RedRiverHntr

NO! Not talking about that!
I know ol Elk Kamp Meister is still around as he posted. My hunting group all purchased Encore's this fall and have been spending most of our time trying to figure out how to keep the smoke out of our eyes.
But have found some time to shoot the elk rifles too. Notably the .338RUM of which my brother purchased also (coincidence......from a reloading perspective, I think not! Economies of scale more like it! Namely my scale and his economy!) But I digress.
My question for the bigger guns group is how does this group (100yds) stack up? Been running a lot of different loads through her and my reloading buddy won't stop until they hit the same hole. I tell him I am not that good of a shot! Hope the picture posts?

RedRiverHntr

Here's my shots with my brother's gun. I could switch with him and he wouldn't notice but mine is wood and blued and pretty and his is synthetic, SS, cold and unfeeling!!!!

I didn't say he was smart!

ShatoDavis

I noticed on the notes that there was a 15-20 mph wind. I'd say try in calmer conditions, thats pretty decent shooting in those conditions.

ELKampMaster

RR,
Transpose those hits into the kill zone on an elk and you are good to go out to 300 yards (more).
The good news when using that kind of iron is that you have the OPTION of accessing that kill zone from any quadrant at any time, and bones or any other elk parts getting in the way just don't much matter because it is going to march right thru and go do the job on the kill zone. Once you taste smokin' them with that kind of punch, it gets just plain hard to go back to doing it the "old way!"

K-THUD, throw out the anchor, cause he isn't going anywhere.
=================================

Of course everyone knows you doctored the targets, no one who uses the bigger iron can shootaccurately, you know.... American Recoil Sensitivity Syndrome,and other commonly held myths [:'(][:'(].

Nice target work, right up the alley of my sig line.

RedRiverHntr

it was windy, we were just lucky nothing caught on fire that day. Have had some bad ones around here. Burned thousands of acres and came within about 300 yards of our shooting bench!

I took the factory brake off of mine and with the shorter barrel (23.5" compared tomy brothers 26" SS model) it chronos only about 80 fps less. Surprised me. I figured it would have been more.
Tried several powders and bullets andpowder loads. Mine seems to be moreparticular to what we feed her.
My buddy wants to bed theaction and keep working on it.I am not sure it is necessary as it already is at or above my capabilities, but then again it would involve more shooting so whythe heck not??? Those targets were with 200 gr. Ballistic Tips. Shot 250 and 225 through it mostly. An interesting side story is that weoccasionally shoot bar stock steel of varying thicknessjust to see what it does. The Accubonds and the Swift Aframesdo the most damage, but the BallisticTips and the corelokts are almost indistinguishable from them. In a piece of 1 1/8 inch piece at a 100 yards, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference asall four will almost shoot completely through it, bulging theback side all.My preconceived notions aboutthe penetrating powerof the ballistic tips changeda that day.

Thinking of gettinga bigger caliber formy Encore, either the .375 or the .416R. Not thatI would ever need it, but I enjoy shooting and mainly because I don't already one.Not sure of the felt recoil of the muzzleloader in scientific terms, but load that boy up with 150 grains of powderwith a 444 gr projectile and I can't help but say........."Did she buck"???
I knowmy elkrifle is somewhere around the 44ft/lbsrange, all I can say is that the black powder feels every bit of that.But man whata blast to shoot! Open sights too thanks tothe Colorado DOW's wonderful regs!
.50 cal bullet is sure a manly looking item as well!

Thanks again to all the fine contributors to this and the black powder posts. There are those of us who appreciate it.

game4lunch

3 shots and you go home. right?
What did your shoulders feel like? (lol)
Seriously, good groups under those conditions and on new guns.
I am seriously wanting to get the T/C Encore. Probably start with the .243.

MA Jay

A 1 1/2" group at 100 yards is "Minute of Elk" in my groups book. Some guys want tighter, but if you triple that which is what in my opinion you have to do to factor hunting conditions, a 4 1/2" group in the field is not bad. It's the guys shooting 3" groups from the bench at 100 yards that hunting conditions can really throw off.

Not knowing how good of a shot you are, 1 1/2" may be the best "you" can doand not the rifle. No knock, only you know, but if you were in my group I'd feel confident the tracking job wouldn't be to rough with you.

RedRiverHntr

Well......as I said and Shato and MA have touched on.......in the immortal words of Harry....."A man's got to know his limitations!!! That day I probably ran 20 rounds through the two .338RUM's. Was warm as usual here in TX and barrels get hot and stay hot. Those were my best groups but the other groups were with other loads too.
I am looking forward to trying the new Barnes MRX in .338/225 grains.

We usually shoot a lot or rounds and I shoot those two first. Favorite for plinking is my buddies M1 Garande. That thing is a blast. I will say that shooting the "smokepoles" are fun too. You get to adjust your load on each shot if necessary.

As for the Encore's, I also have the .223 barrel and it is a sweet shooter. Our group tends to go overboard on occasion, and as we have really liked everything about the Encore's......triggers adjust down to a really sweet 2.5 lbs.......one of us has bought the new .204 (fun gun), 25-06 (perfect deer gun and he is touching holes with every shot), and now he is trying to get a .300 Mag in it (hard to get right now) as he likes it so much he wants to just have the one gun for everything. Now understand he already had most of these guns in other, older versions. So there might be just a little "gun addiction" at work here too.

Anyway........we'll keep you advised. I haven't posted any pictures of this last fall's Co elk hunt....mainly because it was just a camping trip as we saw bubkus! But we aren't complaining one bit, we camped at 10k in the Rockies and had one hell of a week and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

EKM.....although we continue to add-on, subtract and improve our camping accomodations, our most significant addition involved an old collapsable chair, a piece of 5/8's plywood, and an old toilet seat!!!![:-] It truly is the simply things in life......

ELKampMaster

RedRiver,

A response to your thread along with a little story telling that may or may not apply to your situation--- take it for what it is worth....

That "bubkus" thing can happen under the best of circumstances, especially sinceelk don't necessarily "hold" in a given area like deer but tend to be more "hit and miss".The "no elk year"is particularly easy to run into, if you have been elk hunting just a couple years and have a "sweet spot" whereyou have always had good luck and henceyouconsistently "bank on"that area each year. The elkmay have been in the general area withinseveral miles, just not your drainage.

FWIW, we set up our main camp in an area with good roads going in multiple directions and not specific to any one of a series of reasonably close by "zones" all within about a 6 mile radius/12 mile diameter of that camp. Immediately after setting up our main camp, we scout our favorite areato see if the elk sign is there, seeing or hearing elk is great, but the main thing is we just check the watering holes and study the tracks in the mud, if there are plenty of tracks (as in mud all tore [trampled] up), then it is Plan A as usual (probably happens 70% of the time).

If no tracks or not enough tracks at the water holes, then Plan B, we abandon that area and quickly scout the other areasand set up our spike camp there if itappears heavily populated, or Plan C, divide up our groupand do day hunts from the main camp in and out of several distinct areas with no spike campif there is only modest elk sign across the board. That waya group from our camp should get intothe elk one way oran otherand since we all get multiple elk tags, we don't really have to worry about the "party hunting" rag because any one hunterwill have his hands full if he shoots two elk and two hunters with four elk down will have done our camp proud.

Especially under scarce game conditions or what we thought would be scarce game conditions, whichever groupgets into the elkgets right after the programlike they mean business since our mission is more of a "tribal hunt" than hunts for individual accomplishment. We have had ocassions though,where we have had to get on the radios and call "cease fire" where we were legal with tags to spare, but forGod's sake don't shoot any more, it's a warmweather trendand we've got two days of hauling on the ground already.It is good to be all wrapped up by noon the first day and the money for the unused tags goes to a good cause. On to packing them out and doing the subsequent in camp butchering and freezing --- BTW it takes a lot of beer to butcher an elk and everyone has a good time! From time to time we'll havea pair of huntersout in the woods after the main push, looking to add another elk to the tally; sometimes not.

Not sure how you run things, but I'd rather show up two days early and have the flexibility of making that adjustment for Plans A, B, or C and "trade away" two days off ofthe tail of the season if need be. The comparatively lazy nature of the scouting days in the midst of God's gloryand then the followingstrategy session offiguring out the "placement of your chess pieces" on the elk hunting chess board to me can be more rewarding than the moments of the kills.

As an aside. We are after meat (big racks are okay and fun, butmake for more burger and jerky), and like yourself, a good time (the most important thing). We do have neighboring camps and it is a friendly competitionbetween campsto seewhichcamp is most productiveand we do enjoy that a lot, especially when there are "new and inexperienced neighbors" that are fortunate enough to "get into them" but don't have horses and haven't considered how they are realistically going to move those carcasses.Man, those boys look tired!Sometimes you just gotta help thosefellas out, just likemy Michigan mentors did with me so long ago.

Anyway, we invite thosevarious camps over for banquet night (usually 3 days before the opener) to eat, drink, tell old war stories, claim bragging rights from the prior year, and compare general scouting notes witheach other for the up coming opener. Among the more successful elk camps there is typically a LOT going on the week before the hunt, the more of that you canget in onthe better it works.

RedRiverHntr

Thanks for the info. Since our first year, we have added a couple days on the front end of the hunt as you suggest. For scouting and generally having a good time. Not a lot of time for it starting the first morning.
Having conversed with you before, I know our camp does things a little different than yours, but it suits us and we enjoy it. In the end, that is the most important aspect. We try to reach a our comfort "medium" or hunting, camping, work and fun. When someone gets a little testy, and someone always does, someone else will chime in with "hey, it's his vacation too"!
We are looking to change things up a might as we are putting in for Muzzleloader tags too. We just want to be up there once when they are "in themood for love"!!!!

Thanks again to all who offer their experience. Some we take, some we don't. But we enjoy it all!