Elk at 500 yards with a .270?

[Shrek]

You should be fine at that range. I would never recommend a mono metal bullet. A mono bullet will always have a lower retained energy for equal weight bullets and poor expansion at longer ranges. Anytime your bullet passes completely through an animal it has been less immediately leathal. It’s taking energy out the other side and relieving the hydraulic shock wave by cutting a hole for that energy to escape the body. It kills if it goes through vitals but unless you hit the central nervous system directly the animal is going to run some. A violently expanding bullet that penetrates the chest cavity but doesn’t exit the far side does devastating damage. The shockwave spreading from the bullet will expand in a wide cone as the bullet fragments and gives up its energy inside the vital organs. The shock wave causes a stunning effect to the central nervous system and the animal often drops instantly and by the time the nervous system starts to recover the massive blood loss and pressure drop keeps the animal down to complete death. I pick my shots and don’t expect nor want my bullet to pass through both shoulders. Even when you hit an animal back some in the liver or back of the lungs the hydraulic shock turns the organs to soup and the animal expires quickly. Almost every animal I have needed to track was a pass through. Retained weight is a marketing gimmick. Elk are not particularly tough bodied animals. They’re big is all. Unless you hit the shoulder ball you should penetrate fine. Always be ready to put another bullet in one if it’s still standing after the first shot. That goes for whatever you’re shooting an elk with , 243 or 500 nitro , if it’s still on it’s feet shoot it again !

 

[brsnow]

You should be fine at that range. I would never recommend a mono metal bullet. A mono bullet will always have a lower retained energy for equal weight bullets and poor expansion at longer ranges. Anytime your bullet passes completely through an animal it has been less immediately leathal. It’s taking energy out the other side and relieving the hydraulic shock wave by cutting a hole for that energy to escape the body. It kills if it goes through vitals but unless you hit the central nervous system directly the animal is going to run some. A violently expanding bullet that penetrates the chest cavity but doesn’t exit the far side does devastating damage. The shockwave spreading from the bullet will expand in a wide cone as the bullet fragments and gives up its energy inside the vital organs. The shock wave causes a stunning effect to the central nervous system and the animal often drops instantly and by the time the nervous system starts to recover the massive blood loss and pressure drop keeps the animal down to complete death. I pick my shots and don’t expect nor want my bullet to pass through both shoulders. Even when you hit an animal back some in the liver or back of the lungs the hydraulic shock turns the organs to soup and the animal expires quickly. Almost every animal I have needed to track was a pass through. Retained weight is a marketing gimmick. Elk are not particularly tough bodied animals. They’re big is all. Unless you hit the shoulder ball you should penetrate fine. Always be ready to put another bullet in one if it’s still standing after the first shot. That goes for whatever you’re shooting an elk with , 243 or 500 nitro , if it’s still on it’s feet shoot it again !

You have ingested a fair amount of lead it seems like.

 

[Mike Islander]

You should be fine at that range. I would never recommend a mono metal bullet. A mono bullet will always have a lower retained energy for equal weight bullets and poor expansion at longer ranges. Anytime your bullet passes completely through an animal it has been less immediately leathal. It’s taking energy out the other side and relieving the hydraulic shock wave by cutting a hole for that energy to escape the body. It kills if it goes through vitals but unless you hit the central nervous system directly the animal is going to run some. A violently expanding bullet that penetrates the chest cavity but doesn’t exit the far side does devastating damage. The shockwave spreading from the bullet will expand in a wide cone as the bullet fragments and gives up its energy inside the vital organs. The shock wave causes a stunning effect to the central nervous system and the animal often drops instantly and by the time the nervous system starts to recover the massive blood loss and pressure drop keeps the animal down to complete death. I pick my shots and don’t expect nor want my bullet to pass through both shoulders. Even when you hit an animal back some in the liver or back of the lungs the hydraulic shock turns the organs to soup and the animal expires quickly. Almost every animal I have needed to track was a pass through. Retained weight is a marketing gimmick. Elk are not particularly tough bodied animals. They’re big is all. Unless you hit the shoulder ball you should penetrate fine. Always be ready to put another bullet in one if it’s still standing after the first shot. That goes for whatever you’re shooting an elk with , 243 or 500 nitro , if it’s still on it’s feet shoot it again !

At equal weight and velocity the copper/mono will generally have more energy at 500 yards due to additional velocity. This is because you get a higher bc at the same weight (larger volume). At equal dimensions you will generally get less energy due to lower weight. In thousands of tests, there is very little difference in lethality and meters travelled after the shot for equal weight mono and jacketed bullets. That applies to modern mono bullets.

 

[bamagun]

150gr ABLR out of a 270wsm at 505yds seemed to be at the far end of the range for that bullet. 2x shots put him down within a couple of steps, but recovered one bullet and expansion was almost non existent

 

[Shrek]

At equal weight and velocity the copper/mono will generally have more energy at 500 yards due to additional velocity. This is because you get a higher bc at the same weight (larger volume). At equal dimensions you will generally get less energy due to lower weight. In thousands of tests, there is very little difference in lethality and meters travelled after the shot for equal weight mono and jacketed bullets. That applies to modern mono bullets.

Opposite is true. At equal weight and muzzle velocity the denser lead core bullet will have a higher BC and retain more velocity/energy down range. It’s the reason Barnes made the original lrx bullets cored with bismuth. Same heavier than lead metal as used in Heavy Shot non toxic waterfowl loads. An example of identical weight 7mm 168gr bullets the Barnes LRX carries a G1 BC of .550 and a Berger 168gr VLD has a G1 BC of .618. All the marketing in the world won’t make an all guilded metal bullet perform as well as a denser lead cored bullet ballistically. There’s also the problem of appropriate twist rates for the much longer for weigh solid bullets. And the problem of the longer for weight bullet at the heavy end of the weight range being pushed so far down into the case to make them fit factory magazines. Barnes bullets is a marketing clown show...as PT Barnum famously said “there’s a sucker born every minute”.

 

[sneaky]

Opposite is true. At equal weight and muzzle velocity the denser lead core bullet will have a higher BC and retain more velocity/energy down range. It’s the reason Barnes made the original lrx bullets cored with bismuth. Same heavier than lead metal as used in Heavy Shot non toxic waterfowl loads. An example of identical weight 7mm 168gr bullets the Barnes LRX carries a G1 BC of .550 and a Berger 168gr VLD has a G1 BC of .618. All the marketing in the world won’t make an all guilded metal bullet perform as well as a denser lead cored bullet ballistically. There’s also the problem of appropriate twist rates for the much longer for weigh solid bullets. And the problem of the longer for weight bullet at the heavy end of the weight range being pushed so far down into the case to make them fit factory magazines. Barnes bullets is a marketing clown show...as PT Barnum famously said “there’s a sucker born every minute”.

Yeah, but the Barnes bullet works and the Berger is a crap shoot. I've had more bullet failures with Berger's than all other bullet brands combined. I'll take a Barnes over a Berger any day of the week.

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[sneaky]

Tell us Shrek, how many animals have you shot with a mono bullet? I've shot dozens and seen hundreds more. Dead as any other magical lead cored bullet would kill them. Ground slappers on a majority of them.

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[Shrek]

Tell us Shrek, how many animals have you shot with a mono bullet? I've shot dozens and seen hundreds more. Dead as any other magical lead cored bullet would kill them. Ground slappers on a majority of them.

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Animals I have shot with mono bullets add up to a bunch of squirrels and rabbits. The bullets were cheap lead 22lr. As for large animals killed with cup and pour lead core bullets the white tails run well over a thousand doing crop damage shooting in South Georgia in the late eighties to early nineties. Back then I used 6mm 105gr Sierras in my 6mm Remington. It’s a target bullet much like the Bergers I use today in my 6.5 saum and 7-08. Even after I wasn’t shooting over soybeans in the summer I would still shoot 20 plus a year up to about ‘14. I’ve slowed way down since then and only shoot a couple a year now. As for elk I’ve personally killed one and been part of helping with a half dozen more.
There’s no doubt that either type bullet will kill but one is handicapped in the BC and expansion department. I don’t like to track animals.

 

[Where's Bruce?]

 

[Sako76]

You will be fine, I was out in Colorado in 2018 and two guys from Kansas doubled up on two bulls bedded at 450 yards, both using 270's. One was DRT and the other went a whopping 10 yards, sorry, I don't know what bullet they were using, they weren't very friendly or talkative.

 

[Indian Summer]

I’m a Nosler fan. Partitions can't be beat for performance. I use Accubonds for longer rang accuracy. My .300 RUM will zip a 200 grainer through animal at close range without expanding. Further away they work like a charm.

 

[KurtR]

500 yards is not that far so bc really is inconsequential. Know what kind of bullet you are shooting and how to place it. If I am shooting a Barnes break both front shoulders and it is a done deal. Can’t run with only two legs. If your shooting a softer cup core bullet take the classic behind the shoulder and it will die holes on lungs and hearts kill stuff. While bullets do matter practice and precise placement of said bullet matters way more.

 

[Mike Islander]

Opposite is true. At equal weight and muzzle velocity the denser lead core bullet will have a higher BC and retain more velocity/energy down range. It’s the reason Barnes made the original lrx bullets cored with bismuth. Same heavier than lead metal as used in Heavy Shot non toxic waterfowl loads. An example of identical weight 7mm 168gr bullets the Barnes LRX carries a G1 BC of .550 and a Berger 168gr VLD has a G1 BC of .618. All the marketing in the world won’t make an all guilded metal bullet perform as well as a denser lead cored bullet ballistically. There’s also the problem of appropriate twist rates for the much longer for weigh solid bullets. And the problem of the longer for weight bullet at the heavy end of the weight range being pushed so far down into the case to make them fit factory magazines. Barnes bullets is a marketing clown show...as PT Barnum famously said “there’s a sucker born every minute”.

It all depends on bullet design. Of the Barnes Jacketed 130 grain bullets, most have a lower bc than their 129 grain LRX. Any one of those will have less velocity at 500 yards than the LRX. At identical weight velocity is what determines energy (1/2xMxV^2). Even Barnes' most efficient bullet in 130 (bc = 0.466) will only carry 13% more energy, but all the others are less than the mono.

But as we know, energy isn't the metric for whether a bullet will do its work. Expansion velocity is. Shock in the wound channel is similar for both types of bullet, and the one thing that matters, lethality, is almost indistinguishable, with very little difference in how far they run after the shot.

Hunters argued a lot about lethality and distance after the shot for copper bullets for many years. But since their introduction there have been several studies using 1000s of animals to determine whether there is a significant difference in either metric. With modern monos, there is no significant difference. And in some studies the mono bullets resulted in even more DRT kills.

 

[MJB]

Copper has come a long ways but I'd shoot lead any day over copper.

 

[3darcher2]

Bottom line is there is no elk on the planet that can't be killed with a decent shot with any of several bullets at 500 from a 270.

 

[kcm2]

I can tell you that the 130 partition out of a 270 will kill elk at 519. And I have a lot of data points from close range to that distance.

And I can also say with certainty that the 130 GMX Hornady expands well on pronghorn at 462 and much closer, as well as elk at 150-280.

I think you'll be fine with a good hit.

 

[Elktaco]

Shot placement

 

[SBAHunts]

isn't really about shot placement rather caliber & bullet type. Placement Trumps all I think (no pun intended)

 

[flatlanderhuffandpuff]

Thanks for all of the input. It turned into a pretty interesting discussion.

I'm happy to hear the consensus that the .270 is more than capable at 500 yards. If I'm ready to pull the trigger at 500 I'll likely have an opportunity at 125.

Thanks!

 

[bluetick78]

I've posted this on here before somewhere, but the most spectacular one shot kill I've ever seen on an elk was a 270 win, 130 partition @ around 500. The 270 is an extremely capable elk rifle in practiced hands.