What Rifle/Caliber Combinations Have you liked the most and disliked the most and why?

[buffybr]

I've said it once and I'll say it again. When I grow up I want to be like Buffy!

Thanks!

Around 2002 when I bought my first computer and started going on various internet forums, I needed an internet name, so I chose the name of my Golden retriever at that time, Buffy Bear, shortened to Buffybr.

 

[buffybr]

I am talking about smaller SUV not Expedition and Tahoes. Could have said to make it easier.

Lets disagree on shoulder. I have yet to ruin any meat with a solid copper. Its what made me change to copper when I had an Accubond LR ( not Accubond)fragment all over inside an elk when it hit a rib. Never made made it to a clean vital or shoulder.

Everyone has opinions, I dont track or loose animals since I switched. Works for me.

For most of my 65 years of American big game hunting, my favorite shot placement has been broadside, just behind the shoulder and 1/3 up the body .

For 20 some years, my favorite elk rifle and bullet was my .30 Gibbs shooting 180 gr Nosler Partitions at 2,900+ fps. Most of the elk that shot were one shot kills, but if it hit a shoulder, there would be a dinner plate size bloodshot area around the bullet hole.

In 2009 I built my .300 Weatherby and started loading loading Barnes 168 gr TSX bullets in it for elk hunting. My first elk with that combination was a 5x5 bull with about a 100 yard broadside shot just behind his shoulder and 1/3 up his body. My bullet went completely through him, didn't hit any bones, and blood sprayed 10' out both sides onto the show. He ran 3 steps and fell dead.

When I skinned him, there was a .30 caliber entrance hole and about a 1" exit hole in his hide on the far side, and almost no bloodshot area around the bullet hole.
Entrance side...

And exit side...

My most powerful elk cartridge and the least amount of meat damage!

Then a couple of years later I shot my next elk with my .300 Wby and used a Barnes 168 gr TTSX bullet. This was also a 5x5 bull with about a 150 yard shot. But this bull was standing quartering toward me next to a fence that I didn't have permission to hunt on the other side.

So because there was so little tissue damage on my previous bull with a Barnes bullet, I held on the point of his shouler. My bullet hit the upper end of his upper front leg bone where that bone attaches to the shoulder bone. Much of that shoulder meat was a bloodshot goo. The bullet then went through his body cavity and stopped in the ham of his offside back leg. He also just took a couple of steps and fell dead.

I've switched to 180 gr Barnes TTSX bullets in that rifle, but I no longer intentionally aim to hit a bone.