6mm /.243 hunting success on Big Game

[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.

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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.
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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.

364 days later on 11/23/25, managed to whack another backyard buck with a shorty 6mm ARC. The 12.5" KAK barrel I used last year wasn't really where I wanted it accuracy wise so I sent it back and ordered a 13" mlgs X-caliber lightweight barrel, and it has been exactly what I was looking for.

I'd been seeing this buck on cameras around the place occasionally since summer, back then he was running with two other bucks, one of which was also pretty decent. Anyway, he came up next to the knob I was on about 40 yds away, one 103gr ELDx later he trotted/ stumbled a little ways and was down. The bullet exited and left a healthy blood trail, which even had a sizeable and easily recognizable piece of lung in it.







Exit side

Son #1 helping me at the gutting tree.

Entry

Exit


I was thinking about trying 108gr ELDms this year for shits and giggles since I have a good load for those as well, but was impressed with how uniform the performance was on the ELDx's at different ranges/velocities in one of Grendel hunter's recent videos and decided to stick with the 103s since they've been treating me well.

 

[ezwy]

364 days later on 11/23/25, managed to whack another backyard buck with a shorty 6mm ARC. The 12.5" KAK barrel I used last year wasn't really where I wanted it accuracy wise so I sent it back and ordered a 13" mlgs X-caliber lightweight barrel, and it has been exactly what I was looking for.

I'd been seeing this buck on cameras around the place occasionally since summer, back then he was running with two other bucks, one of which was also pretty decent. Anyway, he came up next to the knob I was on about 40 yds away, one 103gr ELDx later he trotted/ stumbled a little ways and was down. The bullet exited and left a healthy blood trail, which even had a sizeable and easily recognizable piece of lung in it.

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Exit side
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Son #1 helping me at the gutting tree.
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Entry
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Exit
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I was thinking about trying 108gr ELDms this year for shits and giggles since I have a good load for those as well, but was impressed with how uniform the performance was on the ELDx's at different ranges/velocities in one of Grendel hunter's recent videos and decided to stick with the 103s since they've been treating me well.

Very nice! What is your optic?

 

[liv3mind]

I was thinking about trying 108gr ELDms this year for shits and giggles since I have a good load for those as well, but was impressed with how uniform the performance was on the ELDx's at different ranges/velocities in one of Grendel hunter's recent videos and decided to stick with the 103s since they've been treating me well.

Awesome! I shot 2 deer back to back yesterday with 103eldx and 108eldm at almost identical distance. I only gutted the eldx, but comparing entry and exit the eldx seemed to do slightly more damage. Entry had more bruising, exit was a little bigger.