My dad and I are going to be leaving for the first Co elk season in about two weeks. And will be doing the final sightthis weekend. Which bullet do you recomend? the failsafe or the barnesX bullet. We have cow tags and will be using abrowning a-bolt in30-06. Thanks for any help you guys can give me.

Which ever shoot the best out each rifles go with...both are excellent bullets and will do the job on elk!

They are pretty equal in terms of terminal performance and construction but the Barnes has a much better ballistic coefficient. The barnes will buck the wind better and carry way more energy down range so I would give them a try and see if they shoot well from your gun. Federal loads the 180 grain barnes. If you are reloading I would give the barnes 165 TSX or XLC a try.

I site my 30/06----3" high at 100 yards. I'm odto go out to 300 yards. Most of my shots average around 150 yards over the years. As far as your 2 choices. I've got friends who swear by the 180 grain "fail-safe" & others who swear at it. I never could get them to group out of my rifle. Several friends who like the Barnes--they mostly shoot Mags & push the bullet pretty fast.
Take the one that groups the best out of your rifle.

FYI--The 180 grain Nolser Partition by Federal is never a bad choice.

I started to use the Barnes x's out of my A-bolt .270 several years ago for whitetail deer hunting in Idaho.I still use them because they are exceptionally accurate out of my rifle.Quite honestly they are probably more bullet then necessary but they provide a lot of confidence for various shot angles for big whitetails.

I have always had excellent performance with the 180 grain failsafes. I just added a 248 pound black bear to that list a few weeks ago. I have never shot an elk with the 180 grain failsafe, but knowing that I have made ALL one shot kills on deer, bear, and other game I would not hesitate to pull the trigger on an elk.

I just returned home from my elk hunt.I took an mature elk using the 180gr tsx out of my 300ultramag.The shot was a little high and the bullet smashed through the spine and lodged under the hide.The bullet mushroomed perfectly to .800" and the retained weight was 160.4gr.The muzzle velocity was 3380fps and the range was 200 yards.

Stubblejumper I would like to see a picture of the recovered bullet. If you can paste a digital picture it would be appreciated. I have never recovered one to see how it expanded on actual game.

I have e-mailed a couple of pictures of the recovered bullet to you.Feel free to post them if you wish.

Pretty impressive peformance from that kind of velocity. I think I need to try those things in my 7 mag.