cooperfan;
Good morning, I hope the day's looking decent for you out in Michigan and you're all well.
While it appears that you've already made a decision on the bullets, I trust it's okay that I offer a few thoughts on chasing mulies that I've learned over the last 40 years hunting them here in our part of southern BC.
The response by MT DD FAN was in our experience spot on, though I can't comment on the deer populations in the area of MT that you're hunting just to be clear.
Here though, you won't see a 30" rack that often. I can recall seeing only a handful in the 40 plus years here for instance. As well, I'm reluctant to talk numbers because context is sometimes tough to establish on the inner webs, but I've personally been front and center when at very least 120 mulie and whitetail bucks, sheep and black bears have been taken with bullets ranging from .257" 80gr up through .338" 250gr of all sorts of construction types. While there was some difference in terminal effect, it was usually less than we thought it'd be, so I've seen bigger bucks drop faster when hit with the 80gr .257" than a 225gr .338" for instance. The size of the hole in the barrel doesn't mean as much to me as it once did in terms of the ability to cleanly take game. Bullet construction is more important, but can be worked around to some degree with shot placement.
When we used to have more sheep on the mountain behind the house, I'd shoot the breeze with the locals who were guiding hunters who'd come in from all over the world. Their number one complaint by a large margin was that their hunters could not shoot from improvised rests or field positions in a timely manner.
You might get time to range that big old mulie of your dreams, set up a good rest and get the bipods out - might. Or you might have to the count of 3 to decide whether or not you're going to shoot it - or not - like I did with the California ram I took, or most of my largest mulies and whitetails and the bull moose and all of the black bears so far and.. Well you get the picture.
Sometimes one gets to see them on a sagebrush hillside out yonder and do a stalk, but for us here we're much more apt to bump them in draws and travel corridors or in the timber.
Whatever you can shoot fast and confidently with will give you an edge that you might find handy when the time comes.
Hopefully that made sense and was useful to you or someone out there this morning.
All the best and good luck on your hunt.
Dwayne
