Cow Elk meat hunt in Texas

[warhawk]

Big critter for sure, a protein fed elk. She was as big as most of the adult bulls. I don't know the live weight, guessing 600 - 700. They killed a cow elk there last year that went 975.

I used my Smith & Wesson 629 classic, 44 magum, and through a screw up on my part the only ammo I had along used a Hornady 240 XTP bullet. I was disappointed in the performance of the Hornady XTP bullet, should have stuck with a hard cast bullet. The XTP came apart and didn't penetrate well.

First shot hit the shoulder, broke the shoulder but only tiny fragments went into the chest cavity. Second shot hit the crease of skin behind the shoulder. Same thing, the bullet broke up and did not penetrate. But the cow wasn't going anywhere so I got closer and put one in her neck, broke the spine and she went down like a sack of potatoes.

[Fowler]

Yup elk are tough critters and mature bulls are tougher yet, better to be over gunned than under gunned for sure. In 44/45 cal guns a hard cast bullet will be what I carry, might try to kill one with one of the Miha 485gr hollow points I cast in 475 some day but Im not totally sold on that yet.

Nice elk, there nothing better than elk for dinner...

[warhawk]

I went off and left a box of Keith loads and a box of 300 grain WFN loads sitting on the bench at home. All the 44 ammo I had with me was two speedloaders full of the load with the XTP bullet.

I had a .45-70 levergun along, and probably should have just used that, but I really wanted to use a handgun.

[foxtrapper]

Very nice! Tell me about the hunt and outfitter.

[stevemb]

Don't beat yourself up, you made it work. Critter is freezer bound. But yeah, I wouldn't use the 240 XTP on things larger than deer. stevemb

[warhawk]

Foxtrapper ... Just a meat hunt on a Texas game ranch. Ride around until you find the elk, then get close enough for a shot.

Steve ... It all worked out, but was disappointing in that it was one of the few times in my life I didn't make a clean one shot kill. The first shot was located perfectly, but the bullet failed. Or I should say that I failed to use the right bullet.

I have been using Keith loads on feral hogs the last few hunts and find that they kill hogs a lot better than jacketed slugs, I've used the Speer 270 Gold Dot, Winchester 240 JHP and Rem 240 JSP and the Keith bullet out performs them all, for me. I wish I had tried it on the elk.

[skook]

Warhawk,
Great story and great pics. I especially like the perspective in the second one. Did those Hobbits enjoy the hunt ?

[COR]

Dec 31, 2012 10:56:27 GMT -5 warhawk said:

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Steve ... It all worked out, but was disappointing in that it was one of the few times in my life I didn't make a clean one shot kill. The first shot was located perfectly, but the bullet failed. Or I should say that I failed to use the right bullet.

This is only hindsight with mostly deer and pig kills under my belt but with the 44 240 XTP I find the chest shots are the best choice. The bullet is tough but not when it hits a large joint. XTP's are fine when placement is in the boilermaker or in some cases the neck if it has to be. The shoulder is not my shot of choice with this bullet. With cast bullets you can shoot them most anywhere.

Just arm chair quarterbacking here...a kill is a kill and I am by no means taking away from your successful hunt. Great job!

[reflex264]

Great going despite the bullets acting up. reflex264

[warhawk]

Dec 31, 2012 12:41:28 GMT -5 skook said:

Warhawk,
Great story and great pics. I especially like the perspective in the second one. Did those Hobbits enjoy the hunt ?

Sorry, I've been away from the forums for a while. My job relocated me to Arkansas.

Those are my 9 year old grandsons, who were there for the CHristmas holiday, they got to come along not only on the elk hunt, but they got to see a variety of Texas "exotics". What's really a shame is, they wanted to go to school and tell all their buddies about it, but I overheard them talking about it, and they decided that they couldn't say anything about A) Guns, B) Hunting and C) Dead animals.

[cmillard]

I wonder how a 225 grain barnes xpb would work with an elk. I know I am comparing apples to oranges but the last whitetail I took here in iowa was with my ruger SBH 10.5 inch barrel shooting a 225 xpb at about 1450 FPS, which was not a hot load at all, just very accurate. needless to say, at 45 yards, I dropped that deer and never had a deer go down so hard before, even in my slug gun days. it just dropped--the last thing to hit the ground was the deer's chin. I immediately got down from my stand and that thing was darn near bled out. I am going to try them again this year but only this time, it will be in my MRI BFR .500 JRH with 275 xpbs

[jwp475]

warhawk, congratulation that looks like some mighty fine eating

[whitworth]

Jul 3, 2013 22:46:48 GMT -5 cmillard said:

I wonder how a 225 grain barnes xpb would work with an elk. I know I am comparing apples to oranges but the last whitetail I took here in iowa was with my ruger SBH 10.5 inch barrel shooting a 225 xpb at about 1450 FPS, which was not a hot load at all, just very accurate. needless to say, at 45 yards, I dropped that deer and never had a deer go down so hard before, even in my slug gun days. it just dropped--the last thing to hit the ground was the deer's chin. I immediately got down from my stand and that thing was darn near bled out. I am going to try them again this year but only this time, it will be in my MRI BFR .500 JRH with 275 xpbs

For me at least, I think a 225 would be too light for an animal the size of an elk. That is a good deer bullet, but when the animal gets larger, I like a heavier bullet that will penetrate more deeply. JMHO.

[cmillard]

they may be too light but after seeing how those 275 xpbs out of my BFR performed when shooting into big elm logs, I was impressed. I know again this is apples to oranges and was a .500 bullet vs a .44, but that bullet mushroomed beautifully and penetrated nicely. the hard part was splitting that wood with an axe and recovering it from the heavy wood. I also recovered one that I had shot at a smaller chunk of elm that had exited the piece of wood and went into the ground approximately 4 inched and stopped on a rock. I still have that bullet and it is nicely expanded and has nice petals. but, all this means nothing on a live critter, but I think it would be interesting to see if it would take an elk.

[dougader]

Awesome elk hunt. For big game like elk I'd side with Whit and get a cast bullet with a fat meplat to punch through. Like Mike McNett at DoubleTap says, "two holes bleed better than one."

But I'm here sitting on the couch and you went out there and got it done. Great pics and thank you for sharing the hunt with us!