Choosing the right bullet for every western critter

[DIDIHITIT?]

Just got back from shooting and had good results. I shot just under moa with 168 grain lrx's and 63.8 grains of h1000 seated .050 off the lands. This load can definitely shoot tighter. There are 5 shots there. I am not the world's best shot and the guys next to me were having fun with their pistols making it hard to hold steady. Should I experiment with seating depth now? Or call it good? What has been your experiences?

 

[Heavyiron]

Welcome to LRH. Great to have you on board.

 

[MOOSE39465]

Welcome. 175 Accubond lr would be my choice with rl22

 

[Mustang72]

If I had to have one bullet to do everything it would be a partition.

 

[bigngreen]

I wouldn't shoot a Partition at 600 yards, they all of the sudden will stop even thinking about opening, I've dug a lot of them out of elk that you could load and shoot again, great bullet back in the day but with a BC that of a brick you can make a big gain by shooting a modern bullet with better design.
If you run the 175 Partition out at 2900 fps and a 175 Berger at the same you GAIN 300 fps and 500 ft lbs of energy, that's taking a bullet from marginal to right in it's wheel house at 600 yards, you shoot 2 moa flatter and the big kicker you cut almost 2 full moa of your windage in a 10 mph wind at 600, that's HUGE!!
There are a ton of great bullets, terrain and chamber will dictate what's best but don't let guys fool you that BC means nothing because it does, just the windage numbers should rock your mind when you start thinking about pushing range!!

 

[RockyMtnMT]

Out to the range of 600y there are a lot of good choices. For me and what we do, vel along with a bullet that can handle it is king. @bigngreen is right on. It wasn't many years ago that pushing bullet well over 3000 fps was not really an option. Bullets couldn't survive the launch and if they could there was a high potential of a train wreck if you made a close range shot with the bullet coming undone on impact and not getting penetration. So when forced to use a bullet that is heavy for caliber in order to keep the vel down, bc becomes a big factor at 600y. Take the same cartridge and launch a bullet at 3300 for 3400 fsp, suddenly shooting 600y is more like shooting 300y. A 7mag running our 143g Hammer Hunter at 3300 fps has an impact vel at 600y of ~2200 fsp. Take that same bullet an put it in a 28N and run it at 3600 fps and now your impact vel at 600y is ~2550 fps. Time of flight is .6 sec. Wind deflection at full value 10 mph is 16.5" or 2.5moa. That's still holding hair on an elk. Compare that to a 175g Partition launched at 3200 fps from a 28N (Nosler data). 600y impact vel is at ~2200 fps and drift is at 20.3" or 3.25moa. Take a Berger 180g hunting vld from a 28N at 3000 fps (Hodgdon data). This would have a 600y impact vel of ~2260 fps and a full value wind drift of ~16" or 2.5moa.

What I do know for sure is the Hammer will not have any issue high vel launch or close range high vel impacts. Speed kills!