Picking the RIGHT hunting caliber/cartridge for the job. By the numbers

[Wrench]

Was this whole thing a question or a statement?

I know for a fact that between myself and two other posters, there's nearly 100 dead elk to draw experience from.

You've been lead to the answer a few times.

Use your trusted KPS, but make sure the variables you choose keep the pill inside the necessary velocity window.

It's that easy.

 

[bsnedeker]

If mental masturbation was a thread.....

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[260madman]

guilty as charged

Oh man, enjoy your knee replacements

 

[packgoatguy]

Was this whole thing a question or a statement?

I know for a fact that between myself and two other posters, there's nearly 100 dead elk to draw experience from.

You've been lead to the answer a few times.

Use your trusted KPS, but make sure the variables you choose keep the pill inside the necessary velocity window.

It's that easy.

I agree. That is why my suggested criteria includes the KPS scale, as well as a minimum velocity and energy threshold. The KPS scale does not paint the whole picture in and of itself, in my opinion. My minimum threshold of 2000feet per second of velocity on target represents a comfortable margin for most modern bullets to perform adequately. Unless i am shooting my 28 nosler at sub 200 yard ranges, I dont risk being outside of the performance threshold on the high end of the velocity scale (but that said, that is one reason the ELDX gives me pause, because I dont like how it performs at velocities in excess of 2800fps... too explosive for my taste).

You bring up a good point though. Amongst all the posters here, including myself, we have a wealth of anecdotal evidence of the performance characteristics of various cartridge choices and bullet types. It would be very interesting to create a spreadsheet with the hundreds of elk harvested among us, detailing the cartridge used, bullet type used, the range of the initial shot, how quickly and under what circumstances each one expired (or if they were lost). It would be interesting to run a statistical analysis that showed both hunter preferences, real world target distances experienced, and bullet performance among various velocities and types. My question to you is, what cartridges have you used to harvest your portion of the 100 elk you speak of? And what ranges, and what bullets?

 

[Wrench]

From 257 through 375 and 10 feet to distance I won't share for a new argument.

They all died within 50 yards, many in their tracks and I never felt that any died any deader than the last.

I personally have had more bang flops with a 264/140.....but that's likely because I was so far away that they were dead before the report arrived.

 

[Stinky Coyote]

Too much overlap for me with a 223 and a 6.5 creed. Plus having to deal with goofy mags and a goofy bolt face. No plan on ever hunting with an AR.

Now a 6br hunting rifle….That would get the blood moving.

Have a good bud who's hunted with a 6-dasher plenty, usually plays around with something bigger to keep him interested in shooting, latest may be a 7 saum but always keeps a dasher or two ready to go and his primary go to, he's smashed critters at 500m and impressive damage with 105's, bang flops and his 500m groups are ridiculously tiny. The 6 Arc must have you somewhat excited then? It's a factory 6 now finally that can play with the BR and Dasher and should become more popular than either or combined. I'm excited about it in the sense that it will drive far more popularity for it's 6.5mm big brother in terms of platforms available because I'm a 6.5 Grandma hoe.

 

[TaperPin]

The best/most successful elk hunter I’ve known probably hunts 4 weeks a year and scouts as much. His cartridge of choice is 257 roberts - shots are under 200 yards - broadside lung shots. He has a big pile of 6 point bulls all taken with the same rifle.

 

[Clarktar]

Do what?

Killing power score and foot pounds of energy are of ZERO value in terms of effective terminal performance.

If you want to kill elk to ‘X‘ distance, skip the nonsense above and make your choice based on the projectile that delivers an ideal wound channel for efficient terminal performance to that distance and perhaps, beyond.

Bullets matter. KPS and ft lbs of energy don’t.

How do you go about selecting the bullet? If you choose a distance and have a good idea of your impact velocity on that distance how to you figure out which type of bullet or bullet construction is a good choice?

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[PNWGATOR]

Really good question.

Depth of penetration, wound channel desired (neck length, permanent crush cavity, temporary stretch cavity) and BC all are huge factors in choosing the correct projectile. I want to deliver the ‘ideal’ projectile at the necessary impact velocity at the desired distance via the lowest felt recoil to maximize my hit rates.

@Formidilosus was instrumental in facilitating this approach and truly has an understanding of objective terminal performance and the sources of testing data.

Can not stress how important projectile selection is!

 

[Clarktar]

Really good question.

Depth of penetration, wound channel desired (neck length, permanent crush cavity, temporary stretch cavity) and BC all are huge factors in choosing the correct projectile. I want to deliver the ‘ideal’ projectile at the necessary impact velocity at the desired distance via the lowest felt recoil to maximize my hit rates.

@Formidilosus was instrumental in facilitating this approach and truly has an understanding of objective terminal performance and the sources of testing data.

Can not stress how important projectile selection is!

I can understand the importance. But how does a person implement "bullet selection"? Where can you find information on those characteristics to match a bullet with a users known impact velocity? I also want to deliver a projectile at the necessary impact velocity to get desired results.

I would prefer a few inches of penetration before the bullet sheds any material, mushrooms, or whatever else it is designed to do for a wound channel.

There are times where I look for a high shoulder shot in the hopes of "anchoring" an animal right where it is. Seems like a bullet that holds together has a better chance at penetrating the shoulder blade and doing some damage once it breaks through?

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[Formidilosus]

I can understand the importance. But how does a person implement "bullet selection"? Where can you find information on those characteristics to match a bullet with a users known impact velocity? I also want to deliver a projectile at the necessary impact velocity to get desired results.

Properly conducted 10% organic ballistic gelatin testing is the only way without shooting live tissue hundreds of times.

Unfortunately, while there is quite a bit of proper testing done on projectiles for human use, there isn’t a bunch of widely available publicly accessible gel testing for most hunting hunting bullets. That may be changing soon’ish @Ryan Avery. In the mean time, one can use the data available about use in humans for extrapolation. Hornady, Speer, Federal, Barnes, Blackhills, etc all have pictures and video of properly conducted ballistic gel testing. The information for how you interpret it is available in these two threads. Read them in their entirety, as there is probably more condensed information on factual terminal ballistics in them than anywhere else in the internet.

.223 for bear, mountain goat, deer, elk, and moose.

DON'T HAVE TIME TO READ 176 PAGES? HERE'S THE CHEAT SHEET. “Bullets matter more than headstamps.” “Spent primers offer the supreme tutorial”. I’ve read it here and elsewhere online. It got my attention. I started digging and asking questions and listened. The 77gr TMK delivered by a .223...

rokslide.com

Why Match/Target Bullets For Hunting

My belief has always been that wind would cause more misses than any other factor, but I don't have the experience to state that definitively. Just too many variables with the wind. Learning to read it, especially over mixed terrain, would take a crapton of experience. Wind is by far the...

rokslide.com

I would prefer a few inches of penetration before the bullet sheds any material, mushrooms, or whatever else it is designed to do for a wound channel.

Berger VLD’s.

There are times where I look for a high shoulder shot in the hopes of "anchoring" an animal right where it is. Seems like a bullet that holds together has a better chance at penetrating the shoulder blade and doing some damage once it breaks through?

No. The scapula (shoulder blade) is as tick or less than standard cardboard. The myth that bullets “blow up” on shoulders is so incorrect as to be laughable.

 

[Clarktar]

Thanks @Formidilosus and others.

Sounds like my choice to use bergers and scenars is still valid for my uses. Good to know!

I'll go through those threads.

I wonder if I can get my hands on some gel and do some of my own testing!

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[TaperPin]

It just dawned on me how interesting it was in my 20s working for a butcher during hunting season as a skinner. If someone ever has spare time and is personable enough to chat up a butcher doing a lot of *insert animal here* they will have a lot of stories clients passed on about caliber and bullets and whatnot. Elk come in with plenty of holes, and not every bone that’s hit actually breaks.

 

[mt100gr.]

It just dawned on me how interesting it was in my 20s working for a butcher during hunting season as a skinner. If someone ever has spare time and is personable enough to chat up a butcher doing a lot of *insert animal here* they will have a lot of stories clients passed on about caliber and bullets and whatnot. Elk come in with plenty of holes, and not every bone that’s hit actually breaks.

Which bones did you personally observe that withstood direct hits from rifle bullets?

Have you read the ".223" and "match bullets" threads mentioned above?

 

[TaperPin]

Which bones did you personally observe that withstood direct hits from rifle bullets?

Have you read the ".223" and "match bullets" threads mentioned above?

All Kinds of big bones with chips and missing chunks, but otherwise functional. Plenty of guys still think “breaking down” an elk with shoulder shots is a great plan, but there were plenty of holes in the shoulder region that never touched a bone. I’ll bet plenty of ”misses” actually made contact, but by the time the elk fell over it wasn’t easy to find and the thick shoulder hair soaked up what would be a blood trail.

An odd number of caliber size holes with zero expansion - tactical I guess. Then there are the large number of pistol bullet size holes where someone didn’t want to finish it off with a rifle shot - often 6 placed near each other.

Pulled a lot of bullets out of the ribcage skin traveling from ass to the front bumper - definitely not the shot that killed it - elk have such big guts not much makes it through going perfectly straight ahead with much gas left over.

One elk had a number of vertebrate clipped from the rear and it didn’t appear to have done enough to disrupt the rear end - but it might have since I didn’t hear the entire story - The classic going away base of the tail shot, but the neck shot killed it.

It was a great experience - antelope $5, deer $7.50 and elk $15.

Six light strokes to each side of a Buck skinner knife with the little diamond easylap kept kept it shaving sharp the entire time. Even the butcher was impressed with it. Lol

 

[Pootie]

Personally I prefer the 30/06 or 308.

 

[FCCDerek]

My call is a 280AI, shooting 180 Bergers at 2900fps. At 600 meters its right at 2200fps with almost 2000 foot pounds of energy. More importantly, its lighter on recoil, cheaper to load for, and less punishing to shoot. Just so happens thats the exact load I shoot in my 280AI.

 

[NSI]

I think…
I feel…

Quoting from the Wiki I wrote to introduce my city friends to Western hunting:

Cartridge selection is deceptively simple. First, choose a specific projectile in whose terminal performance you’re confident. Gain that confidence by perusing hunters’ forums with many pictures of dead animals such as Rokslide. Take the manufacturer’s minimum impact velocity number in fps and find evidence from prior engagements that this impact velocity indeed consistently yields results. Add a buffer of your choosing, such as 100 fps, and correlate this new “AMIV” (adjusted minimum impact velocity) using a ballistic calculator (like Hornady’s 4DOF app) with barrel lengths and cartridges which interest you.

For example, if you have chosen the 6.5mm 143 grain ELD-X projectile, you might explore with 4DOF what performance looks like in a 6.5 Creedmoor, 6.5 PRC, or 6.5 SAUM at various barrel lengths. At whatever distance 4DOF tells you the projectile drops below your AMIV, that’s your max distance for that cartridge.

Is the distance insufficient for your hunting style? Increase the barrel length or cartridge powder load (like going from 6.5 creedmoor to PRC). Is the AMIV distance far beyond your hunting ranges? You’re probably taking too much barrel into the field, or handling too much unnecessary recoil. Cut the barrel down or downsize the cartridge or both.

The impact velocity and the terminal performance of the bullet are the only factors which contribute to killing. Oft-touted figures like energy (measured in ft-lbs) or Killing Power Score (KPS) are old wive’s tales with no objective evidence to back up their use as a guide.

-J

 

[z987k]

I think…
I feel…

Quoting from the Wiki I wrote to introduce my city friends to Western hunting:

Cartridge selection is deceptively simple. First, choose a specific projectile in whose terminal performance you’re confident. Gain that confidence by perusing hunters’ forums with many pictures of dead animals such as Rokslide. Take the manufacturer’s minimum impact velocity number in fps and find evidence from prior engagements that this impact velocity indeed consistently yields results. Add a buffer of your choosing, such as 100 fps, and correlate this new “AMIV” (adjusted minimum impact velocity) using a ballistic calculator (like Hornady’s 4DOF app) with barrel lengths and cartridges which interest you.

For example, if you have chosen the 6.5mm 143 grain ELD-M projectile, you might explore with 4DOF what performance looks like in a 6.5 Creedmoor, 6.5 PRC, or 6.5 SAUM at various barrel lengths. At whatever distance 4DOF tells you the projectile drops below your AMIV, that’s your max distance for that cartridge.

Is the distance insufficient for your hunting style? Increase the barrel length or cartridge powder load (like going from 6.5 creedmoor to PRC). Is the AMIV distance far beyond your hunting ranges? You’re probably taking too much barrel into the field, or handling too much unnecessary recoil. Cut the barrel down or downsize the cartridge or both.

The impact velocity and the terminal performance of the bullet are the only factors which contribute to killing. Oft-touted figures like energy (measured in ft-lbs) or Killing Power Score (KPS) are old wive’s tales with no objective evidence to back up their use as a guide.

-J

This.

Something else worth considering more is the recoil. Say they're a new shooter, or have been hunting for 30 years but they shoot a box a year tops. They need to actually shoot the rifle at that distance they choose.

The amount of I've been hunting for 30 years and I need a 28 nosler to kill critters at 800 yards, but I can't even put a cold bore shot on paper at 400 unless it's in a sled at a range and the rifle jumps out of my hands when I fire it is, well it's a lot of people.

 

[LongWayAround]

@NSI the 143 is an ELD-X, FYI the M's are 140/147.