As someone new to this site.......
I was already heading towards this trend before I saw all of the chatter. At least kind of.
I was coming to alot of the same conclusions, even without really realizing what I was actually saying lol.
For me, it was the realization that when I shot a deer with a cup and core big expander, the wound/damage was massive, too much really if my shot placement wasn't right, maybe even if it was right. And it didn't matter in a practical sense, whether it was a 95grain ballistic tip from a .243, or a 140grain rem core lokt from my .280.
The result was the same on the first few bulls i shot, with rem core lokts out of a .280 at close range (inside 100yards). massive wound channel, if i hit a shoulder...oh lord, vaporized, carnage etc....Very quick kills.
Anyways...years later i don't own either rifle anymore. I borrow my dad's .25-06 for deer hunting. He has 100grain Barnes TTSX loaded hot and heavy, pretty sure they were running 3300 plus. Testing them out, he wanted to try mono's. Anyways, around 150yds out I shoot a buck broadside, Hit, looks like a decent/good hit, lungs for sure. Deer takes off running, slows down around 200yards away and turns to look back, hit him again....he teeters a bit, but turns and makes another run for it, although clearly slowing down/not long for the world. I give him a 3rd cause he looked like he might make it to a fairly steep, thick, nasty little draw, shoulder hit this time and he dropped.
Sooo....the amateur after shot analysis showed that the first 2 shots were both double lung. Both ultimately fatal shots, but there just wasn't much of a wound channel on either. The deer was dead, just not quick dead. the 3rd shot through the shoulder did more damage. the 2 double lung shots exited, the shoulder one off side hide caught it.
Sooo...I'm thinking about this, and just kinda looking at it like.....man, the "cheap" cup and core bullets really do a number on the deer. almost too good. and these barnes worked, but didn't do much damage. At the time, I just chalked it up to the barnes being made for bigger animals, deep penetration, and really the deer were too small for them.
Move to the elk hunt the same year. I am packing a 7mm rem mag of my fathers, he is packing a 300 win mag. He had decided that he wanted to experiment with Accubonds instead of his tried and trued partitions for elk hunting. He was told the Accubonds would get more penetration. We are dark timber elk hunters, almost never a shot over 100yds, a lot of shots around 50yards.
My dad shot his bull at about 100yards, quartering away. 1 shot, elk bolted, couldn't get another shot off. Elk went around 400yards, he caught up with it there, and put a neck shot into him at around 50yards and that put him down, elk was still moving but heavily laboring. Accubond went through first lung, just caught the second lung, no shoulders or anything. Again, it was a fatal wound. But very underwhelming amount of damage.
2 days later, I get my chance. about 60yards away, big bull for our hunting area ( he was officially measured at 287"). walking broadside, first shot is high, nothing burger, 2 more shots, both in the lungs area, bull is still up, dad yells, shoot him in the neck, I do, bull goes down. Same story really......a bit more wound damage on my bull. (closer range and my speed if i remember right). but nothing "impressive". My dad's conclusion was rather simple. Its not a partition......experiment over...
But I have been thinking about these things critically for a while now (this was all years ago), my conclusions were......Accubonds and mono's definitely penetrate, but they kinda suck (not saying they do, but this was my thought process). The partitions always got the job done on elk, better. But nothing killed an elk like the couple of elk I shot with core lokts. Those suckers were insta toast. I mean, I don't even want to use a cup and core on a deer due because its border line overkill....But I kinda do want to use them on elk, because they killed the best.......And I then got to thinking about that and thinking, I wonder about dropping down in size and using a cup and core, because I hate....HATE....recoil.
Anyways, searching online about those thoughts actually lead me to here. And I found that a whole group of people had much better data then I had, and have come to the same conclusions, or actually have taken what I was thinking much further down the rabbit hole then what I was thinking.
So, I was already heading this way. We vastly over estimate what It takes to cleanly kill an animal, especially an elk. Which has become a mythical animal in some ways.
Its actually kinda funny, I never thought critically about it. I mean an elk is massive compared to a deer. Except for the actual chest cavity really isn't that much bigger. The bones aren't massively bigger.....I had literally seen "cheap" cup and core high expanding/fragmenting bullets dang near blow a elk in half, absolute carnage at close range. I have also seen multiple elk run a long ways with "deep penetrating" bullets. Heck, I was told over and over and over again that you need a big gun, preferably a magnum, shooting a big ass bullet, preferably something tough, cause you gotta drive through the shoulder, it needs to penetrate deep for the quartering shots....ermmmm...I blew the shoulder up, both lungs were absolutely destroyed, and the offside shoulder blew up, bullet against the skin...with a dang core lokts. Then I watch all these other elk get shot over and over with the "tough" bullets from the "real" elk guns and just keep trucking for a ways before finally falling over....Jesus. Honestly I kinda feel dumb. The answers were pretty obvious.
So yeah, I started thinking....Well, I need a long, skinny bullet driven fast enough that's gonna F*ck stuff up for a elk round. I want it to penetrate enough to get to both lungs from all reasonable angles...( which is probably around 14"/15" real world) and cause havoc. And I shoot close range so it doesn't need to be a speed demon.
Searched for those answers...end up here. But man, honestly i feel kinda dumb, or i guess, not very self reflective at the time.
