Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Elk bullets - calmly

The Plute elk. Took a pic of the elk this summer while I was in Crested Butte. It is was impressive when you are standing there looking at it.

WOW!

I used to work in crested butte sorry I missed it!

What building is it in?

I lent it out to the local vfw.

Downtown at the museum. If you look it up, it will lead you to the visor center. It's not there, it's in the museum downtown.

I went to Crested Butte just to see that elk. Trust me the pics don't show how massive that rack is.

I even hiked up both ends of Dark Canyon just checking it out. Good elk country - back in that era. It's not that hard to get to.

Thanks for the response. I took note of your "myth that any expanding big game bullets expand "faster" comment and realized I had read in the past about just that in one of your books or articles. Probably would have been better to say "more easily" because of the lower impact velocity design. I've only shot one animal with the 175 LRX, a whitetail buck at about 30 yrds out my back door. The buck was angling sharply uphill and to the right and the bullet went through the rear part of the right shoulder blade, impacted the spine and cut through the forward section of the left shoulder. My daughter happened to find the bullet lodged in a lodgepole behind the where the deer was standing. The petals were gone and I didn't see any evidence of them in the tree so figured they came off in the deer. Personally I have no problem with the petals breaking off since the shank should still have enough mass to keep going and the petals will just add to the damage.

How far did the elk travel after the hit before they expired and what damage did you see on the insides? I haven't shot enough animals with Barnes bullets to make any kind of judgment so asking out curiosity.

I've seen a lot of Barnes X bullets of various types take big game since around 1990, and have never been able to tell whether they retained or lost their petals make difference in how they killed. The last one where the petals had disappeared and the bullet was recovered was a huge cow elk my wife Eileen killed maybe five years ago.

It was standing quartering toward us at around 250 yards, and Eileen aimed for the near (left) shoulder with her .308 Winchester--and that's where the 130-grain TTSX landed, just above the big shoulder joint. The elk stumbled 20-25 yards before falling, obviously dead on its feet. We found the bullet under the hide over the ribs on the opposite (right) side of the chest. It had lost all its petals and retained 62% of its weight.

Have several similar examples of other animals taken with both the original (pre-grooved) X-Bullets and both TTSXs and TSXs. If I recall correctly none of the animals went over about 35 yards before falling.

During a mule deer hunt with Randy Brooks in 2005, the subject of X's losing their petals came up. Randy said he thought when he came up with the X's in the 1980s that losing petals would result in more interior damage, and he designed them to lose petals, at least most of the time. But as their popularity grew more and more hunters started bragging about how X's retained 100% of their weight. Since Randy also believes the customer is "right," he changed the design so they would retain their petals most of the time.

One thing that does tend to happen when they lose all their petals is the front of the bullet flattens and "expands" slightly, which makes a bigger hole--and acts something like a flat-nose solid, but with a "flat" that's wider than bullet diameter. The first one I recovered that had lost all its petals was a 120-grain original X, from one of my 6.5x55s that shot that bullet really well at around 3000 fps. The animal was a big axis deer in Texas, quartering toward me at around 130 yards. I aimed for the near shoulder, and the buck ran about 30 yards and keeled over.

The bullet broke the shoulder joint, and under the hide on the opposite flank, just behind the ribcage. It retained 77.5% of its weight, and the front end had expanded to .41 inch--over 50% wider than the shank of the bullet. Would the buck have died quicker if it had retained its petals and 100% of its weight? Dunno, but it died quickly.

Have also found broken-off petals at both the entrance and exit wounds, and very occasionally inside the innards--including one in the heart of a big whitetail buck.

Our elk didn't go far, less than 40yds, excellent results like always when using Barnes bullets. Internal damage was impressive considering the the bullets didn't mushroom or shed petals. The average weight retention of the bullets was close to 95%. I highly recommend Barnes LRX and TTSX bullets but they're not magic. Barnes bullets won't fail when you need them to break a shoulder bone, or need penetration for a frontal or going away shot to reach the vitals.

Good to know enough damage was done with that expansion. To this day regret not shooting a legal bull moose at 550yds with a Barnes a few years ago. I was worried about a circus. Thought it would come closer, but it disappeared.

Barnes lists the minimum expansion velocities, and for safety sake, I add a couple hundred fps to their value! I make certain that my longest shot is within that parameter. That’s not a problem for me……with my cartridge/load, that velocity window is 300 yards beyond my self-imposed 600 yard limit!

Though, even with expansion only to bullet diameter (Barnes claims 1600 fps)…….I still making a minimum hole size of 3/8” @ 1200 yards! 😉 memtb

Do you actually know what an "!" is for?

Barnes and any other mono is the worst choice one could choose.

What is the proper choice?

Like most of your opinions and statements…….incorrect! memtb

Like most of your opinions and statements…….incorrect!

And yes……I do know what an exclamation point means! If my use of it offends you…..tough titty! memtb


Exclamation mark
Punctuation mark to show emphasis
The exclamation mark is a punctuation mark usually used after an interjection or exclamation to indicate strong feelings or to show emphasis. The exclamation mark often marks the end of a sentence, for example: "Watch out!". Similarly, a bare exclamation mark is often used in warning signs. The exclamation mark is often used in writing to make a character seem as though they are shouting, excited, or surprised. Other uses include:
In mathematics, it denotes the factorial operation.…
Wikipedia

It doesn't offend me, it's just really annoying.

😂 ! memtb

What type of bullet performance did you observe this year?

Did not hunt with success…..no shots fired, this year! But previous seasons where shots were fired, and Barnes bullets used…. the bullet performance has “always” been very good! I can’t say that with cup and core bullets!

I do hope that my use of quotations does not also annoy you……not! memtb

My apologies to the OP for being a participant in derailing an otherwise great thread! memtb