48 years of big game hunting has taught me some things, first, through the years my thoughts have changed on what works and what doesn't. Second, every animal that I have ever lost still bothers me to this day. You won't find me on the small caliber band wagon, sorry, I like big holes with big bullets, they work. I hunt in grizzly country, if I have to defend myself, I want to know that one shot should save my life. I like DRT kills, the animal can't be too dead. It is humane too.
I have tried most bullet designs and have likes and dislikes. I do need to try some hammer bullets, next on my list. I started my hunting life reloading after being taught by my dad and my uncles. I grew up hearing stories about 30-06 bullets failing to penetrate elk shoulder bones, then the Nosler partition was born, a game changer. The biggest mule deer my dad ever shot was hit behind the shoulder with a 180 grain soft point out of a 30-06, the deer kicked and kept on going. They found the deer the next day, dead. When my dad and uncle returned from this trip to Idaho in 1958, my uncle called my dad and told him Winchester just came out with a new cartridge, 338 Win Mag. My dad rushed out and bought one and never looked back! My uncle then had his Winchester model 70 rechambered to the wildcat 30-338. Years went by and I watched these two great men kill lots of animals with authority. Yes, my dad killed a lot of black tail deer with a 338 win mag, sometimes he would gut shoot them on purpose and the shock would drop them. Then came the 7mm mag craze and we all had them, and after I lost a big black bear that I shot at around 500 yards with a 160 gr partition with a solid behind the shoulder shot and then another big bear that while I killed him, the 160 gr partition never touched a rib on the off side after a 150 yard finishing shot, I decided bigger was better.
Now I primarily hunt with a 338 rum, I liked my 300 rum too, but I referred to it as my small gun. When the barrel went south, I opted to build a second 338 rum.
Back to bullets, about 5 years ago I tried my first 300 grain Berger OTM, first kill was on a 5 point bull elk at 540 yards, I have never seen a faster DRT as I saw the legs go straight into the air at the shot. Bullet didn't exit, but did it's job. Many great kills followed this one with the 300 gr OTM, no failures. I also shot the 225 Accubonds for quite a few years with good results, mostly DRT's as I push the Accubonds hard at 3250. I also shot the Barnes 210 gr XLC coated bullet and it did very well, but it was pushed very hard also at close to 3400. Two years ago I decided to try the 300 gr Accubond and it shot very well, same velocity and almost as good of accuracy as the 300 gr Berger. With griz still being on my mind, I did a testing in my shop into a 24 inch pine log, end ways 3 feet from the barrel, I shot the log with two shot of 300 gr bergers and two accubonds, both with a muzzle velocity of 2830. The Bergers penetrated about 12 inches and the bullet is a mess of copper lead and wood. The accubond almost exited the log with a perfect intact mushroom, luckily it didn't kill my new tool box! Then I hunted with the accubond that year. I had a miss at 960 yards on a cow elk do to a mental oops, had the Berger bc in my G7 and at that range the difference in bc was enough for a miss low. Then I connected on a cow with a bad wind call at 540 yards, I hit her far back and it looked like I broke her back. She crawled into the timber on a snow covered ridge. Thinking she was done, I didn't bring my rifle, just my 454 raging bull. As I got to where she went into the timber, I could see what looked like an elk laying there, but my glasses had gotten so dark from the snow, that I couldn't see well, but I saw her lift her head, and then scramble and got her feet under her and I had no shot. I tracked her through two drainages in the snow, she was leaking drops of blood making it easy tracking. I finally caught up to her and my buddy had brought me my rifle after her missed her on an open hillside in the sage brush. As she was running from me at about 50 yards, I hit her from behind and the bullet penetrated all of one backstrap, exited and hit her in the side of the head and stopped. She went another 15 yards and stopped in the timber where I walked up and put one behind the shoulder that was a complete pass through and dropped her. Tough Cow! The first shot hit the rear part of the stomach just under the spine, paralyzing her hind end for a while, but it took me 30 minutes to hike up to her. Second shot didn't hit any bone and really didn't blood shot a lot of meat. The back straps had a perfect hole of about 40 cal all the way through lengthwise. So, what does this mean, I think a fragmenting bullet would have broken the spine and kept her down on the first shot. The bullet instead stayed together, but still didn't exit.
I am now testing another bullet, the 285 gr Hornady ELDM, I am running this bullet at 3000 fps with 100 grs of RL33 and so far only two doe antelope to show, both killed at 400+ and both drt. I recovered one of the bullets from a quartering shot after it broke the off side front leg into bitty pieces. It resembled a 300 gr Berger OTM, 1.25 diameter of destruction. Currently I am trying to make some 210 gr Swift Scirraccos shoot out of 338 #2 and RL26 showed promise in velocity, but not accuracy. I might try them with H-1000 or just stick with the accubond 225 for my light hunting loads. Or maybe I will order some Hammer's to try. I have also tried some Barnes tipped tripple shock 225's with this barrel, but I give up 100 fps, but they have good accuracy.
