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3/8 inch group with 95 Gr. Berger VLD Hunting bullets shot from my Winchester Model 1885, 243 WSSM.
Different three shot group with 95 Gr. Berger VLD Hunting bullets shot from my Winchester Model 1885, 243 WSSM. The three groups in the circle are all the exact same load on three different times to the range.
The Chrony showing 3223 FPS with 95 Gr. Berger VLD Hunting bullets and 51 Grains of MagPro powder.
Really cool frost crystals on my Winchester Model 1885.
First entry hole with 95 Gr. Berger VLD 243 WSSM.
Second Entry hole on cow elk.
Berger's VLD hunting bullets have really been intriguing me over the years and this year I decided to give them a try. I knew the ogive on the VLDs often requires a really long cartridge overall length to get optimal accuracy. Since I own a couple of single-shot Winchester Model 1885 rifles that I wouldn't have to worry about the cartridge fitting into a magazine I figured they would be perfect for me to load the Bergers VLDs for.
For my first VLD bullet to try I went with the 95 Gr. VLD Hunting bullet. I really wanted to use the 105 Gr. VLD but with the 1 in 10 twist my rifle has I figured I might have a tough time getting the bullet to shoot accurately from my rifle. Even the 95 Gr. VLD recommends a 1 in 9 twist but I figured I would be fine in getting it to shoot with the 1 in 10.
I chose to try three of my favorite powders MagPro, Winchester 760 and Superformance. After tweaking the COAL and amount of powder I came across a load that shot quite well every time to the range. It happens to be the slowest shooting load but holds about a half-inch group in outdoor fairly windy conditions with only a shooting bag rest and a heavier than I like trigger. For whatever reason, the trigger is just a little heavier on this rifle than all my other factory rifles. If I ever get around to having the trigger worked on and I had a more solid rest I'm sure this would be under a half-inch consistently.
One thing I did notice with using this VLD bullet is that it appears to produce less pressure than other more traditional bullets that are the same weight. The shape of the bullet with the elongated nose/ogive and boat tail provide a shorter length of the bullet that actually engages the riflings. Well, that is at least my theory. I also ended up going with a load that is almost a tenth of an inch longer than the max overall length that would fit in a magazine. I also had the Winchester 760 powder and Hodgdon Superformance powder produce great groups with higher velocities I just ran out of time to tweak loads around those powders before I went hunting and shooting at the outdoor range in December and January isn't the most comfortable. I can tweak the load more when it is warmer if I decide to do so later.
I was itching to try the VLD load on my cow elk hunt this year. My only problem was my injured knee. I had crushed the tibial plateau and damaged the meniscus back in October and had been nursing it trying to get it better. Unfortunately, my leg has not been heeling (I'm afraid there is more damage than we first assessed) and I was running out of time left on my permit so I had to go, hurt leg and all.
Fortunately, I have a cool brother, well actually I have two cool brothers but for this hunt, my cool brother Weston came along to help me with my bum leg and see if he could also fill his tag.
As we headed out at first light we had a couple of other hunters with uninjured legs drag a noisy sled with them that took off out in front of us. So, much for trying to take it easy and find an elk near the bottom of the canyon. We decided to cut back up a ridge to see if we could find some elk. Sure enough, we found a couple cows feeding up high near a ridgeline.
We worked our way up the mountain hoping to get to a saddle that would make for about a 350-yard shot. Before we could get to the saddle some mule deer had decided to be on the side of the mountain we were on and they went up and over the saddle. We cut back to the right and were able to see the elk. They were on alert thanks to the mule deer and were ready to take off. We dropped to the shooting sticks with a quick check on the range finder, 451 yards and a quick check on the mildot hold over tablet I had for the load. Then I sent a 95 Gr. Berger VLD up the mountain. Whop! The cow turned and trotted around the face of the mountain and I held about two feet in front of her and sent another VLD her way. Whop and down she went.
I was really hoping to drop her on the first shot. The first shot had to of done a number on her lungs and I'm sure the elk would not have gone far but I wasn't taking any chances so I sent the second bullet. I think I hit the elk a few inches too high to get it to drop immediately. I like hitting them about a third of the way up... well, right where my second shot hit.
The first bullet hit her midway up her torso and a couple of inches behind the shoulder. The second shot hit her on the opposite side about a third of the way up from the bottom of its torso through the back edge of the shoulder. Both bullets fragmented inside leaving each opposite side rib cage entirely bloodshot and I mean the entire side of the rib cage was bloodshot. I did find one mangled bullet fragment from the second shot that had made it through the opposite rib cage and into the muscle on the back of her opposite shoulder/leg. This fragment weighs 24 grains.
Now we just need to get Weston and my oldest son Dallen back on the mountain to fill their cow elk tags.
Why such a light bullet for elk?
After reading this article some might feel that this guy is out of his mind for using such a light bullet to hunt such a large big game animal. You should know that this is not my go to bullet for elk. I like to use different bullets and see how they perform. A Berger VLD has been on my list to try for a few years now. I really like this bullet and it did very well on this cow elk.
My oldest son and I have taken five elk with 80 and 85 Gr. Triple Shock bullets with only one elk requiring a second follow-up finishing shot to put it down. That's correct, six ultra-light bullets for five elk with all elk being recovered. Between the two of us only one elk has ever gotten away. A cow that I shot with a 270 WSM using a 130 Gr. Triple Shock right at 300 yards. This cow was hit directly through both shoulders with a lights out shot that just canned her. She slid down the hill out of view and by the time I crossed the canyon she had disappeared with only a little blood where she had slid down the hill.
I am a strong believer that a 243 WSSM is very capable at taking elk given the right bullet and the right shot placement, within the right range. With a 243 WSSM for elk I recommend the 80 Gr. Tipped Triple Shock for any shot out to 350 yards. I strongly feel that this is an awesome setup to help youth hunters feel comfortable with shooting a rifle and confident in making the shot.
My personal favorite for elk or mule deer is a 270 WSM shooting a 140 Gr. Accubond bullet. My opinion will probably change in the near future as I will be testing 270 WSM loads with a 150 Gr. Accubond Long Range bullet during the summer of 2013. The 0.625 BC on this 150 Gr. bullet is amazing and it's a hunting bullet. It could be my favorite soon.
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Dallen posing for photo at sunset.
Dallen's a little sad just after we missed our second opportunity of the day to bag a nice really buck.
Here are the snow covered cliffs where the big buck made his escape a couple days earlier minus a few feet of snow.
My Tibial Plateau fractured leg. :(
With Dallen having a great experience on his elk hunt two weeks earlier we were both excited to find a nice buck for him to take. For this hunt, Dallen again was going to use my X-Bolt Stainless Stalker 270 WSM with my favorite 140 gr Accubond handloads.
The day before the hunt we packed in the near three miles we wanted to go hunting the area I shot my small four-point in 2011 with a muzzleloader and specifically, we wanted to be watching the canyon I took my busted up buck back in 2010.
We made it in that evening and took some cool photos along the way as the sun was setting. One thing we forgot was a flashlight. Oops! As it got dark we had to use a flashlight app on my Galaxy S III phone to get our sleeping bags out and set up under a scraggly pinyon pine.
The next morning we were up before light working our way around a ridge to view down and across one of my favorite canyons. As was glassed at first light we watched four small bucks below us sparring off and on. We also saw a few does further down the canyon. Then we spotted a nice looking four-point with a 24 inch sized rack below us. We decide to make a play on the buck and started working our way down the canyon rim trying to get within range of him. Unfortunately, this buck was headed off the mountain and we could not catch up with him.
Then to our horror, we looked back up to where we had just been and watch 3 bucks coming around the other side of the canyon... and one of the bucks was a dandy. Dang it! These bucks entered into some pines to bed down for the day. We decided to try and sneak in on them and get the big buck. I knew this buck had been around the block and was going to difficult to determine how he would react. Often large bucks will bed and hold until you jump them like a pheasant. I was hoping this was the case. We slipped along the far edge of the pines slowing working our way through constantly scanning for any glimpse of a rack bedded down under the pines. As we worked our way to a ridgeline there they were escaping up and over a boulder field and down a rough ridgeline. Not what I was expecting but I knew to expect the unexpected and this was definitely unexpected. Dallen setup and was ready for a shot just as soon as the buck stopped... and he did at just over 300 yards but... this entire body and head was behind a mahogany tree. All we could see was his beautiful 27-28ish wide typical rack sticking up above the tree. He paused there for maybe a minute then took a couple bounds and over the ridge for good. Sorry Dallen. :(
By now there were many groups of hunters in the area and with all the deer in the area spooked, deep in the private ground we headed back off the mountain.
We planned to come back and hunt later in the week after things settled down to make another attempt at the large buck that got away.
Needless to say we were never able to make it back out on the mountain. On Tuesday after months of being heckled for not playing basketball with the guys that Dallen plays pickup games with I decided to get a little exercise. After just a few minutes of playing I got hit in the knee. The blow caused my knee to immediately swell up with blood and I lost all mobility. Turned out after the blood was drained by Dr. Harrison that the MRI showed that the Tibial Plateau was crushed and I had some meniscus torn. My DonJoy Defiance knee brace had saved me from having my whole knee taken right out but I was done hunting for some time...
After about five weeks of crutches I am now slowly getting my leg back into shape. Sorry, I ruined your hunt Dallen. I knew better. Just 10 minutes of basketball in the past 21 years and I get my knee crushed. I'm taking it as a quick reminder that I shouldn't be playing basketball risking my legs and hindering my "quality of hunting" in the future.
Then if it wasn't bad enough knowing I couldn't get back out to help Dallen hunt we had the best snow storm in my memory during the deer hunt. Thanks to the heavy amounts of snow many nice bucks were taken during this year's Utah deer season.
2012 has not been my luckiest year, between all the time I spent trying to get a bull on my Limited Entry archery elk hunt and getting skunked, my son needing surgery causing me to turn around from going up the mountain on my muzzleloader deer hunt and now my broken messed up knee. Dallen did put the hurt on a nice bull this year for his second bull. And any time on the mountain experiencing the trills, ups and downs, excitement of the trying to find and outsmart elk or mule deer on public ground is priceless. There's also nothing like sneaking out to your favorite glassing point in time to watch the beautiful sunrise breaking the darkness of night. I love it!
- 2012 Rifle Elk Hunt — Dallen Takes a 4x5 Elk with a X-Bolt 270 WSM
- 2012 Archery Hunting for Elk in the Utah Wasatch Limited Entry Unit
Now I really have to get my leg working quickly so I can get a cow elk and help Dallen and Weston get one also this winter.
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Dallen with his 2012 Utah public land elk. Good job Dallen!
Dallen glassing for elk in the basin below. Where are the elk? At first light we were looking around trying to find them from this ridge line.
Dallen holding an X-Bolt Stainless Stalker in 270 WSM.
Dallen showing the position he was in when talking the shot.
All smiles walking up to his 2012 trophy public land elk.
Getting ready to start boning out the elk. Shown here is my X-Bolt and an Alps Outdoorz Commander frame pack. This pack worked great for hauling out the boned out meat.
A quarter sized exit hole from the 140 gr Accubond handload that chronographs at 3300 fps from my X-Bolt.
This is a fist-sized entry hole through the rib cage. The 270 WSM 140 gr Accubond handload (see: 270 WSM Handloads ) made a small hole through the hide that we couldn't find until we skinned it. Then the bullet went though the back edge of the shoulder blade then through the rib cage. You can also see my workhorse knife I just love. A custom semi-skinner fixed blade that Russ Kommer made for me.
This is a fun picture showning the Alps Outdoorz logo on my Commander frame pack.
The Alps Outdoors Commander frame pack loaded with elk meat and the rack skinned out ready to work on doing a European Skull mount. We used Caribou Gear's Camp Meat game bags to store the boned out meat. These bags worked great. They are just the right size to place about 30 lbs of meat into each bag.
Dallen and I with his 2012 Utah public land elk. Nice shooting Dallen!
After my dismal Limited Entry Archery Elk hunt and my muzzleloader deer hunt this year I was ready to hopefully see Dallen take a bull this year.
For the opener Dallen really wanted to go back into the rough high country we hunted on the last day of his elk hunt in 2011. In 2011 we bumped the elk in the dark after working so hard to get into the area to hunt. For the past year we have played this mistake out over and over in our heads and were ready to make up for our mistake.
Dallen turned fifteen this year and was ready to move on to a little more horsepower in the rifle he uses. I am a firm believer that the right bullet from a 243 WSSM works great at taking down deer and elk as Dallen has proved taking three elk and three deer with. The 243 WSSM was perfect for him as a young hunter to learn to shoot correctly without being afraid of the rifle. And Dallen has become an excellent marksman. His mule deer last year was taken with a 619 yard shot and I credit the low recoil high horsepower for bore diameter 243 WSSM for getting him so comfortable with shooting. Dallen was now ready to make the transition to using my 270 WSM with 140 gr Accubond handloads and he was excited to be hunting with my X-Bolt this year.
The night before the opener we made the 50-mile drive to get to the area we wanted to hunt. It was late when we got there so we slept in the front seats of the Montero. Not the most comfortable but we were able it get a little rest before heading out in the morning. This year we made sure it was light before we made our way slipping up to the ridge to view the basin the elk like to feed in.
Once we crested the ridge and started glassing the basin appeared to be devoid of elk. I could tell Dallen was a little disappointed but there were a few pockets I knew the elk like to hang out in that I wanted to check out. As we worked our way around the ridge we spotted two spikes feeding below us at 300 yards. I tried to tempt Dallen to take one but he was determined that we wanted something larger than a spike as the first elk he took in 2009 was a spike.
With the spikes in the area, I knew there had to be a herd of elk nearby. We hiked a little further around the ridge and set up on a rock outcrop above a great looking pine and quaking aspen draw. I started cow calling and was immediately answered by a bull. We had the wind to our advantage and had a pretty good vantage point to shoot from so I started working the Primos cow calls to try and pull the bull out into the open for a shot. Dallen just loved hearing that bull screaming back at us. It was fun.
The bull's bugles generally sounded like he was getting closer however it was obvious that he was a herd bull that had cows with him. Convincing a bull like this to leave all the cows he has to come to a couple other cows can be difficult and often the cows are the most difficult problem as they do their best to keep the bull to themselves. However, it did appear that the bull was generally coming our way so I kept up the calling. After 15 minutes or so Dallen spotted a spike coming out of the quakies below us followed by a cow and another bull we couldn't see very well. Boy was Dallen excited now!
The elk were coming to us and looking around trying to find us. After a minute or so the other bull followed behind the cow and headed towards an opening. We could tell he wasn't huge but a nice looking 4 or 5 point. We knew he wasn't the herd bull that was bugling at us but we also knew that we may never see that bull. It didn't take long for Dallen to decide he wanted to take this bull.
Once the bull got into the open Dallen quickly dropped the hammer which was responded by a loud whop on impact. The bull was still standing and Dallen instinctively worked the action on my X-Bolt 270 WSM and fired a second-round right into the top of his spine as the bull had now turned facing directly away from us. This dropped him in his tracks.
We spent the next hour working on photos for the website and for possible use by Browning. In fact, the Oct. 2012 wallpaper on browning.com is a photo I took of Dallen walking up to his elk. After the photos out came my favorite Russ Kommer semi-skinner knife for the next four hours boning out the elk and placing the meat in meat bags.
Unfortunately for my knees and back, in the location we were hunting the only way to get the meat off the mountain was on our backs. For this trip we brought an Alps Outdoorz Commander frame and Pathfinder packs to haul our gear and boned out meat with. We also used some Caribou Gear Camp Meat game bags to place the meat in. I really like these game bags. They are strong, lightweight, breathable and as we found out, they have reflective tabs making them easy to spot with a flashlight in the dark. These bags are marketed as a bag to use to haul small amounts of meat back to camp to eat. Filled with about 25 lbs of meat each I think they are the perfect size to haul all your meat off the mountain with. With these smaller more manageable sized bags of meat, I can adjust how much I haul from one trip to the next based on how difficult the terrain is or how tired I am.
With how difficult the terrain was that we had to haul the elk out and the extreme amount of weight (190 lbs of boned out meat) we had to haul we decided to take short trips. We knew that we would be exhausted one way or the other and if we did one long hike all the way out it would be very difficult to be motivated to go all the way back for another trip. With this in mind, we would take one load a couple of hundred yards, unload the packs and then hike back and load up the rest of the meat and gear and haul it. We did this back and forth for the next eight hours straight. It was tough and one really has to put on a strong mental game to tuff it out. Taking the shorter mini trips was also helpful for us to take breaks. Every time we dropped a load and went back we were taking a rest on the legs and back. I also really am a believer in Hammer Nutrition's Endurolytes Electrolyte Replacement Supplement pills. I take a couple or these pills every couple hours of extreme exertion like this to keep my legs going and cramp-free.
What a cool experience to share with Dallen. He was so pumped to get this bull. Excellent work Dallen!
Interestingly with all the time I spent a few weeks earlier archery hunting on the Wasatch Limited Entry unit I was only able to call in one elk. The first group of elk we came across in this general public land I was able to call in. The Wasatch unit during the archery season has far more people on it educating the elk than general public land... something I wish I knew before I put in for a LE archery tag.