I’ve debated the eldm but after the failure with Berger hunting, It
Was nosler bonded or something like hammer hunters.
Was nosler bonded or something like hammer hunters.
Solids work okay, run light for cal as fast as possible and put them through the shoulders. I ran PVA cayuga solids for a season taking several game animals, first and last season to use those. Results were very inconsistent. Their alloy is def harder than a Mcguire copper rose or hammer HHT tho.
Mine is a relatively small sample of one, but the 175 elite out of my 7SAUM put a bull down less than 10 yards and 20 seconds from when the bullet hit him. Impact velocity about 2580 fps IIRC.
My 22in 8.5tw should be arriving any day. I'll be testing the 162 eldm and 160tmk for killing. The tmk performs in devastating fashion on game. Usually it's too much. But I'd rather have too much than not enough.
A shot an elk at 300 yd with a 175ELDX out of a 7WSM. Going 2960 with RL26. Shot placement was perfect, but the bullet hit a rib right behind the shoulder. The animal put its head down and started walking forward and then turned around and I shot again and hit it on the other side and then it turned around and started walking in the opposite direction again and I chambered a third round amazed at what I was seeing. The animal finally collapsed and when I got up to it to gut it, I saw both entrance wounds. When I pulled the guts out all the organs up high that were against that rib cage on that first shot were shredded. But there was no penetration. When we hung it up and pulled the hide off, you could see what happened. There was a silver dollar sized hole right in the middle of a rib bone. The second round did its job but the first round just grenaded and was superficial. The second round did it's job but it certainly wasn't DRT. What's worse is that I shot those bullets into pork shoulders at 200yds, two weeks prior to the hunt and I was disappointed with what I saw. They were explosive and there wasn't a bullet core to recover. I was able to find the cup of the jacket, mangled and very incomplete. Pieces of copper jacket, red tip material, lead fragments. I ordered two boxes of 175gr Nosler Accubond LRs but the retailer was slow to ship and I didn't have time to load dev, shoot at distance, and all that. The rifle shot the 175ELDXs really well so I just went with them. But I did my homework, saw the results, and just didn't have time to heed.
After the hunt, I did some cursery loading of the Accubonds and they just shot okay. Never used them, instead went with Barnes 168gr LRX.
It's one thing to blow up bullets on Antelope and mule deer. They're small enough that that will work. But I think elk just cross the threshold to where every once in awhile that total energy dump doesn't make it deep enough. Hence a bonded bullet.
After the hunt, I did some cursery loading of the Accubonds and they just shot okay. Never used them, instead went with Barnes 168gr LRX.
It's one thing to blow up bullets on Antelope and mule deer. They're small enough that that will work. But I think elk just cross the threshold to where every once in awhile that total energy dump doesn't make it deep enough. Hence a bonded bullet.
Shot my 2023 bull at 560 yards with a 175 elite going 3k from barrel. And first shot went thru shoulder and straight pencil pass thru. Second shot straight thru vitals. Needless to taste Berger’s hunting put a bad taste in my mouth after that. Luckily I was still able to harvest my bull after a couple more shots.
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I have some 208 Amax’s I should try them just to see what it’s capable of. The 143 ELDX has shot ridiculously well in three different 6.5 CM’s I’ve shot them in and haven’t been picky load wise either. For elk hunting though, I want a stout bullet. This barrel has a “two close together, one an inch away” problem. Here’s a group I threw together with 175 LRX’s:
