaving smallish exits- with what they hear and believe what they think they ought to. I think the original X got a bad performance rep this way based on less "pencils" than what people were thinking they saw. Mostly even they worked just like most Failsafes: splendidly, in spite of the rather small four-cornered exit through the hide. And Partitions can also do a similar thing. Combine that skinny hole with placement that isn't perfect and voila', "it's a bad bullet".

Time for my meds; gack-attack.

And THAT, as they say, is THAT!
Could not have possibly put it better myself, and it should be required reading with every purchase of premium boolits....
Well done!
Ingwe