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So 140 versus 122. Your thoughts?

Don't think that 18grs of bullet weight placed in the same spot is going to make any difference

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Originally posted by p dog shooter:

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So 140 versus 122. Your thoughts?

Don't think that 18grs of bullet weight placed in the same spot is going to make any difference

Well, one of them might, or might not, exit and provide a blood trail and recovered game.

These conversations are a million years old. The cartridge goes back to 1925(?)and has been killing elk ever since. How many 100's of thousands? Millions?

Bullets have gotten better since then. But I doubt any are significantly better than a 130 Nosler Partition when it comes to plain old killing. A 360+ class 6x6 caught these two at 275 yards o so. He stood to the first lung shot, collapsed at the second and there was no blood trail required.

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A 360+ class 6x6 caught these two at 275 yards o so. He stood to the first lung shot, collapsed at the second and there was no blood trail required.

Thank you for the pictures. I always like to get recovered bullets as souvenirs from a hunt, though more importantly, they are lessons for future hunts.

Glad to hear that the bull dropped. That illustrates the need for bullet placement.
However, if the bull moved behind a tree after the first shot, then what?
And we all know of cases where well-shot and well-hit animals will run 100 yards and sometimes much much more. A good blood trail from an exit wound can help, and an angling shot can benefit from deep or 'extra' penetration.

All of this goes into modern bullet choice and also the hunter's decision on whether to take a particular shot at a particular presentation, or not.

416: That bull was not going anywhere but down and was "dead" on his feet.

Not uncommon for bull elk to take lung hits from 300 magnums,30/06, 7 mags, 340's and 338's,and 8 mags........and stand around gawking until they keel over.They can be very phlegmatic.

I have seen that reaction from a good many herd bulls shot with all of the above.

If you want more dramatic reaction, take some bone coming or going.

But I get your point. It doesn't hurt to have an exit.

I like a blood trail on any animal I shoot, because regardless of caliber they will sure as hell run a long ways at times with any hit but spine and brain shots..My .338 knocks a big hole in them and they bleed profusely and will get you a fairly decent blood trail of sorts even without an exit hole. I like that..If anyone wants to hunt elk with a 270 or a 30-06 I have no problem with that, Ive used both but on SEVERAL but rare occasions I've had to deal with a blood trail and a long enough search to worry me greatly. Never lost one however. I especially love the 30-06, its been my all time favorite caliber and my favorite rifle, but for elk Im leaning towards the .338 and have for the last 3 or 4 years. Im 82 and It took me that long to learn the difference.

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My .338 knocks a big hole in them and they bleed profusely and will get you a fairly decent blood trail of sorts even without an exit hole. I like that

I can think of two extremes in my experience that illustrate this, to a degree.

Many a year ago, 30+, I shot a hartebeest face on at 300 yards with a 270Win. We heard a solid impact. The 'beest ran off and disappeared in the forest. There was NO BLOOD. Fortunately, the ground was fairly soft and we were able to track it. At about 375 yard I found a first drop of blood. My partner, who had gone ahead called back, 'and here is the animal'. The hartebeest had fallen at 400 yards, shot through the lower third of the heart. It was a sobering lesson.

On another occasion, just a few years ago, I shot a buffalo in the lungs with a 416 Rigby. We found pink froth blood and felt good about the hit but that buffalo ran and ran and the blood spoor was only sporadic. We found it dead under a low tree after 300 yards. The bullet penetrated the lungs and was sticking out the far side. The lack of exit explains the sparse blood but the larger caliber probably helped to give us the correct initial read and helped to give more blood trail than the hartebeest mentioned above.

Now such long run-offs are not common, but they happen often enough if one hunts a bit. They are all part of hunting, although I do appreciate DRT and the drunk, two-step swoon, too.
That is why some hunters gravitate to large caliber, even though they know that smaller caliber will do the job, and do it quite well most of the time.

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Originally posted by Atkinson:
I like a blood trail on any animal I shoot, because regardless of caliber they will sure as hell run a long ways at times with any hit but spine and brain shots..My .338 knocks a big hole in them and they bleed profusely and will get you a fairly decent blood trail of sorts even without an exit hole. I like that..If anyone wants to hunt elk with a 270 or a 30-06 I have no problem with that, Ive used both but on SEVERAL but rare occasions I've had to deal with a blood trail and a long enough search to worry me greatly. Never lost one however. I especially love the 30-06, its been my all time favorite caliber and my favorite rifle, but for elk Im leaning towards the .338 and have for the last 3 or 4 years. Im 82 and It took me that long to learn the difference.

Agree with you. You can absolutely kill elk or most anything with a 270, however, I want an exit wound and alot of blood. I also like the double shoulder shot. A .338wm (250 grain nosler) or 375 h+h (300 grain) will break both shoulders and exit. A .270 will break 1 and maybe take out the heart. I really love eating elk and I dont want to chance losing one.

I don't like to mess around at the margins.

Too much can go wrong.

In my book, just barely enough ain't enough.

Bigger is always better.

It's really just that simple.

At least, for me.

I agree, Ive seen a lot of meat wasted by making a 2 to 5 mile run then crawling under some thick stuff only to be found a weak later by the buzzards..Seen it in the USA, Canada and Africa. I like a big hole in my elk and a short blood trail if at all..

Not saying the 270 and 30-06 won't do that, it will and has worked for me many times, its when the range extends to 400 yards and beyond and when at those extended ranges multiple shots are required by the hunter in most cases, and shots are moved by wind or miscalculation, and the old 30-06 is less than a 30 Remington. Go figure..To say otherwise IMO is saying you just ain't been there enough, and when you are, then you will start looking for something with a little more punch..I started my elk hunting with a 25-35 Win. carbine and was successful, but as I aged and disliked holding my fire beyond a 100 yards, I went to the 250 Savage, then later to the 270 and 30-06 in that order, It all came to rest with the .338 Win. at least for now...I suspect that's been the natural progression for every cowboy ranch kid out there, at least the ones I know. Today in my homestate of Idaho, Id venture to say the 300 win. mag or 7mm Rem. is the gun of choice by folks that are avid elk hunters and they are many, and as time goes by Im seeing more and more .338 Win. and its destined to be THE elk rifle, if not already. Just my two bits based on the number of in state and out of state elk hunters I've dealt with year in and year out.

I think Im seeing that same movement in Alaska and recently more and more in Africa, the .338 wasn't an overnight 90 day wonder, it earned its reputation over time...

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Originally posted by buckeyeshooter:

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Originally posted by Atkinson:
I like a blood trail on any animal I shoot, because regardless of caliber they will sure as hell run a long ways at times with any hit but spine and brain shots..My .338 knocks a big hole in them and they bleed profusely and will get you a fairly decent blood trail of sorts even without an exit hole. I like that..If anyone wants to hunt elk with a 270 or a 30-06 I have no problem with that, Ive used both but on SEVERAL but rare occasions I've had to deal with a blood trail and a long enough search to worry me greatly. Never lost one however. I especially love the 30-06, its been my all time favorite caliber and my favorite rifle, but for elk Im leaning towards the .338 and have for the last 3 or 4 years. Im 82 and It took me that long to learn the difference.

Agree with you. You can absolutely kill elk or most anything with a 270, however, I want an exit wound and alot of blood. I also like the double shoulder shot. A .338wm (250 grain nosler) or 375 h+h (300 grain) will break both shoulders and exit. A .270 will break 1 and maybe take out the heart. I really love eating elk and I dont want to chance losing one.

A 270 with a good bullet will take out both shoulders of a bull elk....good bullet being things like a 150 NPT,130 BBC,and I guess the Barnes but I have never used them.

So will a 160 NPT or BBC from a magnum 7mm,a 175 gr NPT,a 180 gr Partition and a 200 gr Partition from any of the 300's.Ditto a 210 NPT or 225 NPT from a 338 or 340 Weatherby; which are good but really not necessary.

I always regarded things like a 270.280, or 30/06 to be good elk cartridges but liked the 300 and 7mm magnums the best, with quality CE bullets.

These are among those Ive personally used or been on the scene to watch.I have also dug around a lot of elk carcasses to see what various bullets and cartridge did.

Despite their long record in factory ammo I am not interested in any C&C bullets for elk hunting if I have an opportunity to choose something else.

Id venture to say the lighter cal. will take out both shoulder, but allow me to say "sometimes", Ive seen even my .338 on one occasion break only one shoulder and found the bullet IN the second shoulder..It was a 210 Nosler, on another instance I found only a thin ring of metal on the off side skin after the 210 broke both shoulders, that's a close one..At any rate I went to the 225 Nosler accubond and Partition...

But the bottom line is Im convienced the 225 is an excellent bullet for elk in the Accubond or partition, but the 250 just may be a bit better..I have gotten beautiful little mushroom expansion with all my 225s on elk, and they would make wonderful advertisement, but that means they didn't give me two holes and a big old blood trail in there short run...I'll be going back to the 250s where I started when I bought my first .338 the year it was commercialized and I sold my 338-06 and never looked back. It liked the 250s also..

BTW, I built my custom .338 to shoot the long heavy 250 gr. accubonds and those wonderful 300 gr. Woodleighs. but it shoots short bullets just as well, so got lucky on that.

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Originally posted by Atkinson:
Id venture to say the lighter cal. will take out both shoulder, but allow me to say "sometimes", Ive seen even my .338 on one occasion break only one shoulder and found the bullet IN the second shoulder..It was a 210 Nosler, on another instance I found only a thin ring of metal on the off side skin after the 210 broke both shoulders, that's a close one..At any rate I went to the 225 Nosler accubond and Partition...

But the bottom line is Im convienced the 225 is an excellent bullet for elk in the Accubond or partition, but the 250 just may be a bit better..I have gotten beautiful little mushroom expansion with all my 225s on elk, and they would make wonderful advertisement, but that means they didn't give me two holes and a big old blood trail in there short run...I'll be going back to the 250s where I started when I bought my first .338 the year it was commercialized and I sold my 338-06 and never looked back. It liked the 250s also..

BTW, I built my custom .338 to shoot the long heavy 250 gr. accubonds and those wonderful 300 gr. Woodleighs. but it shoots short bullets just as well, so got lucky on that.

Ray:

I agree. If you are a once in a lifetime elk guy then go ahead and shoot your .270, but if you like to hunt elk, moose, bears, and PG in Africa, then the .338 is far better. In what ways is the .270 superior?

I think just the opposite. If I only got to hunt elk once, and I was paying for a guided elk hunt, I'd want a bigger rifle than a 270 maybe. But for those of us that hunt elk every year and are very familiar with our rifles a 270 shooting a 150g Partition is just fine out to 400 yards or so.

Killing a few elk with any caliber tells one nothing, quoting old betsy that's been successful two years in a row tells one nothing..The .338 was damn slow to catch on but it made its bones the hard way, it earned them, and the locals have slowly but surely been changing..A well know gunscribe who has a world of hunting experience recently stated in an article that he knows a valley in Montana that is used yearly by locals, and he stated he has seen the .338 Win. showing up more and more..I have seen the same thing in Idaho and Colorado by guides and ranchers, Im even a victim or this move, after a lifetime with the .270 and 30-06, even the 25-35 and 250 Savage..but to each his own, just making conversation on an interesting subject, and I sure as hell ain't the caliber cop!

I have never had to shoot elk or any game beyond just shy of 300 yards so BC is meaningless to me. Always has been, always will be. I am a fan of Barnes X/TXS/TTXS and have been for many years.

Well then Boxhead that makes a big difference..I hunt elk every year out of an 88,000 acre private ranch that's pretty flat and all sage brush with some rolling hills of ceder in southern Colorado..The shots are all long, 300 yards is short range as average shots or between 300 and 400 yards, unless you shoot them out of a Alfalfa patch, which Ive done several times on cow hunts for meat, but that field is about 400 yards across..Most years I hunt the ceders and sage...

Ive had about all the fun I can have with this thread, if the .270 works for you, then by all means keep shooting it until it fails, then go to something bigger,thats what a lot of folks I know have done, and it didn't seem to make any difference if it was their shooting or what, they blamed the .270 and 30-06..

In my case I had good experiences with both the .270 and 30-06 just decided I wanted something that put elk down quicker so went to the .338 and found it killed elk just like a .270 kills deer...I like that.