Ballistics and Elk

[nphunter]

When i killed most of my rifle elk it was with Remington core lokt or Winchester silver tips (the silver tips looked cool). It was whatever coast to coast or the local hardware store had in stock. That was before the internet when ballistics didn’t really get talked about nor did 500+ yard shots. I was always taught to get as close as I could and wait for a good shot. Most of my rifle kills have been under 100 yards, even in open country, elk are easy to get close to IMO there is no reason to take a super far shot unless your just doing it for fun.
I built a 280AI and that is when I started worrying about ballistics because I wanted a 1K rifle. The Ackley hits steel awesome at 1K but the furthest I have killed an elk with it is under 200 yards. My wife killed one cow at 330 and it was all I could do to get her to wait that long. If she would have waited another 5 minutes it would have feed to within 200 if she kept course, my wife didn’t want to leave it to chance.
I did take ballistics into consideration when building reduced recoil rounds for my kids 6.5cm when they were little and because they were low energy rounds I went with a Berger hybrid for better expansion at lower speeds and with less energy.

I will say I’ve seen more people split their eye or noses open with huge magnums than I’ve seen people kill elk with them.

 

[Kimber7man]

Probably against the ballistic rules of killing elk, but shot this one in 2019 with my 6mm Remington and a 95 grain ballistic tip, 123 yards. Probably ran 75 yards and done.

Shot behind the near shoulder, broke the off shoulder, again, bullet just under the hide. The core separated from the jacket, but a pretty big ask of a cup and core not to...

IIRC those 95 BT were designed by Gail Root at Nosler and are one stout little bullet that kills well above its weight...

 

[PRC_GUY]

I am all about shoot placement, I shoot 300 WM and I never shoot beyond 300 yards to kill games.