147 gr Hornady ELD Match 6.5 CM as a Hunting Round?

[Marky_mark]

Used the 147's on a few animals this season with mediocre success. Very accurate but all animals required a follow up. I've had berger results with bergers. Used the 156gr on my desert bighorn and they worked great

 

[Couesnguns]

I have used the 147 eldm at 580 and 750 on coues deer with great success. Not sure if I would use them on elk but for deer sized game, I have no doubts on what will happen when I pull the trigger.

 

[whirlwindjml]

I should have mentioned my neighbor has killed 7 elk with a 143 in his creed. All one shot kills.

Me and my kids have killed 6 elk and i dont know how many deer with 143. All Drt.... but we haven't shot one in the but yet. You need a magnum for those kills i hear.

 

[baskhunter]

I run em in my 264wm at a modest 3050fps and have taken a bighorn sheep at 409y, a big black bear at 125y, two mature mule deer bucks one at 535 and one at 365. All animals DRT. I Have no reason to switch yet.

 

[sea2summit]

I've used 130 ELDMs out of my .260 on deer, took these two at 300. Neither got knocked down but neither made it more than 10 yards, I took one other last year with the .260 but it was a head shot at about 25 m and results are as you would expect from any high velocity round at close range.

 

[IdahoCTD]

My dad has shot 4 cow elk with 147ELD-M's from his 6.5CM in the last 3 years. The closest was around 200yds and the furthest was 406yds. All were 1 shot kills and they all dropped immediately at the shot. I was there for all of the shots and after seeing the performance of those compared to a 140 Berger I'll take the 147 ELD-M's any day. ELD-M's in generally are a bit more explosive then Berger's but the shock they cause is higher as well.

 

[Coyote_Hunter]

…
I rarely see a member's experience where a game animal is hit at a good location, by what is commonly known as a hunting bullet, and the bullet did not perform at the member's expectations.

I do see more commonly where a match bullet did not perform to the member's expectation.

Agreed. I've often said that most bullets will work most of the time. My concern is the rest of the time. I use" premium" bullets because I've had unacceptable performance with standard bullets, never with premiums. By "premium" I mean TTSX, AB, ABLR, A-Frame and Scirocco II. Pretty much in that order of frequency, too.

i also find it puzzling that you trust the experts in Berger and Federal, but you don't trust the experts who designed the hunting and match bullets for Nosler, Hornady, and Sierra. These aren't folks who only make one kind of bullet. They make both hunting and match bullets. They are telling sportsmen that we don't recommend using match bullets on game, as they aren't designed to perform on game in a humane manner. But you don't believe them?

I said there are "at least two" I trust. I was contrasting the extremes in my mind – unacceptable and excellent for my needs.

I use Hornady 95g SST in my .243 Win for antelope and have worked up Nosler 129g ABLR and Hornady 143g ELD-X loads for my new 6.5CM. The 95g SSTs work very well for antelope and I expect the ABLR and ELD-X will do so as well. The only Sierra bullets I use are the 200g FP in my .375 Winchester. I also use Hornady XTP in my .44 Mag for hunting. Do I accept all the marketing fluff from these or any other manufacturer? No. But I do have enough personal experience to validate my choices.