Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 6.5 Creedmoor for Elk & Moose under 300yd - what bullet

LB, Old Toot, ElkSlayer.....likely all the same.

Nope, but keep trying It's highly amusing when you clowns dance!

Light Barnes are as long as some heavy lead bullets.

Has nothing to do with twist not allowing a heavy bullet. If it won't stabilize a heavy cup n core/lead bullet it may not stabilize a long mono bullet.

Only seen em "redesign" the X bullet twice.

TSX then TTSX.

Same could be said for other manufacturers when they bring out a different line of bullets.

As far as "failures" go. Unrecoverable animals don't count because who knows if or how they were hit and if removed the bullet may not have performed as expected but a dead animal is hard to argue with, sometimes schitt just happens.

You forgot the LRX that everyone is convinced will somehow fix all the problems with the other 3 designs.

Try to keep up here

That's a long range bullet.

Long Range X.

Same with Long Range Accubond, ELD bullets and so forth.

Enhanced B.C. is what all of these have in common.

You try to keep up.

It's their 4th attempt to create a bullet that opens reliably. Even Barnes admits that in their marketing. Keep dancing clown

FWIW they have not redesigned the X in years

Sure they did - the latest attempt was in 2011 with the LRX.

I have shot a lot of moose. I have only seen a couple instances where an 'X' bullet penciled through (a 150gn 270 Win and a 225gn 338 Win mag, neither were mine but hunting partners. This was in the early to mid 1990's.

We attributed this to pinched nose cavity due to handling , especially if the ammo was dropped on the ground.

Our group has probably shot ~70 moose and a few elk over the decades.

In the last 8 years we generally switched to Accubonds, seem to make more positive kills.

In the 6.5 CM my 1st choice would be the 127 LRX or 2nd 130gn Accubond.

The 'X' bullet really shines in the smaller calibers and higher velocities.

Shhh... the X bullets never fail! They don't have a well known failure mechanism that the company has been trying to correct for 30 years. You'll get the clowns dancing if you keep saying stuff like that

I figure the 'X' bullet , with only 2 known pencil throughs, and no loss of an animal in approximately 30 years with them, not too bad in performance.

As the bore size goes down and the velocity goes up , the 'X' bullet is hard to beat, accurate too! Can't say that with some others.

Anyway get used to the mono's for hunting, as many jurisdictions have or contemplating banning lead.

We have different expectations then. I expect a bullet to be designed correctly and not fail. What you're describing is basically the 5% failure rate I estimated based on what I've seen.

Based on me having "bigger" rifles that I shoot well.

😉

I was looking at it for deer. I understand it's an Elk & Moose thread. The specific bullet mentioned grabbed my interest as it fits something that was on my mind....but not the mind of the thread, sorry for the derail.

How are no lost animals a failure?

Penciling through is a failure. Whether the animal is then lost depends on a lot of other factors. But it's a bullet failure at that point.

If you want to use bullets that fail, you know what to buy. Get on it.

So what bullet/bullets do you recommend for elk or any other game animals?

For elk sized animals, I would recommend the A-Frame, TBBC/TA line, or Northfork softs. Pick one with a SD of 0.3 ideally, at least 0.27.

Personally for my .375 WSM I use the 300gr A-Frame. For my .300 WSM I use the 200gr TA.

Can't be.

Elkslayer "is far from stupid."

I've killed and guided a LOT of elk hunts. I've seen pretty much every bullet used except maybe some of the new fangled long range stuff.

I have see "X" bullets in 25-06 and 270 Win fail to expand. I've recover 2 of the 25s and one 270. Never any large ones. They are easier on meat than many other bullets.

For the most part they work as advertised. They don't kill as quickly as many other bullet because they don't upset as much. Simple physics.

Back to the OP question. I would use a 140 Partition or 140 Sierra game king. Both have served me well elk hunting with a 260 Remington which is the ballistic twin of the CM.