Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Elk bullets - calmly

I'd agree with this at all but longer ranges.

Bb

My brother, kids and I have been using monos exclusively for over ten years.
You will never convince me they kill as abruptly as lead and copper bullets.
I get it that guys like two holes. The problem is the exits are often small to the point they don't bleed well at all.
Mono uses suggest aiming for bone for a reason.

Ive got to add my support to the remarks related to the .270 Win and 150gr Partitions. Ive killed fewer bulls but piles of deer & hogs. I’m still trying to get other combos to match the 270/150NPT’s effectiveness. I’ve got near zero experience with monos on Elk other than what I’ve witnessed in others. I just consider the partition as a double action bullet where most others are single action.

Interestingly the second most effective bullet I’ve ever used is the Sierra 85gr HPBT in my 6mm - sorta ridiculous how effective that little bullet is.

Can’t say I’m either a two hole guy or a fragment guy but after reading this thread I guess I’d side with the bullet fans who prefer at least some disintegration before leaving the target.

Great thread all - interesting to read about those opinions built on significant experience that I’ll likely never have.

Pints

Having shot and seen shot a large number of elk I believe the best elk bullet is the VLD.

It simply kills faster from up close to 1000yds.

I shoot for shoulders.

This is my take as well.

Personally I prefer the Nosler Accubond or Partition bullets but have used Sierra Gamekings and Hornady Interlock and ELDX bullets as well.

Somehow killed a bull with a match bullet, 108eldm.....weird.

What were the particular's on that one JH? That 108 is a dandy bullet and as accurate as I've seen from a 6mm. From the little ARC to the 6 Creed its been easy to tune.

IMO, the Eld-x is not a big game bullet. I shoot mostly Barnes lrx and ttsx anymore, but it's hard to beat a interlock or partition for all around performance.

The lack of penetration using a 103gr Eld-x after hitting the shoulder bone is dismal at best.

220yds double lung. Fell down, got up, stumbled a short distance and died. Small 6pt bull. Just as a bull did last year with the 140eldm.

Still looking for the bulletproof elk. Hope to get another killed next weekend with the same peashooter.

Nice. Congrats. Any bullet left to recover?

Cool stuff.

30-06 150 gr SST (Hornady Superperformance factory) tends to leave big internal wound channels at most any range on caribou out to 450 yards IME. Close in, BIG wound channels! Have recovered 2 only - a separated jacket and bullet lodged in the off-side "elbow" at 433 yards, and an insurance shot into a moose skull at 5 yards (that one surprised me- near perfect mushroom)

Can’t speak to AMAX/ELDM on elk, but the 7mm and 6.5mm versions sure work great on deer!

I've used 150g partitions out of my BDL in 270 Win at 3000 fps for decades. Works great, gave the rifle to my son, he's gotten elk with it so I'm happy. Buying myself a vintage BDL in 7mm Mag. Plan to load 175g A-Frames at 2900 fps.

I just checked out all of the testing, thank you for posting that info.

Took my first elk this year. Debated what rifle to use but settled on the .30-06 and loaded some 180 gr. TTSX for it. At the shot the bull stiffened and I went ahead and hit it again but it was not really needed. Both shots were pass throughs on a broadside shot. Didn't take more than 3-4 steps. My father used the same handload last week on a couple of deer which accounted for a couple of one shot kills. Can't complain about performance and the load shoots well.

No problem.

FWIW, 2 years ago I used a .300 Wby and 180 TTSX's to shoot a cow at 175 yards that was quartering away from me. Shot went in behind the near shoulder and out through the opposite side. She went down immediately and stayed down. I was very impressed with the results.

This conversation comparing light/fast/soft bullets vs. heavy/slow/tough bullets has been going on for a long, long time.

In the early 90's, I had a friend in Paradise, Ca who was a hunter. He had more than a dozen sets of elk horns on the walls of his den. He had never owned any rifle but a Sako L579 in .243 Win. He told me he loaded 85gr Sierras "as fast as they would go", and described how they would blow up inside the elk when they hit bone, spreading shrapnel throughout the chest cavity. That rifle and that load also accounted for more than 100 deer.

Other people believed in the small bullet/high velocity concept at that time, also:

From the Jackson Hole Outfitters newsletter, Dec 1999:

"In .243 or 6mm, use the 80 grain. I personally hand-load my .243 with 42.5 grains of Dupont 4895 behind a Hornady 75 grain hollowpoint. I've had it chronographed at 3510fps from my Husqvarna, and between my brothers, son, and I, we've killed more than 20 elk, 30 deer, two bears, and two moose with that load - in a .243!! Large caliber and heavy bullet is not the answer. If that were so we would still be shooting 500 grain punkin' balls in a 54 caliber muzzle-loader. Straight shooting and a very fast thin bullet will do much better. When that 75 grain pointy hollow-point smacks a rib cage, it penetrates about three inches and then it goes all to pieces, SPLAAT!, just like a shotgun shell going off in the boiler room. Does a lot of damage."

Grits Gresham wrote in Guns & Ammo magazine, 2002:

"But how about a .243 Winchester for elk? Not for the average hunter. But never? You be the judge. Whiskey Chamberland was my guide on several hunts along the Salmon River in Idaho. I had known him quite a while before the subject of his personal elk rifle arose, and I was shocked. He used a .243. I probed deeper and my surprise increased. At the time, he'd killed 15 consecutive bulls with one shot each. Losses? None."

Alpinecrick from this forum has written about a scorecard of more than a dozen elk killed cleanly with a 100gr Partition. An Idaho outfitter of some renown that I corresponded with advocated a .243 with about any good 100gr bullet, saying the mild kick helped people hit the mark more often than most hunters would with a harder-kicking magnum, and as a result put elk down without a fuss.

Recent posts in this and other forums have extolled the virtue of .223 caliber bullets from various cartridges on elk.

I don't like going to the extremes of either argument. Everyone has to make their own choices and take their own chances, but if I ever get the opportunity to hunt elk again, it will be with my 7mm-08 shooting a 140gr TTSX - although the 139gr Hornady Interlock wouldn't be a bad choice either!