All things .308 Win

Joined
Mar 13, 2024
Messages
632
Location
Missoula, MT
the buggy details please! and nice shootin
You bet.

I have a hunting buddy I hunt with often. He was coming down the mountain hunting with his son for the day and I was arriving to set up my camper for the week of hunting. My buddy said he saw some elk but couldn’t get a shot so headed down. I thought…dang, I better get up there this afternoon and see if I could get lucky with other elk maybe passing through…which they pass through often in this particular area.

So I headed up the hill at a full clip. There’s no decent hunting on the way up as you’re in a drainage until you hit the ridge line. It’s quite the pull and will leave you sweaty by the time you reach the top. When you reach the top I usually change layers and start glassing and poking around at hunting pace. I made my way over to a good glassing spot and started looking for animals. Low a behold, I found them right away. They were down the ridge line a couple of miles and moving toward private land that isn’t legal to hunt. They were meandering and I saw no orange jackets in the area. I looked at my watch and figured I could make this work before dark, but I’d have to hustle. And that’s what I did. I basically jogged/ran my way to them.

The country they were located in was somewhat rolling hills down the ridge line. Grassy sage with the occasional ponderosa pine. I ended up coming to a nice saddle completely obscured from their view prior to the ridge I wanted to shoot from and dropped my pack. I had my Leica rangefinder binos on my chest and my Tikka CTR. I made haste up the next hill and used a downed tree as cover at the summit. I made my way laterally around the base of the tree and could see the heard of about 18 on the opposite side of the next hill down the ridge. They were getting ready to cross onto private. I thought to myself, “shoulder shot, so my target doesn’t run with the herd onto private.” I had my Gunwerks bipod (amazing unit BTW) and settled in for a prone shot. I ranged a couple cows and they were right in the 600-605 range. I finally decided which one I wanted and ranged carefully a couple of times. IIRC, it was 603 actual and 600 corrected for slope. So, right on 600. I checked my calculator and dialed accordingly. I took the shot, watch it hit the cow in the shoulder, and she collapsed. All they elk looked around, but could figure out what happened with the long shot that was suppressed with my TBAC 7. I watched her for a bit with no movement.

I was psyched! Longest shot on game I have ever made!

“Now the work begins,” I thought to myself. I walked down the hill back to my pack and trekking poles still feeling the rush. I grabbed them and headed back up to the top of the hill where I made my shot. I glassed where I shot her and she still hadn’t moved. The rest of the herd moved onto private land, however.

I made my way to her and the light started fading. I decided against a photo as I was in pretty deep (5ish miles) and I had a lot of work to do. I got the butchering done by about 2300 and everything hung in a tree by midnight. I loaded a front shoulder on my pack and made the long hike back to camp. The spot where i hung my game was up on the ridge line and had cell service. I was able to text my buddies and loved ones I got an animal. My buddies were coming up the next day.

I finally got back to camp and put the quarter in my cooler. I got into bed at about 0200 the next morning. I think I put on 15ish miles as per my tracking on ONX.

The next day my buddies showed up before dawn to get up the hill and get some hunting done. They knocked on my camper door, but I was toast…I didn’t even hear them. Good buddies that they are, they packed all the rest of the meat up to a good meeting spot where I met them later in the morning with my game cart. That’s where the photo was taken.
 

Jbehredt

WKR
Joined
Mar 4, 2017
Messages
1,829
Location
Colorado
Found it

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Headed off to google “federal 168 tru tmk” :)

ETA couple boxes inbound.
 
OP
H

Hondo64d

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Dec 6, 2016
Messages
293
Location
The Big Country
Berger 185 OTM Tactical / Juggernaut at 2600 fps will get you 1800 ft lbs out to about 350 to 375 yds depending on elevation, etc. It is one of the easiest bullets to tune that I have ever seen. It kills.

a 200 Hybrid at 2500 fps will get you another 50 yds, maybe.

44 gr Varget and 185 Juggernauts at 100 yds off a bipod while zeroing a scope.View attachment 835335
Ballistic AE tells me that bullet will get to about 580 yards before dropping to 1800fps.

John
 
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