Hunting & Fishing 140gr ELD Match

[Westex6.5]

Some may say im stating the obvious but DO NOT use Hornady 140gr ELD Match bullets for Whitetail deer.

My Brother in Law had a very successful hunt this morning with his new Creedmoor. Shot his biggest whitetail to date along with a doe. The buck was shot twice in the boiler room. Both shots penciled through at 115yds. First shot hit a rib on entry. Same scenario on the doe.

No need to preach on the importance of a clean ethical kill. Its the least we can do. Hell my primary 6.5 bullet was the 123gr Amax. Excellent deer bullet in my opinion. Even shot a Gemsbok this year with it.

Just wanted to share. My experience may be different than yours.

Happy late thanksgiving. Im going to watch this gut pile till lunch time. Interested in seeing what this 140 does to a coyote!

Joe

 

[Wyfox]

Found that out the hard way last year with 2 different bucks, both shot behind the shoulders with 140 ELD and deer ran for hundreds of yards into thick cover with absolutely no blood trail. Switched back to the Nosler 129gr Long range accubond which is a phenomenal performer by the way.

 

[Niles Coyote]

No issues here, one shot stops
2016 553 yards

2017 364 yards

recovered jacket in off side hide, core kept going.

 

[Westex6.5]

Very nice kills sir. What did the wound channels look like? Our property in childress texas is no place that you want to track an animal.

The first shot on his big deer would have definitely killed him but had he not stopped in an opening between mesquite trees for a follow up shot he would have disappeared into a sea of cedar trees and CRP

 

[Sportsman]

Use the 143gr ELD-X

 

[Westex6.5]

He will from now on. He was “told” to shoot hornady match by the gunsmith.

Use the 143gr ELD-X

 

[Sportsman]

That's a shame. Hopefully something was lost in translation and the gunsmith isn't recommending match rounds for hunting.

 

[Niles Coyote]

Very nice kills sir. What did the wound channels look like?

2016 was a quart toward, entered just in front of the shoulder and clipped the bottom of the spine, only bullet fragments were found.

2017 was a direct hit to the top of the ribs where to flattens out and connects with the spine, bullet broke the top of that rib and smacked into and through the spin and carried on out the other side. On the entry side very little meat was lost but on the exit side I lost about a fist and a half of meat.

 

[Westex6.5]

Im sure his reamer is throated for them. Bullet is a bullet to my inlaws. Wish i could get back every bit of my life ive spent tracking their animals.

He is bringing me the rifle and all his brass at Christmas. Going to load him some quality ammo

That's a shame. Hopefully something was lost in translation and the gunsmith isn't recommending match rounds for hunting.

 

[Niles Coyote]

The ELD-m should been expanding, the reason behind the ELD-x was to design the jacket to delay expansion a bit longer... and that is the reason I don't use them on deer size animals and smaller as I don't want pass throughs if I can help it. That said, a fellow in my group was using game kings in his 7mm rem mag and lost a deer this year after what appear to be a solid shoulder hit, after a day and a half of walking up and down draws it went unfound. One of the problems we have in the area we hunt in Montana is it is next to impossible to find blood on the ground unless a faucet is turned on or you get lucky and have snow on the ground.

 

[BoilerUP]

If you don't wanna track, why not just put the bullet in the high shoulder?

 

[Westex6.5]

I disagree with the shoulder comment. Ive never had to track a single animal in my life harvested by myself. Dont know what I’m doing different than others but it involves putting a reliable bullet in the heart/lungs. If they dont bang flop I could piss on them from where they were shot.

Back on track. From what I saw yesterday I do not advise anyone to use the 140gr eld-m in a 6.5 Creedmoor for hunting. To each his own. Just trying to help out and provide accurate real world results.

 

[Mullhead]

Picture worth a 1000 words

 

[Westex6.5]

Exactly why it’s important to note the exact caliber and bullet I mentioned.

Example. In my experience. The 123gr Amax flat out hammers shit. I did not ever try the 140 amax due to me reading that it did not perform well.

Nice shootin mullhead. Enough proof for me to consider the 130 eldm in my x47

 

[stwcattle]

Heard same complaint yesterday from a rancher. He always hunted deer with 6.5 creed 140gr AMAX.
He went out the other day with hunters both shooting 6.5 creedmoor 140 ELDM's and neither animal was recovered.
The ELDX bullet is effective with the 6.5 creedmoor. My wife has put severel deer and couple cow elk down with the 143gr ELDX bullets.

 

[Westex6.5]

In this picture you can see two bullet holes. The one with blood coming out is the exit hole from the 2nd shot. The deer was slightly quartered towards him. The first exit hole can be seen right behind the shoulder blade.

Its a dead deer non the less but interal damage was minimal. Ive seen deer with much more damage run a mile.

 

[Killswitch Engage]

Ive killed plenty of whitetail with 140 eld. no issues at all. drt all of them. most being beyond 500yd.

 

[260284]

I had one pencil thru the neck of a good sized Kansas Whitetail last year. The 123 Amax out of my Grendel is a great deer bullet and so is the 140 Amax out of a 260 or a 6.5 Creed. I have seen several people have good luck with the 140 ELDM on deer and antelope, but I switched to the 143 ELDX for this year.

 

[DEWD_STUFF]

140 ELDM works for me 2 years in a row. This is 2017 mule deer. All entrance wounds, completely mushed one lung into soup, clipped an artery going into the heart, and blood trail was insane. He bucked up into the air, bounced once, took about 8 half life steps and rolled down the hill dead.

Last one is exit
Last year deer was much the same, completely fragged his front left scapula into shards and exited opposite ribs at 275yds


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Slowfire]

Good information. Thanks

 

[Westex6.5]

All success stories are at extended ranges. No doubt the Eld-m is adequate for killing deer. But for me and mine I’ll stick to a bullet that performs at all ranges.

Thank you for the pictures. Thats some nice shooting

 

[schmi015]

Take a look at the winchester deer season xp. I've had great experiences with it, its pretty cheap and been below .5moa consistently out of my rifle.

 

[TanktheFrank]

I shot a pig in between his ears and the shoulder blades with a 140 eld. Went off like a grenade, but he fell like dead meat should.

 

[BLKWLFK9]

I'd venture to say that the AMAX has killed at least as many critters as any other hornady bullet in the past 8 years or so. The eldm has the same exact jacket. I shot a doe with a 168gr SMK on thanksgiving and she took 10 steps. When I threw her into the back of the truck, heart chunks went flying out of the exit wound. If you want a bullet and target that will work 100% of the time at any range, shoot a berger or JLK and aim high shoulder. Don't care if its at 100 yards or 1000 yards, its a dead animal. Seen mixed results from folks on the ELD X bullets too. Some awesome results and some horrible ones. A hunting bullet isn't going to be a 100% guarantee kill either. To each their own. Im in the camp of shooting the most accurate bullet for your gun as long as it isn't a varmint exploding bullet (Unless youre varmint hunting).