In January, my friends from Texas called me and asked how would I like to apply for an Arizona hunting permit/tag for Elk with them. We would all apply for the same units and if one of us drew, we would all get together and hunt for whomever drew. I said sure, why not. I knew that Arizona was a lottery type system and odds of drawing a tag were low.
Come draw day, she calls me and asks did you check to see if you got a tag, they had checked and hadn't drawn. I said no but will check now. The way Arizona is set up, you get to choose 5 areas/dates that you want to hunt. We had all selected the same zones. I logged in to the AZ hunting site, I go thru the choices, as I get to the last one, which was for a late season cow elk hunt, it said issued. I asked her what does that mean? She goes, they gave you a tag?! What the hell? Keep in mind, this was my first time ever applying for an out of state hunting permit and applying for an elk tag.
Yup it said issued, because they billed my credit card right then. I got the tag in the mail about a wk later.
My friends built a vacation house in Williams, Arizona which happened to be the zone I drew. Talk about luck.
So that kicked off 10 months of planning and getting ready. The plan was I would come out to them for Thanksgiving and spend the time getting acclimated to the altitude, their house sits at 7000ft above sea level.
The intervening time was spent trying to decide which rifle to take and how to get there. I decided to just go with my .308 which I know the ins and out of quite well. Next was what bullet would be appropriate for elk.
Did I mention I have never seen an elk ever in my life and here I was with a tag to try and kill an animal much bigger than a whitetail deer?
The first bullet I considered was a Sierra 165gr GameKing, factory ammo would make it much easier. Well turns out my rifle did not shoot the 165GK factory ammo worth a crap, I tested it out to 600yds and at that distance the groups patterned like a shotgun, not confidence inspiring.
I then considered a Hornady 178gr ELD-X hunting bullet, I have always had good success with Hornady bullets, accuracy wise. The problem was getting some, with the whole covid nonsense etc. Anyway, I managed to score some from MidwayUSA, got 200 projectiles for $100.
I tested them, with different powder combos I know that had worked in my other rifles in the past. Well, my FN again did not like any of the combos I tried, shot better than the 165's but not by much. I will say I was looking for a powder/bullet combo that would give me 1500 ft/lbs minimum at impact as far as I could get it.
Since the 178's weren't shooting for me, I looked thru my bullet collection to see if I had anything that would work better. I had 150gr bullets but wanted something heavier, 175-180gr hunting bullets were unobtainium and I didn't want to use a match bullet on what would probably be my only chance at shooting at an elk in my lifetime.
I then noticed I had 2 boxes of Berger 155gr VLD Hunting bullets in the orange box a buddy had given me years back. I loaded these up with a charge that had given me decent velocity and accuracy in the past.
Off to PMRPC to test, and voila sub moa accuracy.
1in paster, 2 shots @100yds, cold bore shot in middle
Loaded to magazine length this bullet was giving me .5moa accuracy at 2905fps, which at 7000ft asl would give me 1500+ ft/lbs energy out to 500yds. Did I want to take a shot out that far, no, but I wanted the capability if that was the only shot I was presented.
I would prefer my shots to be closer if possible, and I decided the 155 VLD hunting it was gonna be. I then kept practicing with this bullet combo throughout the summer validating my dope. My come ups were dead on all the way out to 600yds. So I was confident in rifle/bullet combo being able to connect if I pulled the trigger.
Now, I have friends who hunt and have taken elk, one of the arguments was that .308 with a 155gr bullet was too lite for elk sized game, this same friend also argued that 6.5 Creedmoor was not an adequate cartridge for elk and that the only cartridge to use was a magnum class cartridge, now I mostly agree with what he was getting at, but the problem was that all my rifles in those cartridges were built as target rifles, so they were heavy and not pleasant to hump around with all day.
My FN 308, was the lightest Elk appropriate rifle I had, coming in at 11lbs with scope, which was still heavy for a hunting rifle. Anyway, his final say on the topic was, I hope it works for you.
Now fast forward to November and it is time to head out to Arizona, flew out 2 days before Thanksgiving, won't bother describing holiday travel, post covid, other than to say I got there. Got there and got settled in, had a great Thanksgiving with friends and then had a week to prepare for the hunt.
Remember I said I had never seen an elk before, and the first morning there, had a small herd pass thru my friend's property. Over the next 10 days, spent time driving around scouting different areas, had my primary and secondary hunting spots picked out. Saw other hunters out and about doing the same thing I was doing. One thing I did was at each spot I was at, I would range different terrain features and mark down the different ranges using my Sig Kilo 2000 rangefinder. When I saw Elk, I would lase them to get an idea of what they looked like at the different ranges and angles, definitely not like looking at a deer. Another thing I did was, every few days, I would take my rifle out, and dry fire it, practicing holding at the different distances I thought I might get a shot at.
Fast forward to opening day, I am at my spot and saw nothing in the morning, but from the area I selected as my secondary, I counted 10 shots for the morning. The secondary spot was a large pond where I figured elk would water up and then head back to their bedding area or what I thought would be their bedding area.
My primary spot was over on the opposite side of hill away from the pond, I had seen elk make an appearance there on and off in the days leading up to opening day, it was also away from other hunters with a hill between them and me in case of shots fired. Evening passed on Day 1 with no shots other than headlights moving thru the zone.
Morning Day 2, saw me back in my spot looking up the hill, I was able to see headlights moving to the pond area, at first, I saw 2 sets of headlights moving, then another set of 3 together moving to the pond area.
I scanned the hilltop, and saw movement, where Elk were moving thru the brush/scrub/trees, away from the lights. I brought my rifle up, and flipped the safety off, told my friend who came with me, Elk, top of hill. She said, I see them, one came into view, but only gave me a view of her butt, but we saw other elk moving away from the pond area.
Then this big cow stepped into view and stopped, at first, she was pointing up the hill, giving me her butt, then she turned to the left, giving me a solid view of her neck and shoulder.
Said to my friend, I am going to take that one, she says ok and covers her ears. I said I had ranged every noteworthy feature on the hill in the days leading up to season, so the tree she was near was at ~265yds.
I held the top of her neck just forward of the shoulder, I took a second to dial up from 4x to 10x then got the crosshair back on target, she just stood there giving me the profile.
I breathed out, relaxed and squeezed the trigger. Report! I saw her go down in the scope, but I was already racking another round in, my friend said, she went down, I don't think she got up, as I get back on target, she says, I think you did it, she didn't get up!
We watched the area for about a minute as the other elk exited the area, she kept saying, I don't think she is getting up.
As we got ready to head up the hill, I made my rifle safe and got my backpack ready to head out. As we headed out, we were joined by another friend and the 3 of us headed up the hill, took us about 15 minutes to get up there, did I mention the place was steep and the footing sucked.
As we got near to the tree I had used as my yardage reference, the other lady started pointing, she saw something. As we got closer, I saw legs, I had gotten her, as we got closer, all that kept going thru my mind was damn that is a big animal.
We got to her and noted how big she was, I think this was the alpha cow in the herd we had been seeing off and on the past few days, I couldn't make out the impact on her, but there was a lot of blood under her neck and mouth, she had gone down right there.
Then the fun stopped and the work began. We gutted her and began the gravity assisted journey of getting her down the hill back to camp.
I said that altitude didn't affect me much on arriving in Arizona, well it royally sucked hauling that big dead animal down the hill!
We got her back to camp and began the process of skinning and butchering, that took the rest of the day, but we broke her down, and put the meat in coolers with ice.
When I was able to, I found where the bullet had hit her and where it exited. The hole going in looked like a pinhole, but the exit was very apparent. The wound cavity was impressive. The VLD did what it was advertised to do, penetrate a few inches then fragment. I found pieces of bullet jacket in the wound cavity, even though the bullet exited.
Bullet exit.
Bullet entrance after skinning
Bullet damage on exit.
More damage
Wound Cavity
We then spent the next 2 days butchering the meat, and there was a lot of meat, my friend's hubby estimated she was over 500lbs probably closer to 600lbs. Anyway, after the shot, my season was over. I had done it! Ticked an item off my bucket list and have the memories to go with it. All my planning and preparation actually came to fruition.
Then there was the issue of all that meat, even though it was my tag, my plan from the beginning was to give most of it to my friends, since they hosted me for nearly 3 weeks and really enjoy elk meat more than I ever would. I took home a few choice cuts and they got the rest.
We had elk chili, and elk steaks etc etc for the next few days, but all in all, it was a great trip spent with good friends. Lots of good memories.
Equipment List:
RIfle - FN PBR XP in .308, bone stock in Hogue rubberized stock, only adjustment was to set the trigger at just under 3lbs.
Bullet - Berger 155gr Hunting VLD, in Lapua brass, Varget lit by a Federal Lg Magnum primer. Yielding 2905fps
Scope - Nikon Monarch, 4-16x with Mil dot reticle
Rangefinder - Sig Sauer Kilo 2000
Rest - Eberlestock Pack Mounted rifle rest.
Cold weather gear - Midway USA Hunting bib and Jacket
Shoes - Rocky Brand 400gram Thinsulate hunting boots
Windproof Hunting Beanie and Balaclava bought off Amazon.
Pack- Rifle carrying backpack from Academy outdoors.
Gloves - Hot Pockets fingered Mitts
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