6mm /.243 hunting success on Big Game

[Apex801108]

Great Buck!

Thank you sir.

I'd also like to thank Form for spreading the info and doing such a great job of educating the community.

Based on all the overwhelming evidence in some of these threads, and now my first hand experience, it's clear that bullets matter way more than headstamps. Hell, there's even an argument that some of these nasty little bullets cause too much destruction of tissue. Personally, I'd rather risk potentially losing a bit of meat rather than the whole animal by not doing enough.

 

[jamesmc8]

Keeping the train going with two other kills this year. Mule deer at 256 yards with Tikka 6 Creed 20" shooting 105 VLD @ 2920 MV. Hit right behind the shoulder. Photo is of the exit wound. Buck spun around in circles for about 10 seconds before dropping. Bullet was a full pass thru lungs had a good amount of trauma, perfect bullet performance in my view.

Second was a buck antelope at 310 yards. Using the same rifle & load as above. Buck was slightly quartering toward me. I held a bit too much wind hitting him farther back than I intended. Bullet hit the back side of the onside lung, hit part of liver before going thru the abdominal cavity and coming to rest under the hide where it was recovered (see photo). This was about 20" of penetration; the retained bullet weight of this 105 VLD was 60grains (57%). After being hit the buck hunched up and then ran about 40 yards where he stopped. I dialed another 0.4 mils and sent another round thru the high shoulder. This shot dropped him and exited.

So far have used the 105 VLD for kills on five different deer/antelope with perfect results. They have also been more accurate than Hornady ELDx/ELDM in both my rifles. I would like to try the 95 TMK if I can get my hands on some.

 

[Jake Larsen]

Keeping the train going with two other kills this year. Mule deer at 256 yards with Tikka 6 Creed 20" shooting 105 VLD @ 2920 MV. Hit right behind the shoulder. Photo is of the exit wound. Buck spun around in circles for about 10 seconds before dropping. Bullet was a full pass thru lungs had a good amount of trauma, perfect bullet performance in my view.

Second was a buck antelope at 310 yards. Using the same rifle & load as above. Buck was slightly quartering toward me. I held a bit too much wind hitting him farther back than I intended. Bullet hit the back side of the onside lung, hit part of liver before going thru the abdominal cavity and coming to rest under the hide where it was recovered (see photo). This was about 20" of penetration; the retained bullet weight of this 105 VLD was 60grains (57%). After being hit the buck hunched up and then ran about 40 yards where he stopped. I dialed another 0.4 mils and sent another round thru the high shoulder. This shot dropped him and exited.

So far have used the 105 VLD for kills on five different deer/antelope with perfect results. They have also been more accurate than Hornady ELDx/ELDM in both my rifles. I would like to try the 95 TMK if I can get my hands on some.

Curious if you tried the 108 EH or 115 VLDH during your load development? I like what I see from the 105 performance, just curious why you chose that one over the 108/115.


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[khuber84]

108eh performed perfectly for me last year, 7 animals. This year I'm loaded with 112s, womans creed with 109eldm. We have 9 deer tags to fill in next 10 days, it's going to be a murderous festival till turkey day. I'll share results!

 

[jamesmc8]

Curious if you tried the 108 EH or 115 VLDH during your load development? I like what I see from the 105 performance, just curious why you chose that one over the 108/115.


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Mostly availability at the time, did my load development last year when a lot of options were still hard to come by so I have not tried either the 108 or the 115. 105 shoot amazingly well out of both my 6 Creed and 6 ARC. The 108 and 115 offer a slightly better BC but not a drastic difference. I imagine they would shoot & perform very well.

 

[kkp005]

105gr hornady bthp out of a 20” 6mm creed.
Impact velocity around 2640fps. Shot him right behind the shoulder. Bullet exited and left a pretty good size exit. Surprisingly there was 0 blood trail and this 238 lb whitetail made it a little over 100 yards into the brush before running out of steam .

 

[sickles107]

Few more notches on the 6cm/108eldm this past week.





4x4 bull, long story short, first shot was 100% a mistake on my part. I popped out of a timber patch and saw this bull cross canyon above me ~250yds walking straight up and away in timber, I rushed the shot with quite a bit of reticle movement, sitting on a steep down slope aiming up, shooting off top of pack, aiming down top of chest/back. Bull hutched up and disappeared. Later found out bullet entered top rear of left shoulder, barley skirted rib cage, completely blew up left shoulder/scap, exited bottom front of shoulder. Tracked multiple bloody beds and finally caught up 3 miles later, follow up shots in chest dropped him. Wish I took more wound channel pics but it was getting dark and cold, had to get the quarters taken care of and looong walk back to camp.

Came in next day with a buddies horses to pack out, 15 mile round trip. Pretty awesome experience.

Maybe a bigger gun would have done more damage, but at the end of the day I made a poor decision to rush a non ideal shot in a non ideal position. Not the gun or bullets fault. Bullet did plenty of damage where it was put, just was not put in vitals...













Found this buck while running ridges, he was ~300yds cross canyon bedded, body hard quartered away but head turned around looking my way. Immediately layed down and set my rifle length wise on my pack and slipped bino harness under butt. super steady might as well have been on a bench rest. He was too quartered to confidently slip a bullet into back of lungs, though with his head turned almost 180 felt very confident aiming at front of shoulder/base of neck. Waited a minute or two to see if he would stand and give me a broadside shot, though when he started getting fidgety I thought about the possibility of him darting straight up and out of my life, so sent a round into the shoulder neck crease. Bang flop, dead buck. Entered base/side of neck, blew up esophagus and bottom of vertebrae, galf ball exit front/side of neck.

About 5 minutes after I got up to him, snow storm hit and held steady for the rest of the night. 1 tripped him out 8 miles, 17 degrees in the dark. Quite possibly the most brutal pack out of my life.

 

[Gtscotty]

Might as well go from the hardest 6mm hunt to the easiest: So there I was.... In my backyard.

Was up in a stand on my property yesterday and had this buck come in at about 45 yds in front of me at the same time that a doe was creeping up behind/under me. I could only see his head but as I was getting my rifle up, the doe spooked and bound a few times in his direction, he was watching her and took one more step exposing his neck, so I popped him in the neck. He dropped immediately paralyzed, but was still moving his head so I put one in his heart from the bottom of his chest.

About 30 minutes later a couple does came in on the same trail, stopped where he was for a while then moved on. When the first one came into a clear spot between trees at about 60yds, I shot her in the heart and she went ~20yds and piled up. I went up to the house to get my youngest son and my buggy then the neighbor and his son came over, we loaded up my two deer in the buggy, went and got a doe his boy had shot and took them all to the gutting tree.






Performance seemed good to me, the neck shot on the buck exited as well as the quartering shot on the doe, and her heart was totally fragged. I didn't see an exit from the shot that entered into the bottom of the Buck's chest and traveled up his neck, but there was lots of pulverized sternum some heart damage and lung soup.


The rifle was a 12.5" 6mm ARC that I had to rush to put together and sight in the weekend before, and the load was a 103gr ELDx/LVR load that I developed for my 18" ARC. MV was ~2,450 fps, about 200fps less than the same load out of the 18". What really makes it a killer though, is the chinesium camo stretch tape from Amazon.

 

[sierracharlie338]

The tape adds 100 foot pounds of energy without a doubt. @Gtscotty

 

[Reddish]

The tape adds 100 foot pounds of energy without a doubt. @Gtscotty

And extra knock down power.

 

[Savagenut]

243 80 grain ttsx 237 yards. Quartering to entry base of neck/shoulder junction. Exit behind offside shoulder. Didn’t take a step

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[khuber84]

I don't have a lot of pics, but my synopsis of the 112mb on 3 kills. 1st was 480y, high high shoulder, cns bang flop.
2nd two were perfect behind shoulder shots, 368y, 288y. The 288y shot the bullet went into between ribs, observed moderate damage to offside lung, caught offside rib on way out, half dollar size exit. Doe turned sideways at impact saw blood shooting out, made it bout 20y, and piled up. Offside lung was partially blown out the exit.
368y shot this morning, large mature doe, same exact placement mostly broadside, small entry in, small exit, minimal expansion but did catch and cut a hole through the heart. Deer made a 30ish yard death spring before face planting and sliding down snowy hill. Odd thing found, exit from chest cavity was 4" behind where the exit was from outside of body. The bullet basically made a near 90° turn. I saw the bullet hit snow behind deer at the shot, she hunched with the rear leg buck which I usually see with deer upon good shots to vital zone.

109eldm report: large bodied mulie buck for the woman, 320y. He was quartered to, shot entered font point of shoulder, good upsetting, severed windpipe totally off at the lungs, heavy trauma top lobes of offside lung. Bullet exited back half of offside shoulder, and ended up right under the hide.

All animals died quickly. I have not observed major upsetting with the 112s as some have found. All have exited. 109 did not. All animals have been off their feet quickly and remained down till death. Nothing has made it more than 30 yards on foot after impact before dirt nap.

 

[eoperator]

A few more kills with 20" 6cm 108eh, sorry I'm not much of a photographer.
pronghorn 460yrd drt with an exit
Pronghorn 465yrds drt with an exit

Wt deer 35yrds drt no exit
Wt deer 120yrds 40yrd sprint no exit no blood trail

 

[Jake Larsen]

A few more kills with 20" 6cm 108eh, sorry I'm not much of a photographer.
pronghorn 460yrd drt with an exit
Pronghorn 465yrds drt with an exit

Wt deer 35yrds drt no exit
Wt deer 120yrds 40yrd sprint no exit no blood trail

What sort of wound channel were you seeing with these? Similar to a TMK or more like an ELDX or Sierra TGK?


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[HingleMcCringleberry]

What sort of wound channel were you seeing with these? Similar to a TMK or more like an ELDX or Sierra TGK?


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I haven't noticed much difference between the 140eldm and 108eldm. In two bull elk and a few antelope.

 

[eoperator]

What sort of wound channel were you seeing with these? Similar to a TMK or more like an ELDX or Sierra TGK?


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Typical berger 3-4" neck and then rapidly fragmenting. They are stupid easy accurate but 0/5 have exited deer for me from 35-420yrds.

 

[gbflyer]

87gr Vmax 6mm-223 at about 75 yards. Head shot so probably doesn’t count.

 

[Taudisio]

87gr Vmax 6mm-223 at about 75 yards. Head shot so probably doesn’t count.

What barrel length/MV are you getting with yours?

 

[gbflyer]

What barrel length/MV are you getting with yours?

It’s a 16” bolt action, 2700-ish. I use H335, there’s better powders but I have a lifetime supply.

 

[Taudisio]

It’s a 16” bolt action, 2700-ish. I use H335, there’s better powders but I have a lifetime supply.

Mine is also 16” and I got x-terminator to push the vmax to 2750 so not much difference. I just tested the 95gr TMK today and got 2664 with h335. Just need to find some more in stock. It passes my vmax load at about 250 yards and velocity is 1800+ out to 500.