Back in the early 60's when I was in my early teens I started reading Elmer Keith and thought what ever he said was darn near gospel. Before my Dad move us to Alaska in 1965 I had never shot at a big game animal.
After I was discharged in 1973 I immediately picked up a .300 Win. and lung shot a nice bull caribou with one of the 220 grain Silvertips at about 400 yards. The bullet passed through and the caribou piled up after about a 20 yard sprint. To this day that is the longest shot at a caribou I have taken. Next was a 200 grain Speer Hot Cor in a cow moose's forehead at about 20 yards. No exit and a thumb size entrance hole.
A year later I kept thinking about Elmer's words and got a .338 Win. and some of the new 250 grain Grand Slams. I shot a young bull moose in the forehead at about 20 yards and the entrance hole was about the size of a orange and no exit hole. The rest of the Grand Slams went into paper targets and I wised up and started loading the Nosler Partition and stayed with it for the 30-06 and .338 until the late 80's when I switched to Barnes X bullets.
I am still using the Barnes X bullets, but now they are the TTSX version, 168 grain in the 30-06 and 225 grains in the .338. They penetrate as good or better on moose as the 200 grain Partition from the 30-06 and 250 grain from the .338, but recoil is not as bad. I doubt I will ever use any thing else in Alaska for what I do. Also, I have never shot a critter past 450 yards and that was one moose.
If I hunted state side I would use the Nosler Partition again, it might be the best all around bullet for most big game that we eat. I would trust the Partition to open up on deer sized game past 200 yards and I could always try the Accubond that is so popular in Alaska, along with the Barnes TTSX and Partition.
