6.5 Creedmoor/260 for Deer, Elk, and whatever else.....

[curtiswayne101]

Has anyone tried the 142 Sierra MKX?

 

[General RE LEE]

No pictures of wounds but my 2nd solid shot with the 6.5 PRC. 130 CX at about 60 yards. Bullet went directly through scapula and caused massive internal damage to lungs and heart I’m assuming from bone shards and potential petal shedding at such close distance. DRT within 1 minute. Also fun fact, an entire button buck fits in an elk front quarter bag.
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View attachment 976734

Awww you swaddled the baby

 

[amassi]

You’re right- I should be more specific. 140-147 grain bullets. I don’t want to reload - just something to get to 600 yards. Just trying to gauge if the extra 2” of barrel will translate into any extended performance. I plan to suppress it - I know what an 18” 6creed gets me but that will cost me another $4-500 for a barrel

The match 140 ELD-M is loping along at 2590 out of my 18” good to 600 at sea level


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[frasier2122]

Got my first ever deer. This thread seems like an appropriate place to share. A big thanks to all here (and in many other threads) for the helpful information and inspiration. Not that it probably made much difference on a <100 yd shot from a stand... But better to over prepare.

Tikka T3X in 6.5 CM shooting factory 147 ELDMs. Approx 90 yard shot; approx 2511 FPS on impact. Deer was quartering to. Despite having all of the time in the world, I definitely placed the shot too far back. Deer bucked and ran out of sight behind a row of trees. Zero blood trail. Luckily, there was a fairly obvious route for the deer to run around some low cedar trees, and he was right there. Maybe ran 40 yards total. Entrance was caliber sized hole. I don't think there was any exit through the hide. When dragging, I only noticed blood coming out of the entrance. When skinning, it looked like significant fragmentation made it through to the back hide--gut was poking out--but I didn't see anything bullet fragments. Moving him around, it sounded like soup was sloshing around inside. We quartered him, but never ended up gutting so don't have any internal wound track pics.

Second pic is caliber sized entrance; third pic is exit.

My thoughts:

• Maybe 147 ELDMs were not the best pick? I figured that I would have longer shot opportunities, but the furthest I could see from my spot was ~200, and I don't even know if I would want to shoot that far resting my gun on a stand rail.
• Need to better account for deer's angle to/from me. I've studied shot placement at various angles, but just didn't connect the dots in the moment. Fortunately, I think I still caught a lot of lung, and at that range the fragmentation was probably devastating.
• I haven't had any success still hunting up in PA, but I think I prefer that to sitting in a tripod stand for hours and waiting for deer to wander by. Hard to argue with success, though. Especially on public land.