Bull Elk, Bullets and Rifles, Part 3
Mossberg's Patriot proved accurate with Nosler 160-gr. Accubonds, Leupold 2-12x42 VX-6 scope.
The 7mm Rem. Mag. again proved enough medicine for elk. Mossberg Patriot sighted with Leupold 2-12x42 VX-6 scope delivered 3 Accubonds to this bull in 8 seconds. He went down about 10 seconds after the first hit.
Winchester Deer Season with Extreme Point bullets was designed for optimum performance on whitetails, not elk. No one told the elk.
Chad Poppleton holds my Winchester XPR while I balance the rack of the Montana bull we crawled to get with a 270 Win.
This is Part 3 of our elk rifle performance review. The first two installments detail hunts from 1985 through 2009. The intent is to compare effectiveness of various cartridges, bullets and rifles. I'll wrap up this series with a few opinions I've "earned" from 30 years of elk hunting. We continue here with hunt number...8. 7mm Rem. Mag., Mossberg Patriot, 160-gr. Nosler Accubond, 2014, NM: One of my favorite outfitters, Steve Jones of Backcountry Hunts, shepherded one of my favorite hunting partners, Linda Powell, and me on a High Plains, post-rut elk hunt. This would be my first chance to try Mossberg's newest bolt-action. It proved to be a classy looking upgrade of their 4x4, a model I'd used many times to take whitetails from Alberta to Texas and at ranges as far as 378 yards. This is one of today's bargain priced rifles selling for as low as $379. Would that be good enough to trust on an elk hunt? Oh yeah. From the bench, 3-shot groups with this Nosler load clustered 1.75 inches to as tight as 1 inch. The polymer magazine was incredibly easy to load, and rounds cycled flawlessly, slick and fast, which would prove handy when the shooting started.Guide and taxidermist Chuck Sharp and I made a 3-mile loop stalk to get close to a bedded bull, then cow-called him into the open. Now, if you want to see how a mature bull reacts to the 3,000 f-p impact energy of a bonded bullet fired from about 70 yards away, watch this video. The first shot is just behind the shoulder, the second on the shoulder, the third high shoulder that just missed the spine. You see the bull wobble a bit on that one. I could have taken a neck shot on that bull, but a previous experience had shown me how a near miss of the vertebrae enables a bull to dive remarkably far downhill. There was a deep canyon behind this bull and we didn't want him going into it, so I opted for the safe shot and then kept shooting. It's impressive how much punch an elk can absorb and keep on standing or running, but a shot through the boiler room seems always to end the run, as the Montana bull dramatized in Part 2 of this series. 9. 270 Win, Winchester XPR, 130-grain Winchester Extreme Point, 2014, WY: We were supposed to be whitetail hunting for Winchester World of Whitetail TV, but we were seeing more elk than deer. Twist my arm. Chad Poppleton and I belly crawled within 115 yards of a big herd sleeping on a grassy ridge top. A mature bull was near the center of the mass, 165 yards out. I knew I had to slip the 130-gr. deer bullet behind his shoulder, just over the heart if possible. We called. He stood. The cows cleared and the little poison pill was on its way. Absorbing the 2,150 f-p hit with little more than a shudder, the bull bolted perhaps 30 yards, stopped and began to sway. Leaving nothing to chance, I followed up with a high shoulder shot using my backup bullet, a deep-penetrating Winchester XP3. Anchored. In the interest of experiment, I almost wish I hadn't taken the finishing shot, instead timing how long it took for the bull to expire from the initial hit from what most would agree is not the ideal caliber, cartridge or bullet. But our first responsibility is to the game, to end it as quickly as possible. Nevertheless, I was impressed by that soft Extreme Point. Cup-and-core bullets can kill quickly if punched through the heart and even through the upper lungs, but I don't recommend them for general elk hunting because you can't predict shot distance or angle. It's one thing to say you'll wait for the perfect shot; it's another to resist less than perfect opportunities. Controlled expansion bullets generally drive to the vitals from nearly any angle. A Texas heart shot might be the exception. # # #
