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7mm bullets for elk inside 100 yards

With the speed of the bullet @ 100 yards your main concern should be the bullet keeping together. Fragmenting at 100 Yards will ruin a lot of meat. It also sounds like you will be hunting in close/thick stuff IF your hunting within 100 yards. IMO you need a monolithic bullet along the lines of a Barnes TTSX @ 150g, Barnes LRX @ 168g, Nosler E-Tip, etc. In thick stuff you'll want a blood trail and these bullet will punch all the way through the Elk.
 
This thread is 2 years old but.....inside 100yds. BONDED all the way. BTips and the rest will do MAJOR meat damage....Hit a shoulder and it's pretty much wasted meat.
 
consider a 50 yard shot with a bull facing you. Also consider a quartering shot facing you at close range, now the flip side, a quartering shot where you have to shoot them in the back of the rib cage with the bullet getting to the vitals.

We rode mules, got up close. It was amazing how many people would contact us to go with them on an elk hunt where we had not been drawn for a tag. We loved to ride, so often we went as a favor to a friend.

Helping others, giving us an excuse to ride our mules was common. My two riding partners used 7 Mag in BAR's where I had worked up loads with 160g Partitions, they never had a problem. I used a Browning A bolt in 7 Mag, and shot 140,150,160, and 175g Partitions. 175g Sierra BTSP is a hands down winner in the 7 Mag for elk, which penetrates like a partition. A friend that was a guide we rode Mules with used 160g Speer Hot Core flat base on everything in his 7 Mag. Another Mule man, friend in Flagstaff used a 7 Mag with 120g Barnes TSX for everything. Another good friend that is like a modern day Daniel Boone has used the 162g Hornady BTSP on 200 yard and under elk for years.

We learned a very valuable lesson, never ever go with any "party" of friends who had not been to the rifle range at least twice to shoot their rifle. If they had been too busy to go to the rifle range with me, then I was too busy to help quarter their elk, packing it out for them(at no charge). One dumb azz friend of a friend, I trusted, went to the rifle range to sight in his 30/06. When we were talking at night prior to the next day's hunt, I found out he had sighted in with 55g Remington Accelerators. He had 180g Core Locts for the hunt. I put him on a 7x7 and he did not insert the magazine deep enough in his 7400 Leaving him with an empty chamber when he cycled the bolt. His gun went click on that monster 7x7 bull at 50 yards, facing us. Sorry for the Rant.

Close range elk shooting, don't use a bullet that is going to turn into a paint ball on the elk...the bullet is the cheapest part of the hunt.
 
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I load 139gr Interbonds for my buddies 7mm, and I run the 165’s in my 300 win mag.

They have worked on Moose, elk, and bear in Northern Alberta.
 
A 175-grain bullet at 2800+, will do anything that you need at that range. I shoot 160 Partitions for elk, but the 175s also work well. Hornady Interlocks, or Nosler Partitions would be my choice, just because I have used both. After sighting them in, they shoot to virtually the same POI for me.

I would stay away from the more frangible bullets designed for long range-such as the ELDX and Berglers.

Reloder 33 will get them over 3000 fps, from a 26-inch barrel.
 
Back when I elk hunted, I used a 7 mm Remington mag, and settled on 175 nosler partition bullets, 160 partitions were successful, too. Never killed one past 125 yards...most were around 35 to 75 yards in the pole thickets. You don't need accuracy, 2" at 100 yds is good enough...your target area is huge. I also load for higher velocities to keep exit holes big. A low power light weight Leupold duplex scope 3-9X....9X is huge, and never used.
Went to a 250 gr 338 for even larger exit holes, and a 2-7X, set on 2X, It's fast shooting, soon as the rifle hits your shoulder,.. fire...you wait an extra second for a good steady sight picture, your animal is gone. Animals are moving in the thickets, so you learn to kill em on the move, to a full out run. There ain't no long range braggin shots in the pole thickets, ya can't see 50 yards much of the time...I dress in camo, like a bow hunter, no orange, and hunted Desolation alone, no roads. Killed a bull every year when I was young, and could hike the mountains and canyons for miles...Got to be too much work packin meat and antlers, for miles, and repeat back for another load..so I quit.
 
Inside 100 yards...
I used to load 280 Rem with Nosler partitions and never got to test them. But the two elk I shot with Hornady 139 grain soft points (Interlock) both dropped as if they had been hit by Zeus's bolt. Those shots were under 100 yards in timber,
 
i have loaded the sierra 175 gr SBT (#1940) for several customers for elk-grizzly-caribou with perfect results for their 7mm rem mag--280 rem--7mm STW--at ranges from 25 yds on big bears to near 1000 yds on elk--Roger
 
One consideration that should be kept in mind is if using mono's the twist should be considered. For example the 168 Barnes LRX will not stabalize in the normal 9 1/4 twist of most 7mm mag factory rifles at least not in my 7/08 factory 9 1/4 barrel.
 
Within 100yd the high impact velocity can result in exterior explosion bullets like Berger VLD, ballistic tips, etc. resulting in no penetration and lost game. I have read about this and it happened to my buddy a couple of years ago using my 300WM and 175 vld. High impact velocity on a mono component bullet can result in no expansion and a pencil pass through wound. Check the design impact velocity for a bullet to insure it aligned with your load. Look up Nathan Foster terminal ballistics research for large scale field experience.
 
If you are not required to have lead free only, then a 165 to 180 grain bullet in the Rem Core Lokt or a Nosler partition are two of the best for that use.
 

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