Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Amax and elk

The picture of the recovered bullet above was fired from a 7WSM launching them at just under 3100 fps. It was the only one recovered that day, even though the load was used on more than one elk, with more than one shot on some, because the other bullets exited. One particular mule deer that I killed was shot at 40 yards using the same 162 AM fired from the 7WSM at 3112 fps muzzle velocity. The bullet went through both shoulder blades and exited the slight angling shot, leaving a 1.5" exit hole. No excessive damage in the wound channel.

The AM is a C&C bullet, and just like any other C&C bullet heavy for caliber bullet weights should go along with magnum velocities to avoid bullet disintegration. Your comment is not exclusive to the AM or target-style bullets in general.

This thread is like the hypothetical elk (all but Dennis's) shot with an Amax.

It just won't die.

Hypothetical?

Hypothetical = all of the elk that the premium bullet guys have talked about that don't die when shot with an Amax.

Top 3 elk I put on this thread were taken with a 162 AMAX. Great results, short recovery from crumpled when hit to a few steps. All shoulder/vitals. The one that went the farthest was the 4th one, mine, about a 200 yard recovery.
http://onyourownadventures.com/hunttalk/showthread.php?t=261263&highlight=Raghorn+express

That proves nothing except..........YOU SUCK!

How about all the elk shot with Barnes that were missed...then ran off and died.

Have you seen Jake's new rifle?....He's gonna be even deadlier now.

You should come up to my shoot....Jake will be there. 6.5 SAUM's are gonna steal the show......

who would a guy get to build a 6.5 SAUM?

Build long action or short? On a Tikka or Remington or?

GAP would be the one.

http://www.gaprecision.net/

Pat- haven't seen it yet but sure I'll see it soon - along with some unhappy bear. Would like to attend your shoot but can't swing it. Hopefully next year when I can shoot farther than 300 yards.

" Happiness is a warm gut pile..,,"

Yes we love the .260 George Gardner build for us (aka GAP), a super nice and accurate long range round. Now getting a 6.5 build on a Winchester action. Hope to take use it in Spain and Africa next year.

Many times. Usually when I'm carrying a levergun and shooting rimmed cartridges (.30-30, .375 Win, .45-70, .44 Mag). But that is a problem with the cartridge, not the bullet.

There have been times when cup-and-core performance failed to impress me. The first was my with my first elk when a Hornady 162g InterLock retained less than 50% of its starting weight and failed to exit, even though it had hit only one rib. Years later I took a similar shot (broadside, same range,same rifle) with a 160g Grand Slam. This time the bullet destroyed both shoulder joints before coming to rest under the hide. This time retained weight was over 70% and there was massive damage to the bones involved. Both elk went down but there is no way bullet performance was even close to the same. This, by the way, was the first Grand Slam I had recovered in the intervening 20 years that I had been using them.

Another time I hit a mulie buck in the right ham and recovered the bullet, a 140g 7mm North Fork SS, from up against the brisket. I would not expect a bullet for which the manufacturer claims limited penentration to perform as well in that situation.

My son-in-law mistakenly used the A-MAX practice loads instead of the TTSX hunting loads on an antelope. He got a lot of penetration, starting with the left backstrap and finishing in the left ham. Pretty much shredded them both.

Give me a bullet that will perform well under good circumstances as well as bad. I don't want to take a THS but if a possibly wounded animal is fleeing and that's all I have, the bullet in the pipe needs to be up to the challenge.

A little late....



The reason that Hornady no longer advertises the AMAX for hunting (as they once did) has absolutely nothing to do with performance in game, and everything to do with certain entities using Hornady Match ammo/bullets to kill bipedals.

Read that again. Now one more time.



Quite the opposite, most are tested specifically for terminal effects and tailored/tweaked to perform within certain parameters.

Read that again. Now one more time.



That'd not be a guess.





Amax's are no different than any other bullet. They all have different tendencies based on caliber and weight. There are certainly Amax's that "I" wouldn't choose to use on deer and diffidently on elk, but there are some that I would without hesitation.

People act as if terminal performance (how a bullet acts in tissue) is somehow magical. It is not. It is a known and quantified subject. There are certain parameters and terms that are used, however suffice to say that terminal performance is simply- how deep a bullet penetrates, how wide the wound channel is, and how consistently those two things are done while going through barriers (bone being a barrier). Once sufficient penetration has been reached, the wider the wound channel the faster the kill. Given same vitals impacted (no CNS), and sufficient penetration a BallisticTip will kill faster than a Barnes. Simply due to the wider wound.



For my use, I want a bullet to penetrate from the onside back of ribs to the offside shoulder of whatever game I am hunting. Preferably with an exit, however that is not mandatory. For smaller southern deer that means 16-20 inches of penetration. That means potentially a bit of intestine, liver, lungs, ribs into shoulder. On top of that I want the bullet that consistently produces the widest wound channel along those 16-20 inches.

No matter the game I generally want those same parameters. Lots and lots of bullets meet the penetration requirements, few meet the wound channel diameter requirement. Very, very, very few match the right AMAX in that regard.

Despite popular (un)informed thought, I would absolutely rather have a bullet meeting the above standards than a "deep" penetrator such as a Barns or Hornady GMX, when shooting an animal in the hips either from the side or from behind. In that situation you are not trying to kill the animal with one shot, but to anchor it and the wider the wound channel the more tissue destroyed. It is quite possible, and I have seen Barnes, etc. miss the spine or cause insufficient damage and the mammal covering a good distance with little blood after a hip/rear end shot. Have seen the same from Amax's and like bullets due to follow up shots and a few first shots, and NONE have moved at all after the hit. There is simply to much damage caused by the bullet.







I don't use them for every application, nor do I believe that they are the best choice for most people's uses, however I have killed hundreds of 100 pound and up animals, including elk, with Amax's and for what and where I use them there is simply no bullet that kills faster.

Bing! Bing! We have a winner! And I am glad to see more and more acceptance of "target" bullets working for game hunting. I also enjoy more people thinking for themselves, and relying less on advertisements to define their reality.

Why are you shooting the animal through the hips? Must not care much about all that good meat. You hit them in the hips with an amax and you will have a pile of shredded, blood-shot meat.

It has been an interesting thread and I'm glad to know some Amax bullets can be used effectively on game, and maybe SST as well?

The rifles I now own are accurate with Speer Hotcor flat base, Hornady SP or factory federal blue box and if I buy a rifle that is not, I will have a new option.