Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting ELD-X reports...

I know several of you used them this year. I killed three deer with the 143 from a 6.5 Creedmoor. Here's the low down..

1. Buck at 75ish yards. Broadside. Took out the top of the heart and jello'd the lower lungs. The deer ran 50ish yards and rolled. Pencil through the hide, golf ball size through the entrance on the inside of the rib cage, punched meat on the opposite side, didn't exit the hide. I felt for the jacket/core/bullet and couldn't find anything. Chest cavity wasn't as messy as several other bullets I've used.

2. Doe (today) at lasered 176 yards. Busted lungs, no heavy bone. She ran 75-100 yards through the alfalfa and collapsed. Golf ball size entrance and golf ball size exit. Chest cavity was soup.

3. Doe (today) at lasered 128 yards. Busted lungs, no heavy bone. She too ran 75-100 yards and collapsed. Same details as #2 above.

I took a zillion pics with messy hands after dressing the does. Not easy with one hand holding the rib cage open -- on the ground -- in the dark. Oh well.....

Notice the round hole below, almost a perfect circle. That was an entrance hole. Exit holes were jagged.



I didn't really look for blood trails with the does. I had two on the ground and lots of work to do. The buck didn't leave a good trail -- hardly any to be exact. I saw him fall though, so no big deal.

I was worried about the bullets being soft before I stuck one into something. I'm pretty happy with the results at Creedmoor velocities. Three isn't enough for me to fully decide on the bullet. I should have busted bone on one of the does.

Share your stories with the bullets. Especially if you busted shoulders.

Was yours the Factory Hornady Load or a hand load?

I've been hunting with the Hornady Factory loads with that bullet as my RAR Predator REALLY likes them. Haven't shot anything with them, yet though.

Factory load. Bought a case and shooting them up pretty fast!

Thanks! I figured that bullet & factory load would work great for our small bodied TX Whitetails.

Tagging as I plan to run this same bullet for deer.

Thanks for the info. Good stuff.

Quick notes on one using the 143 ELDx from this morning.

Heavy wooded mountain side. First shot at approx 80 yards, almost straight ahead walking to me on the same level of the mountain. Aimed for neck/shoulder junction. Lost sight picture on shot, jack case out, slam another home, find him trotting straight away. Waiting for him to wobble.....he stops, looks around in every direction, then starts running straight away....uh oh....second shot from straight behind appox 110 yards. He goes down, rolls down mountain (for a while) out of sight.

Gather stuff, make way to him and he's laying down, facing me, head up, looking straight at me. From about 30 yards I shoot the neck/shoulder seam again. No response.....I wait a minute and his head drops.

Autopsy shows the first shot hit exactly where I aimed. Almost perfectly paired with the final shot on the other side. Lungs were soup. Second shot hit backbone as he was running away. It busted a lot of bone. None exited, I didn't dig for what was left of them...skeeters started in on me.

From what I saw on the inside both lungs were trashed, one from each front shot I'm guessing. Backbone was busted up but I didn't try to trace the path after that. I would have expected him to die A LOT quicker from the damage I saw. After I saw the matching holes on each front shoulder I was pissed thinking the bullet didn't expand....originally though I missed the first shot. After I opened him up I was impressed with the damage.

Not sure how to chalk it up. Bullet(s) seemed to do what they were supposed to, he just didn't die quick enough for me.

I've killed bunches of deer with bunches of different bullets. All three of mine died, but I'm still kinda scratching my head too.

Don't laugh, but the two does yesterday resembled kills with Barnes bullets after busting lungs (not bone). They run and run and run -- almost far enough to make you second guess the shot placement.

I know that everyone likes the high bc, but the 129g hornady flat base is a great killing bullet, so is the 140g Sierra BTSP.

While Hunting in a jungle here in the South, if they run 100 yards, it is like half way around the world. I shoot for the shoulder, never lungs.

Darrik, you’re gonna have to try the VLD or hybrid on those double lung broadside shots.... grin

How long did it take for the deer to expire from the point they were it till they collapsed?

I really seconded guessed shot placement on the first shot. Didn't act like he was hit, stopped, looked around, took off again, and didn't run down the mountain....they ALWAYS run downhill.

I shot a buck on opening morning with the 6.5CM, using a handload with the 120 grain Nosler BT. The buck was hit right behind the shoulder, and the bullet was sticking under the hide on the opposite side. Deer ran maybe 20-30 yards before falling. I would think that I would need to shoot a bunch more with that combo before reaching any kind of a conclusion. For close to 25 years, my deer hunting rifle was a 270, mostly using the 130 Sierra Gameking bullet. I probably averaged 2 deer a year shot with it. I never had to track one, and most fell in their tracks. Now, a lot of those deer were shot at under 100 yards, and at that distance, I usually shot them in the neck. None ever got back up after being shot, nor did any ever run. I'm not saying the 270 is a superior deer cartridge than the Creedmoor, or anything else. I'm just giving you my experiences. Bullet placement kills deer more than the choice of the bullet, and maybe I was just better at putting the bullet where it needed to go, or maybe deer were easier to kill back then. Whatever the case, I'm going to continue using the 6.5CM, and suspect that it will work just fine.

Some deer just don't realize that they are already dead.

Thanks for the report, SAS and others. I plan on using my Tikka 6.5 CM on our annual elk hunt after XMAS. Last year the Tikka .308 Win. (165 Acc.) allowed me to bring another cow home. The two contenders are the 140gr. Acc. and the 143gr. ELD-X.

Lung shots = running deer

Yep....and I'm in triple digits on lung shots with deer. My comparison to the TSX/TTSX was to the length of the run. Only 3 deer with the ELD-X, so I can't make a great comparison. I will say they all ran further and reacted differently than when shot with a Ballistic Tip, Sierra Gameking or Pro Hunter and even standard soft points.

The ELD-X may be harder than I anticipated, not as soft as I expected. The results so far are more like an Accubond, Partition and the "X" family.

Buddy killed a mountain lion about a 5 days ago using 6.5 CM and the 143 ELD X. It sounded like he grazed the neck/ear since it was deflected at about 70 yards on a mule deer kill, cat was "stunned"? He re positioned himself to get a better shot and put it behind the shoulder the Cat died. I'm currently running this bullet but haven't put it on any live animals yet, but it is accurate, 5 shots a dime can cover at 100 yards. So I'm hoping that it will prove to be a good hunting bullet?

SAS,

The average sized muley buck I killed at 250ish with a 145 ELD-x from my .270 looked just like it had been killed with a partition/accubond.

Dave

It's no big deal when you see them fall or can see them on the ground
However it CAN be a big deal otherwise.

I've been reading on the ELDs & VLDs etc. WHERE I hunt I need different performance and I've
seen way too much meat destruction from some. I'm still considering but for now I'm not sold.

Good luck on future hunts.

Jerry