I haven't checked on this thread lately, sorry.
My hunting buddy bought a new rifle, a Proof Research Glacier Ti in 6.5 PRC. It came sighted in and ready to go. Evolved Ballistics 'found a load' for it and contracted with anther guy to load his ammo. He initially got 100 rounds- all loaded with 156 EOLs. I went with him on the maiden outing. Labradar said it was 2850ish. First 3 shot group at 200 yards was about 1/2" so it can shoot. Fast forward to deer season.
His daughters shot 3 coues deer (well one was a smallish muley that looked like a coues) at 495-550 yards. All were what you would expect; they quickly expired and didn't go anywhere. I believe all the shots were videoed through his phone on a 95mm Swarovski.
He shot a buck at 900+ and made a nice hit. Deer stood around and eventually wandered off- we never found it. Hit looked solid. Repeat performance on one at 800+.
Last month we went to Mexico. Because of gun permit issues several had to use his Proof rifle. My buddy borrowed it and made a perfect hit at 750 yards. Deer bucked, kicked his hind legs and went down. After all the back-slapping was over he headed to get it. About halfway there it stood up, shook itself off and ran into the next canyon- never found. Reviewing the footage showed what looked like a perfect hit.
Then my buddy who owns the rifle shot a deer at 800 and it ran off- reviewing the video showed a great hit. He shot another buck and missed the wind. He spined it and knocked it down. It sat on his haunches and he shot again. This time right through the chest. Took over an hour to hike to the buck. It was STILL alive and thrashing. Post-mortem showed that the bullets had penciled right through and hit only one lung and clipped the other.
Not sure what the exact velocity is that they quit expanding but it is much higher than Berger advertised. I talked to Bryan Litz about it at SHOT briefly. He said that had NO feedback on that bullet and quite interested. He felt the launch velocity was more than adequate to make the bullet expand. I mentioned that several told me you needed to open the tips up. He didn't like that at all. He was in the same camp with me on expecting a bullet to perform as delivered, not modified.
The whole idea with the EOL bullets for for extreme long range shooting. We have a lot of good 6.5 bullets for shooting out to 1000 yards. I am going to stick with my 143 ELD-X as they expand at 1000 from my 6.5-284 and penetrate well also. I am getting under .5 MOA out to 815 yards with the 143- why change?
The 156s are not the bullet for long range hunting - at least out of a 6.5PRC. Maybe a 6.5-300 Wby would work better.
