Thread: First fail - 6.5mm 143gr ELD-X

Any area just under the spine from the paunch to the atlas joint can result in drop on the spot, and then oh shit its got up.

Originally Posted by Tahr

...If you want to kill stuff consistently at longer ranges I would be stepping up in caliber and case size, but even then you will still get the odd unexplained failure...I think.

Yup and that was a definite consideration when I put this rig together. The challenge is in this instance is the repeated long shot strings, the heat generated, and the effort required to control a harder kicking rifle and maintain consistent accuracy, on iffy ground, usually sloping away from you requiring a high setting on the bipod. It's a compromise, the 6.5 Creedmoor - it provides the energy and the SD of a decent .308 - but its definitely not in the league of a 7mm Rem Mag, .270 WSM, etc etc when it comes to stopping power.

I've tried shooting the smaller magnums in 4-5 shot strings and its just nowhere near as bankable for me - or others I've watched try it. It's a proper pest control effort - if it was just one deer, then I'd have gone 7mm magnum no question - but its not just one, we'll be after 6 or 7 goats in the mob we can see, and as they scarper another mob will pop out from behind the spur and we need to hit them too! Man you should see how quickly we burned through 70 hand loads last week. The spotter ranges and calls, and single feeds the rounds. Very important for the shooter to remain in position and maintain the target in the field of view, otherwise in the rain and general shitty winter conditions it can be damned hard to find them again quickly at 20x plus magnification. Every time it stops, you shoot!

It looks to me like that bullet may have done most of the expanding in the dirt. It probably went through the top of the lungs leaving only a little hole after not hitting much. Was their any blood around?

Originally Posted by Flyblown

Yup and that was a definite consideration when I put this rig together. The challenge is in this instance is the repeated long shot strings, the heat generated, and the effort required to control a harder kicking rifle and maintain consistent accuracy, on iffy ground, usually sloping away from you requiring a high setting on the bipod. It's a compromise, the 6.5 Creedmoor - it provides the energy and the SD of a decent .308 - but its definitely not in the league of a 7mm Rem Mag, .270 WSM, etc etc when it comes to stopping power.

I've tried shooting the smaller magnums in 4-5 shot strings and its just nowhere near as bankable for me - or others I've watched try it. It's a proper pest control effort - if it was just one deer, then I'd have gone 7mm magnum no question - but its not just one, we'll be after 6 or 7 goats in the mob we can see, and as they scarper another mob will pop out from behind the spur and we need to hit them too! Man you should see how quickly we burned through 70 hand loads last week. The spotter ranges and calls, and single feeds the rounds. Very important for the shooter to remain in position and maintain the target in the field of view, otherwise in the rain and general shitty winter conditions it can be damned hard to find them again quickly at 20x plus magnification. Every time it stops, you shoot!

Oh for a property like that.
With so many goats around do you let any newbs on for a hunt old school spot and stalk styles ?

I'm picking you may of actually missed mate, and the pill blew something into the deer which is what your mate on the spotter saw? Dont take that the wrong way just what I got from reading it and looking at that pill.
Heres 2 animals shot at 500 yards with the 143 eldx, as you can see they werent going anywhere.


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Originally Posted by 300CALMAN

It looks to me like that bullet may have done most of the expanding in the dirt. It probably went through the top of the lungs leaving only a little hole after not hitting much. Was their any blood around?

No blood or bits whatsoever, though it was sluicing down by the time we got there. Nonetheless, the hound just went round in circles. Bullet was about 2 inches into a soft bank, didn't take much finding. Dug around for more bits of bullet but didn't come up with anything.

Mate says he could clearly see a small exit hole and I spoke to him again this evening and he is adamant that the exit was lower than the "gap" we've been talking about. If you've used a 85x spotting scope you'll know how much detail you can see at 500. Also the angle, shooting uphill at a moderate angle, probably 5° max.

I've just done a little bit of work on the bullet and pulled back the petals, there's dirt in there, underneath. So the petals seem to have folded back in the dirt. Failure to properly expand (maybe) at 2100fps on a fallow sized animal would kinda blow a bit of a hole in Hornady's 1800fps picture on their ELD-X website. But that's all conjecture, at the end of the day.

Originally Posted by BRADS

I'm picking you may of actually missed mate, and the pill blew something into the deer which is what your mate on the spotter saw? Dont take that the wrong way just what I got from reading it and looking at that pill. Heres 2 animals shot at 500 yards with the 143 eldx, as you can see they werent going anywhere.

Nah. We debated that at the time, that's what I wanted to believe! But the manner of the instant pole-axed drop, the time it stayed down, the offside wound and constant licking at it, the slow hobbling, and also the fact that the bullet was exactly where I expected it to be in the bank.... the animal was standing on an old bike track right in front of a very distinctive small slip, bullet was recovered at the perfect height for a shoulder shot. I hear what you're saying, its always a possibility, but we couldn't get a miss and maybe a fragment of jacket hitting the animal to work with the evidence.

Originally Posted by Flyblown

No blood or bits whatsoever, though it was sluicing down by the time we got there. Nonetheless, the hound just went round in circles. Bullet was about 2 inches into a soft bank, didn't take much finding. Dug around for more bits of bullet but didn't come up with anything.

Mate says he could clearly see a small exit hole and I spoke to him again this evening and he is adamant that the exit was lower than the "gap" we've been talking about. If you've used a 85x spotting scope you'll know how much detail you can see at 500. Also the angle, shooting uphill at a moderate angle, probably 5° max.

I've just done a little bit of work on the bullet and pulled back the petals, there's dirt in there, underneath. So the petals seem to have folded back in the dirt. Failure to properly expand (maybe) at 2100fps on a fallow sized animal would kinda blow a bit of a hole in Hornady's 1800fps picture on their ELD-X website. But that's all conjecture, at the end of the day.

The pill still needs to hit something substantial to expand, on a small animal the point you indicated is pretty thin. I have seen everything from 223 to 300 win mag 180 gainers go through the soft part of a goat and not expand.

After so many animals with one failure I would say your bullets are working a treat.

The fact that you feel bad about losing that animal and went to look for it for several hours speaks well of your character.

A true sportsman feels a responsibility to take an animal's life quickly and cleanly. The emotion that goes with losing something wounded is to my mind, a difficult but necessary part of hunting. If you have no empathy, then you will take no care.

As has been said before, your record prior to this has been pretty damn good.

Big effort there to recover that deer. I thing it's possibly a case of ELD-X for shorter ranges and ELD-M for past ???? 300 mtr particularly on lighter animals.
I lost a large red hind in may from a 30 mtr shot with and I can't remember which it was but either an 6mm ELD-M or a Berger VLD at 3000 fps. It bolted 20 mtrs into steep bush dropping to a river. While we were not as diligent as you where we did not find any blood but both heard the impact. (surface blow up?????)
On goats at 100-400 meters these have been great.
Zq

Just to define “first fail”. Its the first animal I’ve not killed with the 6.5mm ELD-X and has gotten clean away. A percentage of the goats we shoot - 10-15%? - need two shots. I do wait a wee while to see if a second is really necessary.

Its inevitable that sometimes a windage call is a bit out and they get hit too far back. But when this happens, there’s more than enough oommppff with the 6.5mm to knock them down and almost all the time paralyse the back legs as a minimum. Goats are, as a general rule I think, quite easy to kill. (And if you’ve ever kept domestic goats like we have you’ll know they are also the best at catching a mild ailment and dying on you quick as a flash. Hopeless creatures.)

Hi Flyblown,
This is an excellent professional quality improvement activity. Are you working on a mangement course ?
Peer review is great. You never quite know who you're dealing with on the internet, but Tahr would be your closest peer here and @kimjon is another whose input would be valuable.
You've identified this "first fail" as a sentinel event but the time between failures (>232 animals) suggests your process is pretty good.
You've discussed several possible root causes:
Unsatisfactory bullet selection and performance ? No. Consensus here is that this is the best bullet currently available for your application.
Unsatisfactory cartridge choice. No. Only tahr has even entertained this idea but your reasons for selecting 6.5 Creedmore are sound.
Inadequate marksmanship. No the shot was within the accepted accuracy and the existence of "gaps" is recognised. The track record of 220 goats with 10-15% second shot attests to your capability.
Inadequate search for wounded animal. No. Going back with the dog is best practice.
Failure to maintain shooting position after the shot and failure to take a second shot. This is the main correctable cause. It s very difficult to change behaviour specially when you are generally so successful but you can learn from this one incident. Looking outside the box: changes in equipment and standard procedure are more effective. You could do this by changing from single loading by a partner to magazine feed and having a spare mag within hands reach. Depending on the build, you might need to wait for a new rifle to get a long enough magazine of at least 5 shots with reliable feed and a shorter throat so you can seat to the lands within a feedable OAL .

Thanks for this interesting post.

Thanks Bagheera for the feedback. Just to clarify something I wasn’t clear on, the single round feeding only happens after the magazine has been emptied. Its a 4 shot internal mag and I slide one up the pipe manually and chamber that first, then the remaining 4, then if the mob is still within range (usually the case) rather than stop and change position to reload the mag, its seems to be faster to single feed with a bit of help. As soon as there is a break, then the first thing is to refill the magazine.

The main advantage there is that the shooter can continue tracking the mob as they move across the face and settle on the one that’s stopped.

Whilst its still a pretty effective way to shoot when you’re on your own, having a spotter doing the ranging and casting about for animals that have emerged from cover that we didn’t see initially, its a real winner. I have my dope printed out and inserted into the Lifeproof case on the back of my phone, no time for dicking around with Strelock when its all on. We’re far from perfect though, sometimes I’ll pick the wrong goat thats not the one I’ve been given a range for, and just clean miss it. The wife is the best, very professional, don’t tell my mate... very precise with her instructions.

But you’re right mate, this sorry outcome was all down to me being overconfident and breaking a fundamental rule. I don’t know how long I watched the animal on the ground, a few seconds, clearly not long enough. Standing up so soon was just plain dumb. We reckon it was up in about 20 seconds? Quite quickly anyway.

Won’t do it again.

As has been said anyone can post what they like regarding numbers and distances of deer shot. Speaking for myself I stopped counting when I was 20 and dont tend to shoot past 400. I have used the 162 grain ELD-X out of a 7mm Rem Mag (my third) on five deer, so a small number but my observations are based on having tried a large percentage of the 7mm pills available over the years in the 140 to 162 regions.

1. A large bodied Fallow, but you know still a Fallow at 250. High Lung fully side on. The animal never took a step but having said that he didnt go down for at least 45 seconds. I thought I had missed as he was light coloured but I couldnt see any sign of a hit I was about to shoot again when the back legs began to get a bit lighter and he tipped on his nose. My 7mm08 with 140 GKHP would have dropped him with authority at the that range and placement Im sure.

2. A ratty Red spiker. Not a big animal but alot bigger than the previous Fallow. 220 yards, base of the neck. He went down just like he had been shot in the neck with a 7mm Rem at 220 with a 162 gr pill ie- DRT and rolled out of sight. I didnt get to this animal for about ten minutes and when I did and located him from about 25 yards he looked pretty dead to me. But no one told him that he was dead and the bugger got up and started trotting/running straight down the hill away from me. He looked pretty sick but still had it in him to be travelling with purpose. He was nearly into cover when I hit him with a hurried rakeing shot down one side which put him down. After a few more minutes I got to him and he was still alive so of course I put him down. That spiker would have to be the toughest animal Ive shot for years and just prooves the tanacity of some animals. He had a pretty large hole in the lower neck but the concussion obviously only stunned him, Im still surprised he hadnt bled out.

3. Average Fallow spiker. 270 yards rakeing forward shot. Tipped him right over no problem.

4. A very large Red hind in perfect condition. 330 yards mid lung (crease) facing slightly away and alert. Hit where I was aiming and saw the impact, she ran out of sight down hill. When I got to where I had shot her she was about twenty yards away and I suspect she only got that far because of the steep down hill angle. I didnt autopsy her but the bullet performance was fine as she went down almost immediatly.

5. Fallow doe (large). 300 yards steep down hill rakeing shot. heard the impact so knew it was a hit but same result as the first Fallow in that she just stood there. I would have expected a instant drop at this shot but she stood there for about thirty seconds, again didnt take a step and I was about to shoot again as I absolutely hate seeing animals suffer but as I was taking the shot she turned and trotted into scrub and I lost sight of her. By the time I got to the spot she was found thirty meters down hill dead.

Obviously none of the above could be called a projectile failure but myself and my shooting mate (he has many hundreds of deer under his belt) felt that these pills were just abit too hard for what I do with them. Im sure the bigger the animal the better, such as big Reds,Elk etc would be excellent sizes for this calibre/weight of projectile.

I wasnt going to post as often some one else will have had only great experiences with the same combo and will take another opinion as an affront but I can only post my experiences. I hope they are of some use/help.

I admire hunters that put in as much time as possible to track/find lost game. Hunting is dynamic and anything can happen but its respect for the animal hunted that gains you respect from other hunters in my experience.

Just to add to the above post for those that are interested.

Ive shot two deer this week. One with a 162 ELD-X and one with a 154 Interlock, both out of a 21.5 inch 7mm Rem Mag.

1. 162 gr ELD-X, Large bodied Fallow Buck, 255 yards laying down dozing completely calm. Almost facing straight on, head was too low for brisket shot which I would have prefered so that the bullet would exit through the chest but that shot wasnt on so I put it in the fold of the shoulder to the left and that line put the bullet right in line with the off side back leg.
I saw the impact and fully expected the animal to not move again. And then he got up! He walked around for about 40 seconds I was about to shoot again when he started walking backwards and tipped over. Upon investigation the bullet entered exactly where I wanted it to but the projectile did not exit so according to my app that Fallow buck absorbed in the region of 2200 ft/lb of energy and went for a walk.

I will not be using these projectiles again on game animals.

2. 154 gr Interlock, Medium Red stag. 178 yards fully side on slight down hill angle. Feeding and completely calm. Bang......Dead never took a step. 40mm entry, clean 50mm hole through both lungs past between ribs on the way out.

I will be giving the 154s another go.

A small sample but enough to make my mind up.

Troy