I’ll throw my 2 cents in here. My 14 year old has been shooting 150 ELDXs at for the past two seasons and so far they accounted for 1 antelope buck, a small 6 point bull and a cow. Nothing was shot any closer than 150 to 200 yards. He’s shooting a Tikka 7mmRM but he’s just a kid so they’re watered down to about 2,850 fps so that the recoil is manageable. Antelope about 200 yards, pass through, 2” exit wound. Small 6 point x broken horn about 150 to 200 yards (early morning and things were happening fast so no rangefinder used) again behind the from shoulder, complete pass through, 2” exit. Cow at about 350, one pass through and one through both rear legs which hit 2 big bones was caught in the elk. Mostly still together but it had shed may 40% of it’s weight.
My opinion of these bullets is that they’re highly accurate and have good BCs. They hold together pretty well and produce kills if the velocity is kept relatively low. I’m not sure they would hold up very well at higher velocities and short ranges. I think they have better BCs than the 150 Ballistic Tips but aren’t really any tougher. I’m a big 7mm fan and primarily an elk hunter so I think that the 280 AI is a great elk cartridge but if you’re going to be in an area where you might be shooting big elk at short ranges with full house loads, I would look at tougher bullets.
BTW, in my opinion, the 150 Swift Sciroccos are crazy good bullets. They open up well at least down to 2,000 fps or so and work well at long range and at closer ranges they smash bone and blow nice exit big exit holes. I’ve never recovered one in a critter shot at less than about 400 yards except for a whitetail buck shot in the neck straight down the spine. The bullet broke about 10 or 11 veribrate and the came to rest in the spinal column. Diameter of the bullet was about 1 1/4” and still had about 80% weight retention. The buck fell over like a mannequin.
I killed the bull in the pic above at 200 yards or so. Close to 3k MV so the bullet was still humming right along.
P
