Hey all. I'm trying to work up a good load to go spike elk hunting with my M1 chambered in 30-06. Using Winchester 748 and 168 Gr Zmax.
Any tips or tricks would be much appreciated. This will be my first big game hunt so I'm pretty excited.
And as always, thanks for the forum, bullets, and great customer service Wes!
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Thank you buddy!!
Those bullets will work, but are pretty thin in the jacket.
A good 150gr or 165gr would be a better option for hunting.
The SST or Soft points from Hornady or Sierra would be a good bet.
For me persomally, with Elk, 165gr would be my choice
Gotta agree with Wes on this(not that I ever disagree with him), I would go with a proven hunting bullet from 150 to 168 grain. Also never used 748 in loading for the Garand always used Imr4895 or 4064. But taking an elk with a Garand would be very cool indeed.
SST's, Nosler Partition, Accubonds, TTSX's are all fine bullets for Elk. You don't want explosion expansion on large bodied/large bone animals like Elk. You need controlled expansion and deep penetration. I've killed 3 in my life.
About 12 years ago on an elk hunt my father shot a spike bull in the shoulder at maybe 80-100 yards. I can't recall the particular bullet type but it essentially exploded on the front shoulder and the animal was able to limp off, rejoin the herd, and they all went down the steep river canyon and were miles away. It got away. This was with a 300 mag. I've also seen first hand a similar type of poor performance with a winchester power point on a mule deer in the 90's. There are so many good bullets now it's hard to make a poor choice.
The only other comment i have about your rifle is the weight. Elk hunting can be a hike from hell all day, day in and day out. Then when you get an animal down the real work starts. My #1 tip is shoot an elk that dies on the road or runs down to the road and dies. You will thank me later.
In my experience, I have found the Barnes X bullets to be most accurate, and excellent penetration
I will find another bullet to get ready for the hunt then. Thanks guys! Does anyone have any experience with the 178 grain eld-x's? I have some of those laying around and itd be easier to not have to buy more bullets.
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Those are an awesome choice if you have some laying around
Originally Posted by Cheesey Boy
Perfect! Thanks Wes.
P.S. I'm a youngin so I've never really messed around with forums before. Always found them too confusing and too hard to find the information I was looking for. I really like your forum though. Especially with the tapatalk app, it makes it extremely easy to use.
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Thank you buddy!!
We set this one up to be pretty easy to use
Just a little time spent looking at it, and learning Tapatalk, and it is a snap
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