Trying Something New
 

We have an early season elk season going on right now and I thought I would try a different bullet available from Lehigh. This bullet is listed in their "Hunting Bullet" section.



I normally use the 458-300 grain DOA for ek, but I thought this would be an interesting change.

This is the bullet description as provided by Lehigh..

This bullet has been in the back of my mind for several years nows and I felt I was ready to give it a good try. Why??? Somewhere along the line when I was doing my research on the original Lehigh's I found a bunch of guys that were using this bullet from a 45-70's shooting western Buffalo. They were were reporting great success and a quick harvest with this particular bullet. That really peaked my interest especially shooting elk. I have hunted elk for a lifetime and have seen some things that really would amaze you in the amount of punishment some elk will absorb - yet not show much reaction at all. Believe me they are dead but some body forgot to tell them for awhile.

I am shooting the bullet from my 52 Knight DISC Extreme using a Knight 458-52 Silver/Grey Sabot. I am shooting it with 120 grains of T7-2f. Ran to farm last night to check POI, ended up shooting 4 clay pigeons... prononced the gun sighted in. I know this really does not mean much but when you look at the destruction in the ground that this bullet does - it was impressive. I am easily inside the velocity range suggested for the bullet. It is shooting 1975 to 1990 fps.

Hopefully Friday night/Saturday morning it will cool down enough to make a trip worth while. This morning at 3am it was 46* and at 7am it was 69* so there is not a large window of opportunity especially hunting by yourself.

200 grain instead of 300 grain? Will the length of the bullet effect the accuracy? How does it shoot? I have little doubt that placed properly it should be a game taker. So if the accuracy is there.. well good luck with it.

The 200 number is Dave's catalog number, the bullet is a 458-305 grain chunk of brass.

I have shot it from 50 cal guns in the past with a 1-28 and they were really accurate. For this hunt I am shooting a Knight 52 cal with a 1-26 twist and shooting last night it was amazing.

One of the reasons I wanted to try it was for a possible frontal shot on a big bull. I am thinking this bullet will penetrate that mass of chest hair and the possibility of it being full of mud - either dry or wet.

In this hot weather the elk love to find a mud hole that they make into an 'elk wallow' to help cool their bodies. The problem is when they get out they do not bother cleaning up and often you will end up shooting through this mud caked hide...

Sorry for the confusion. That 300 should do real well. Have you tried them in your White Rifle at all? Although that .52 caliber... I know its started an itch with you to shoot something. That 300 grain should do real well then. I never knew about elk mudding up like that. I knew they rolled in the mud but then never even considered the fact that they'd be mud covered.

What is it about mud and animals? My old dog loved nothing more then to find some old stinky swamp mud and roll in it. He'd come back to the house just ripe. Thank goodness for a garden hose.

I never even thought of that... the White 1-24 should really be and advantage especially at the longer ranges...

In the areas that we hunt you can never really count on a bull being clean. Between the temperature and the rut they really can go nuts.

During the rut they seem to like to do anything that will make them stand out or be different than the next. Being 'stinky' seems to be one of their big goals.

I will be anxious to see how they do for you. Let me know , I might give them a try on a Mulie. I plan on using a 40 cal Lehigh for Antelope when the season rolls around.
Hope you get the elk you want on your early hunt.

The part that worries me the most is getting the meat out to beat the heeeeeat.

I understand. same thing with antelope. I have the advantage that I usually dont have to go but 3 or 4 miles from the house for a antelope so I can get it quartered and cooled pretty quick, which beats taking lots of ice along.:D

What I need is one of those things that they had on the Starship Enterprise... the thing that would just freeze stop people or even the transporter - that would be the very best!

I had a deep freeze and generator all set up on a trailer last year .
then my elk hunt fell through. Next best thing though