Who bagged an elk?

[tmsand338]

Killed my elk on the evening of the last day of the season. Must say I'm not happy with the performance of the 270 grn powerbelts I was using. I hit it three times (yes, i had the time to reload and shoot three times at this one.... amazing). Once in the neck... didn't expect much performance out of a bullet there. The second entered behind the front shoulder and exited through the middle of the far side hind leg. Entry and exit holes about the same size. Third shot was a put down shot in the head. Anybody know of a better bullet to use in muzzloaders in CO? Something that actually expands?

[sniper7]

finally got some time to post up pics!

Kitteh tracks! I think bobcat. this is the same area I had my mountain lion encounter last year. these tracks are too small to be lion, and I think lynx are a bit bigger.



Bull is a 6x5, great color, nice and dark face, almost pre-historic details on the antlers.
He was about 2 miles in, it was me (27), my best friends dad who is 54 and my dad who is 60! So I de-boned the elk so it would be much lighter for us!!!


can't say enough about the canam hauling 2 of us around plus gear, and then bringing out our packs with all the meat and us on it as well!


pretty nice rub!


Nice panorama shot with my cell phone!


We found this pre-historic indian face, probably 10,000+ years old!

[van7559]

348 grain powerbelt Aero tip. I will post a pic of the bullet when I get home

[tmsand338]

VAN7559, I'd like to see the pics of those bullets and your thoughts on them as far as performance on elk, a good load of 777 behind it, etc. I'm one or two preference points away from drawing a muzzleloader tag in unit 201 and I need something that's going to work better than the 270 grn powerbelts I used this year; which I had heard nothing but good things about.

[van7559]

Like I said this was a 348 grain powebelt aerotip with 130 grains of 777. If I had more time to do some load test I would've liked to start upping my powder charge to as close to 150 grains as possible. Granted I shot her at 10 ft. I was pleased with the bullets performance. She dropped hard.

[van7559]

It was a high shoulder hit and id destroyed her front left shoulder. Taking out a lung and then stopping on her other side armpit. I kinda expected it to exit but that is a lot of bone to hit and with the bullet intact as well as it was I guess I wasn't too suprised. Its too bad sabots cannot be used.

[tmsand338]

That looks like pretty good performance..... It would be interesting to see a picture of the mangled one next to an unfired one. I'll give em a try. My 270 gr platinum powerbelts on top of 125grs 777 travelled through almost the entire length of an elk and didn't expand. I really didn't expect any muzzleloader setup to be able to even do that (the bullet did exit), but to be fair, it didn't hit a single bone. Not sure why people rave about these things.

Just for fun, I shot a heavy guage steel culvert with one. Same results..... entry hole same size as the exit hole out the back of the second side of the culvert. These are supposed to HUNTING bullets..... I'd call them very expensive practice rounds.

BTW, how does that heavy bullet with all that powder behind it treat your shoulder?

[CO Hugh]

Sniper 7, nice.