Smokeless for Caribou
I recently got invited to a Caribou drop in hunt from the guys that used to fly my dad in for his Alaskan Moose hunts. They gave me a really good deal from a cancellation and since the old man and myself have used them for years. As some of you guys know, just before he passed, the old man had ordered most of the stuff for a smokeless muzzleloader setup and I built it after he passed. I have to admit I wasn't really that interested in smokeless or even inlines until I got to playing with this demon spawn. I was planning on using it this year on an Elk hunt but my buddy in Colorado, where I have hunted for 30+ years now, isn't going to be able to hunt this year due to work. So, I am thinking about taking it on this Caribou hunt. Now for the question. I have taken 11 Caribou over the years but 8 of them were with my 7mm mag and the other 3 were with my .30-06. Every one of them were over 200 yard shots with 3 of them being closer to 400 yards. With full sized 300gr Nosler ballistic tips I have this fire breather centering the 10" gong at 300 yards with 10 shots giving a good 5 minutes between each shot for cool down. So I know the rifle is accurate. Probably more accurate than myself. But I have never used this bullet on game and I don't think the old man had either. Couldn't find anything in his notes. Now, Caribou are by far not hard to drop. They go down a hell of a lot easier than most whitetails I have taken to be honest. But I still want to use a bullet that I know will perform well terminally at range. With the load I am using I am getting 2750fps on average at 5 yards off the muzzle. My ballistic calculator says I will have around 1775fps at 300 yards. Anyone with experience with this particular bullet have any terminal experience with it? Especially at lower velocities. It's the 300gr .458 Nosler Ballistic Tip.