Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting The 300 Wby Mag for elk- is there anything better?

Apparently you haven’t read many of my posts because I have discussed how the NF have performed many times. Suffice it to say that I am very pleased with their performance or I wouldn’t keep using them.

As to bullet criteria, I would suggest that all bullet preferences are based on ‘arbitrary criteria’ in an arbitrary heirarchy. You clearly place high B.C. much higher on your list than I do, but I am more concerned about on-game performance at the ranges I shoot at than performance well beyond those ranges. The Grand Slam bullets I used for 20+ years had about the same B.C. values (that of a ‘brick’ in your terms) but they provided the performance I wanted and I kept using them. As stated previously I used one and my buddy’s rifle to take a 6x5 bull at 411 yards last year, my second longest elk kill ever. The bull went 4 steps and down and B.C. was not a factor.

If a high B.C. was a primary concern I’d sell my .44 Mag Browning carbine and my Marlins in .30-30, .375 Win and .45-70, as well as my Ruger .44 Mag revolver. If downrange velocity was the major concern my .280 Rem, .308 Win and all my .30-06’s could go, too, leaving me with my 7mm RM and .300WM. What the hell, might as well sell them and get a .28 and .30 Nosler.

One thing a NF will never do is lose its tip and jam a rifle, as happened twice to a hunting partner of mine on an antelope hunt with Barnes TTSX bullets. Those two TTSX bullets cost him his shot and he went home empty-handed. Their higher B.C. value was of no help.

As to other bullets meeting my ‘arbitrary requirements’, there aren’t all that many. I have a box of Federal Nosler Partitions for my 7mm RM that I bought back in the 1980’s. Never could get the accuracy I wanted with them, even with handloads. North Fork and A-Frame bullets cost more but have been superbly accurate in my rifles. (The only A-Frame I use is the 120g in my .257 Roberts.) Trophy Bonded bullets meet my criteria even though they also have B.C. values of a ‘brick’. My hunting buddy has used them to good effect but they are no longer available as components. Too bad, because I think the Trophy Bonded Tip version is one of the best bullets available.

AccuBonds are a better bullet than most and I use them quite a bit (.257 Roberts/110g, .280 Rem/140g, .30-06/150g and .338WM 225g). In addition I plan to work up a 150g load for Daughter #1’s .308 Win. If that load works out she may use it for antelope and elk this fall.

For my purpose-built, heavy barrel 6.5-06AI I chose the 130g Scirocco-II largely because it was a bonded core bullet with a high B.C. value and I wanted something that would work from close range out to 1200 yards. So far I’ve only taken one antelope with that rifle and at a range (under 300 yards) where a NF would have been just fine.

Barnes XLC, TSX, MRX and TTSX bullets have proven to be very accurate in every rifle I’ve tried them in. The older XLC bullets, while very accurate, were inconsistent on game and, as a result, I could never bring myself to use TSX on game, even though I had loads worked up for a couple of different rifles. The MRX design resolved my concerns and they proved to be excellent and consistent on game. I still have some 180g MRX loads left for my .300WM. Ditto the newer TTSX, which I use quite a bit (.257 Roberts/110g, .280 Rem/140g, 7mm RM/140g, .308/130g and 168g, .30-06/168g).

I’m sure there are other bullets out there that would work for me (don’t know what they are, though) but with the options I have now I see no need to go through the expense and time required for load development and testing. There are also a lot of bullets available that others are quite happy with that I have no interest in whatsoever.

One thing I do know – if my 7mm RM goes elk hunting this fall it will be loaded with 160g NF.