When you don’t get a pass thru and have no blood trail you will change your tune.
In the late '70s I was a fan of P.O. Ackley. Back then I only had one centerfire rifle, a .30-06. My hunting partner gave me a .30 Gibbs case and I carried it around for several months, and I thought it was so cool that I decided to have my .30-06 rechambered to .30 Gibbs for my elk rifle.
At the same time I decided to build a .257 Roberts Ackley Improved for my deer and antelope rifle. Most of my hunting with it has been with 117 grain Sierra GameKing bullets. Over the years I've probably killed 30 or more deer and 30 or more antelope with this rifle/bullet combination. Most of the deer and antelope were one shot kills and I have never lost an animal that I shot with this rifle, although I did have to track two deer a couple hundred yards where I found them dead.
On one antelope hunt in eastern Montana I was walking back to my truck and went through a prairie dog town. On one mound there were 3 prairie dogs standing in a line. They were about 125 yards away, and I just couldn't resist a shot. The 117 grain GameKing bullet literally exploded the first two dogs and cut the third one in half.
In 1979 I went on my first Montana Unlimited Sheep hunt. I backpacked by myself into unit 303 east of Gardiner and north of Yellowstone NP. I had only planned on hunting for a few days, and by the third morning I hadn't seen any sheep, but not long after I left my camp I heard an elk bugling and coming toward me. The early elk season was also open in the Wilderness there and I had an elk tag in my pocket, so when I saw those 6 point dark brown antlers with ivory tips walking toward me I couldn't resist, and when he stopped broadside about 70 yards in front of me I put a 117 grain Sierra tight behind his shoulder and he simply dropped dead.
That little 117 grain bullet hit a rib going in, shredded his lungs, and didn't cut the rib cage on the opposite side.
Through the '80s I continued to hunt the Unlimited sheep units and ended up killing 3 of my own rams and finishing another ram than another hunter had wounded and lose. I used my .257 Ackley with 117 grain GameKing bullets, and all of those rams were one shot DRT kills.
In 1999 I went on a cancellation Dall sheep hunt in Canada's Mackenzie Mountains. This was my first guided hunt and I again used my .257 Ackley. This was a fly-in backpack hunt, and the first day of hunting we found a band of 5 rams with one ram that I said I wanted as soon as I saw him. We stalked in to 208 yards and again a 117 grain GameKing bullet dropped him in his tracks. That bullet went completely through his chest, but there was almost no blood on either side. That ram turned out to be 10 1/2 years old and has 39+" horns on each side.
A few days later in that hunt my guide and I were flown to another area to hunt for Mountain Caribou. We hadn't seen many caribou and just after we got up on the third morning two bulls walked by our camp. We had seen these bulls earlier several miles away and my guide had wanted me to shoot the larger one, but I had wanted something larger. Since this was about the end of my hunt, I grabbed my rifle and shot the larger bull. It was about a 200 yard shot and as soon as I shot we heard the bullet ricochet off the rocks beyond the bull.
The bulls ran out of sight down the hill, and my guide said he was sure I'd hit the one but he didn't know about the sound of the ricochet. I said "Yeah I hit him, lets go get him." We found him dead about 30 yards beyond the crest of the hill. Again my bullet went completely through his chest, and there was almost no blood on either side.
So after over 40 years of hunting with my .257 Ackley and over 60 kills without heavy blood trails, I haven't changed my tune and I am still 100% confident with this rifle for everything from prairie dogs to elk.
