Many of my hunting freinds have stopped by to B.S. about their hunting trips over the years and plan future trips as time and finances allow.
we were discussing the need to follow up on shots when I started thinking back to early trips out west....
Al and I were hunting in Colorado, for ELK back about 1983 -84 when he was hunting with our ELK camp group, he had purchased a BLR in 308 win for the elk hunting trip and we had assured him it was adequate for hunting elk even though he saw most of the guys in our hunting camp at that time hunting with 30/06 ,7mm ,300 and 338 magnum rifles and he was a feeling a bit under gunned.
I had repeatedly told him that shot placement not power was the deciding factor and that a 308 win was perfectly capable of dropping an elk.
a 308 win may not be the best ELK caliber but its far from the worst either.
we had loaded his ammo and spent several weekends at the range getting him comfortable with his BLR,and sighted in with some 180 grain Remington bullets loaded to about 2575 fps in his BLR,so the carbine shot at 3" high at 100 yards to give him a decent trajectory allowing him to hold about dead on , center chest, out to about 250 yards, on an elks chest.
at that time in my hunting career we felt jump shooting elk , a bit like white tail deer was a valid method, it was only as we gained skills and understood the game better in later seasons that we modified our approach to getting in on the herds.
we saw lots of deer and elk but few legal bulls ,
on the 4th or 5th day of the hunt AL watched a legal bull trot out in front of him at about 200 yards , as he was still hunting thru a wooded bench are on a canyon slope.
I heard him fire and slowly walked over and located him to gain info,and ask if he needed help dragging out or dressing out any game he had shot, fully expecting him to be jumping and grinning in place, at having shot his first elk, but he was a bit depressed,... as AL had both a deer and ELK tag, but had yet to fill either. At that time I was hunting as part of his two man team to bounce elk out of this side canyon, I was about 300 yards further down the canyon wall,expecting to catch any elk bugging out of the upper bench area into the more heavily wooded canyon floor, at the time of the shot and never saw a BULL elk that day, but I had seen several cow elk sneaking thru the aspens.
after talking with AL a bit he was convinced he had missed, as the ELK had just wheeled and ran and showed zero indication he was injured.
I had AL stand where he was when he shot and direct me to where the elk was when he shot, looking around the area, it took a few minutes but I found a tiny bit of hair and blood but following the elk tracks for about 80-100 yards before I found more blood, this took about 15 minutes, Im sure there was more blood,I just might have overlooked it as the ground was dry and leaves covered much of the area between the aspens, as I was searching for sign I looked up to see ALS bull , it had obviously fallen and slid down the slope and was about 60 yards below my current location, I waved at AL and motioned him over but he was very reluctant to think I was not joking with him, after about 10 minutes he arrived and was amazed to find his dead elk, he stated he was 100% sure he had missed when the elk spun and ran, in truth it was not great shot placement, the liver and lungs were damaged as the shot had impacted a bit far back and a bit high,but it was a mortal wound and it taught both of us that an ELK did not always give an indication when hit.
http://inberg.ca/hunting_essentials/elk ... cement.htm
http://www.jbmballistics.com/cgi-bin/jbmtraj-5.1.cgi
http://www.handloads.com/loaddata/defau ... er&Source=
http://www.imrpowder.com/data/rifle/308 ... 5apr03.php
we were discussing the need to follow up on shots when I started thinking back to early trips out west....
Al and I were hunting in Colorado, for ELK back about 1983 -84 when he was hunting with our ELK camp group, he had purchased a BLR in 308 win for the elk hunting trip and we had assured him it was adequate for hunting elk even though he saw most of the guys in our hunting camp at that time hunting with 30/06 ,7mm ,300 and 338 magnum rifles and he was a feeling a bit under gunned.
I had repeatedly told him that shot placement not power was the deciding factor and that a 308 win was perfectly capable of dropping an elk.
a 308 win may not be the best ELK caliber but its far from the worst either.
we had loaded his ammo and spent several weekends at the range getting him comfortable with his BLR,and sighted in with some 180 grain Remington bullets loaded to about 2575 fps in his BLR,so the carbine shot at 3" high at 100 yards to give him a decent trajectory allowing him to hold about dead on , center chest, out to about 250 yards, on an elks chest.
at that time in my hunting career we felt jump shooting elk , a bit like white tail deer was a valid method, it was only as we gained skills and understood the game better in later seasons that we modified our approach to getting in on the herds.
we saw lots of deer and elk but few legal bulls ,
on the 4th or 5th day of the hunt AL watched a legal bull trot out in front of him at about 200 yards , as he was still hunting thru a wooded bench are on a canyon slope.
I heard him fire and slowly walked over and located him to gain info,and ask if he needed help dragging out or dressing out any game he had shot, fully expecting him to be jumping and grinning in place, at having shot his first elk, but he was a bit depressed,... as AL had both a deer and ELK tag, but had yet to fill either. At that time I was hunting as part of his two man team to bounce elk out of this side canyon, I was about 300 yards further down the canyon wall,expecting to catch any elk bugging out of the upper bench area into the more heavily wooded canyon floor, at the time of the shot and never saw a BULL elk that day, but I had seen several cow elk sneaking thru the aspens.
after talking with AL a bit he was convinced he had missed, as the ELK had just wheeled and ran and showed zero indication he was injured.
I had AL stand where he was when he shot and direct me to where the elk was when he shot, looking around the area, it took a few minutes but I found a tiny bit of hair and blood but following the elk tracks for about 80-100 yards before I found more blood, this took about 15 minutes, Im sure there was more blood,I just might have overlooked it as the ground was dry and leaves covered much of the area between the aspens, as I was searching for sign I looked up to see ALS bull , it had obviously fallen and slid down the slope and was about 60 yards below my current location, I waved at AL and motioned him over but he was very reluctant to think I was not joking with him, after about 10 minutes he arrived and was amazed to find his dead elk, he stated he was 100% sure he had missed when the elk spun and ran, in truth it was not great shot placement, the liver and lungs were damaged as the shot had impacted a bit far back and a bit high,but it was a mortal wound and it taught both of us that an ELK did not always give an indication when hit.
http://inberg.ca/hunting_essentials/elk ... cement.htm
http://www.jbmballistics.com/cgi-bin/jbmtraj-5.1.cgi
http://www.handloads.com/loaddata/defau ... er&Source=
http://www.imrpowder.com/data/rifle/308 ... 5apr03.php