Previously we have discussed the necessity to work toward the ethical outcome of a hunt. Taking a life is a necessary part of a successful hunt. Making an animal suffer is not. I believe that it is my duty to do everything in my power to be able to take the life of my quarry quickly, with no needless suffering. One of the most significant steps in an ethical hunt is to match your tools with the prey in question. For this Bison hunt a projectile designed to take heavy game is required. Now, no bullet is perfect. Everything in use has fanboys and critics. Some people are fans of small projectiles that move quickly, others like heavy bullets that hit hard. Some people love bonded, solid, monoliths…. the adjectives are endless. And for as many people that love a tool, that many more will criticize it. Nothing is perfect. Most things are barely adquate.
For my part, the variable that I can control is the placement of a shot and the assurance that my rifle delivers it accurately. This is the mission upon which I have labored for the last several months. The rifle is solid. The optics work. The suppressor works. Everything works, and the accuracy with match ammunition has been proven. But, I have been concerned in finding an appropriate hunting round that will work accurately.
In my previous post I shared the process in assuring the accuracy of this rifle. It works well as it is capable of about .5moa grouping and that is off a sandbag rather than in a fixture like a sled. So, my quest has been to find a hunting load that works as well. The rifle showed an affinity for Federal Gold Medal Match in a 190 grain Sierra Match King. I could not find a 190 grain hunting load, so I have had to broaden my horizons. As I have said in other posts, I am quite fond of Federal Ammunition and I have used that as my starting point. I previously shot the 180 and 185 loads and they did not perform well. So, I chose to try Federal Terminal Ascent in a 200g, Federal ELD-X in a 200g, and Hornady Precision Hunter in 200g ELD-X. All three rounds shot reasonably well, but had significantly different points of impact. One round immediately stood out above the others. The Hornady 200g immediately was shooting tight groups. After several times shooting both hot and cold groups, it is plain to see that this round and this rifle are in love. I doubt that I can get much better performance with a significant amount of time reloading. I have shot several groups at the .5 moa size with the smallest three shot group being .44moa. That is pretty tight for an off the shelf round traveling through a budget build.
The rifle is ready, now the question is, will it shoot soft enough to not hurt JuneAnn’s artificial shoulder?
