I have a couple of experiences to share. One was a cow elk at a bit over 400. She was clearly hit in the front end as we could see her limping and favoring the opposite side leg. Shot her with a .264 and 130 Accubond. Trailed her over a mile in the snow and then saw her again over 600 yards away and still going as we ran low on light. She was still going. There was blood in the snow, but not much. After the shot the elk darted back and forth so it was hard to make out which one I shot and put another round in her without shooting a second elk. That was a tough deal, with no good explanation. Seems like I hit her in the front leg, which should have done the trick. Won’t ever know what went wrong here.
I was witness to a buddy shooting a Bull with a .300 Win and 200 grain Accubonds at about 200. Shot high, dropping the bull, but it wasn’t there when we climbed down. There was patchy snow so I found him an hour later, saw the wound high on his back and he got up and ran. Never saw him again. I didn’t have a gun on me as I had killed a bull three hours prior. Shot placement issue here.
Two other bullet performance issues that I’ll mention as unsatisfactory on elk. One with a TSX, one with a TTSX. Shot a nice bull at 400 yards with a 270 WSM with 130 TSX. Hit low and forward, taking out both “elbow” joints just under the chest cavity. Shot him in the chest when I walked up, no reaction, shot him again. No reaction. Shot him in the neck after that. What I didn’t like here was how he just seemed to soak up the chest shots. Obviously I could have chose to neck shoot him from the start but he was trying to get up and moving his head around. And yeah he would have died from the chest shots, and I don’t know how long I actually gave him before the neck shot, but would have liked him to die faster than whatever my sense of time was allowing.
The other weird one was a bull at about 100 yards with a 264 and 120 TTSXs. Hit him all four times in the chest, broadside, no reaction to any shot, as I was reloading, he walked off and then tipped over. He’s dead, the bullets worked, but none of the rounds phased him for some reason.
My current guns primarily use Accubonds, partitions and ballistic tips, with some Speer Hot Core here and there. I generally stay away from all copper bullets now, as I also have some deer experiences that I felt could be improved on compared to lead core and bonded experiences.
Edit to add:
I see we are adding deer issues here so I’ll add my 243 WSSM issue. Using factory 95 grain ballistic tips, first hit in the liver on a muley at about 200. Follow ups at short range while he was walking in circles mostly blew up on the shoulder. He died eventually. I believe I shot him 6 times, made an absolute mess. Probably outside the velocity window of that bullet at short range.
Killed triple digits of deer with mostly ballistic tips and love them, at moderate muzzle velocity, but I do recognize you can get them going too fast for good penetration especially if you hit bone.
Last edited by exbiologist; 07/18/21.
