Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Hunting with the ELD Match bullet

The ELD match (title of discussion) would be a whole different critter. They are pretty soft and open up pretty quickly..

I’ve had good results on 3-4 pigs and 1 wt deer with a 6.5 Grendel shooting Hornady Black and factory Amax. Most shots have been 100 yards or less with the exception of a pig around 225 yards with the Amax. If you don’t hit a pig in the right spot they will haul a$$ and can be easily lost, no matter what bullet or caliber you use. Shot the buck in the high shoulder with the Black and took the legs right out from underneath him. The interior wound cavity looked devastating but no exit wound.

One does not need match accuracy to hunt at reasonable distances. If you are getting 1.5 to 2" at 100yds you should be able to hit lungs at 300yds. Too many people are looking for bragging rights on paper. During the 60's and 70's Weatherby was promoted 1.5" group guarantees which were one of the most accurate rifles of the times.

George

It’s not the 1960s anymore and I’d trip a rifle that could only manage 2MOA. Accepting my 30-30 Trapper...

ELD-Ms have worked very well for me on elk and mule deer. But I’ve only shot them at CM velocities. Haven’t caught one in a critter yet. Exits every time.

I’ve shot a lot of pigs, quit counting long ago. The most have been shot with a .308 with 175 SMK’s, a few with the Amax, but the Barnes TTSX is all I use anymore.

Aim for the base of the ear if it is broadside to you and you can put it there. Otherwise, come down 1/3 from the top of the back on the base of the neck.

I much prefer the SMK over the Amax, as the SMK penetrate better and that is what is needed on pigs. However, I strongly prefer the TTSX as my first choice. Every TTSX 100 grains or heavier has exited. An 80 grain TTSX from a .243 is the only Barnes I have ever recovered. Many 175 SMK have not exited, and no Amaxes exited on pigs. Their hides and skulls are much tougher than even very big deer.

Use a TTSX and you will be happy with the bullet performance. A .308 Win with a 130 TTSX is what I use the most, but the .260 with a 100 TTSX also delivers very consistent terminal performance.

I made these videos years ago to use when answering whether match bullets will kill animals.

Culling pigs, shot placement to base of ear.



Culling deer during a bad drought. Placement at base of the neck.

That's funny because my 1956 model 70 shoots far better than that:

That's with old school bullets^^^. A 2" rifle off of the bench is not going to put them in the boiler room at 300 yards, when shot in most field positions. That's why guys chase better accuracy. I strive for sub moa 5 shot groups, to prove the rifle is consistent. To not want better accuracy from your rifle and load is akin to being happy with making minimum wage for the rest of your life. If guys shoot match grade bullets and make clean kills, kudos to them. I'm not going to criticize them for the bullet they choose to use. Hell, if I wanted to shoot a buck at 700 yards, I'd be using this combo:


That's an ELDM in one of my 6.5 cm rifles. I've shot that load at 500 yards and put 10 shots into 2", so like someone else said, this isn't the 1960's anymore. Would I trust that bullet and load on a deer at over 700 yards? Hell yes..

If guys shoot match grade bullets and make clean kills, kudos to them. I'm not going to criticize them for the bullet they choose to use.


That’s where I am on this subject, and also on so-called long range hunting. If they put in the time, do the work, and follow up on their shots, more power to them. The ones who half-ass it are slobs.

I’ve never had a shot at a deer at much over 200, have nowhere to practice and determine actual drops and accuracy past 300, so that’s my practical limit for now.

I’ve used match bullets exclusively the last six years, all one shot kills. On the low end I used the 75 Amax to break the big leg bone of a mature whitetail at 50 yards, .223, 2900 fps start. Last year I shot a doe at 15 feet with the 123 ELD-m, 6.5 Grendel, 2500 fps start. Caliber sized entrance, 3.5-4 inch hole through vitals with a 2” exit. She still ran 60 yards with half a heart but that’s no fault of the bullet.

I also killed a BIG doe with the 120 hpbt factory PPU load out of another Grendel. That one opened more violently but still exited. The wound was 5-6 inches wide on that one with a 4 inch exit. Shot was a little forward, caught the front of the lungs. We didn’t weigh her but we got 60 lbs of meat from her. That puts her in the 170 lbs range live if you calculate it out.

In the old days it was a truism that you don't use hunting bullets for matches (not if you consistently want to win) and you don't use match bullets to hunt (not if you want to consistently retrieve the animal).

Technology changes everything and today we have premium hunting bullets that almost shoot as well or sometimes as well as bullets designed for match purposes. A lot of R&D has gone into hunting bullets - Accupoints, Ballistic Tips and Game Kings shoot extremely well in many rifles that there is really no need to use a bullet designed purely for match purposes.

Do you really need a match bullet for hunting that will shoot into 1/2 MOA when an MOA hunting bullet will fulfil the accuracy requirement just fine with the added confidence that the hunting bullet was designed by ballistic engineers to perform to spec on the game animal you're trying to harvest.

The Knowledge that all I need to do is put my bullet into the kill zone and the Hornady/Speer/Nosler engineers have figured the rest of the terminal solution out is a confidence builder for me. Why risk the inconsistent terminal performance of a bullet designed to punch paper?

The right tool for the right job applies here.

The ELD-Ms and (TMKs) work great if they are heavier for caliber (or are being used on deer-sized animals) and are going relatively slow when they hit. Whatever dislike people have of shooting "match" bullets on animals was mostly due to the old non-tipped match bullets (SMKs etc with tiny hollow points) failing to open up. But even those opened up if you filed the tip a bit.

That said all the new tipped match bullets have big hollow points under the tip so that is a non-issue. They will all expand. As far as terminal performance they tend to fragment like crazy and kill very quickly. If anything the issue is that at high velocities they wreck a lot of meat and if your shot is near the shoulder you can expect to find fragments in random places.

Interesting stuff guys. Thank you.

I only shoot ELD-M bullets from my 6mm Creed, but they are doggone accurate. I've thought about them for mule deer or pronghorn, but haven't done so, yet.

Thanks, Guy