Elk Loads

[orionthehunter1]

Quick question for you more experienced guys I am thinking of going for elk this year in Colorado with my muzzleloader. I have killed quite a few deer with my setup which is a thomspon encore with 100grains of hodgdon triple 7 powder and 295 grain hollow point powerbelts. I have had a few guys tell me the powerbelts aren't that great for elk. They shoot really well out of my muzzleloader, so I hate to change. Are the powerbelts suitable for elk or do you have suggestions of another Colorado legal bullet I should try. Thanks

 

[sabotloader]

Quick question for you more experienced guys I am thinking of going for elk this year in Colorado with my muzzleloader. I have killed quite a few deer with my setup which is a thomspon encore with 100grains of hodgdon triple 7 powder and 295 grain hollow point powerbelts. I have had a few guys tell me the powerbelts aren't that great for elk. They shoot really well out of my muzzleloader, so I hate to change. Are the powerbelts suitable for elk or do you have suggestions of another Colorado legal bullet I should try. Thanks

The powder load you are using is really not that hot and with the 295 you might be OK. And you do not say which one it is. If it is the all lead or copper coated I would say Power Belts tend to pancake or even explode when driven to hard. Getting through an elk hide and or hitting a large bone with a 295 could be marginal. I would suggest switching to a FPB or a Thor. If not possibly move up to a 348 and I would go with the Aerolite version.

 

[CoHiCntry]

I'm not a big fan of powerbelts either. That being said I've killed both Elk and Mule Deer with a 295gr powerbelt aero tip and around 100 gr of T7. I've been using Thor bullets and they shoot great out of my T/C. I would recommend trying the Thor and maybe the Hornady FPB. I've not used the latter but have heard nothing bad about them. You could try the No Excuses, although I've never been able to get them to group with any consistency. Several guy's using them though.

 

[orionthehunter1]

Thanks guys I will try the thors. I am shooting the copper powerbelts if that makes a difference

 

[CoSwede]

My last 3 ML elk have been with the FPBs - one shot each. I've used both the 300 and 350 grain versions. My current encore load is 110 grains of Blackhorn with the 350 grain FPB. All shots with this load have all been between 30 - 80 yds with two pass - throughs and one was found on the hide on the far side of a 5x6. The one recovered bullet showed excellent expansion and weight retention. Been very happy with this load. View attachment 13336

 

[Woodsboss]

This year I used a 440 gr Parker with 100 gr of Triple 7. The load shot real well, killed a bull at 29 yds with it, not much of a test. My bro was shooting the same load, killed a bull at 40 yds with a complete pass through, again no real test. Both bulls went about 50 yds. The year before I shot a cow with 90 gr of pyrodex RS and a 385 gr Great Plains bullet. I really like the heavy bullets, no need to shoot light and fast. I like the slow/heavy loads to dissipate all it's energy into the animal. I'm limited to all lead projectiles in Idaho, these work for me. I've heard several stories of bullet failure with the Power belts.