A New Moose Rifle and a Moose

[KodiakHntr]

I don't typically post many critter threads any more, but I figure this one was kind of interesting so what the hell. It'll undoubtedly generate some conversation....

To be fair, this years bull was the second bull I shot with a rifle I had built last year. The build itself was kind of interesting in that it was built around a specific bullet, and that was the only bullet that this particular rifle has seen. It was also built as a twin to another rifle I already own, to match as closely as possible in weight, handling, and pointability.
It started out as an 1975 Remington BDL that I noticed at the local shop on consignment that looked like it hadn't seen many rounds. The bolt hadn't worn any of the jeweling off yet, and the walnut stock was pretty much pristine. After a phone call with my lowball offer to the owner, it was mine. I'd been looking for an older Remington action to build into an absolute hammer, and this was the one.
After yanking it out of the stock and pulling off everything I could it went in the mail to the 'smith for a new stainless tube chambered in a fancy wildcat cartridge at the end of March '22.

'Smith's being what they are, and always ever so optimistic on timelines, the barreled action came back to me in early September, somewhat past the 6 week turn around that I had been quoted... Not a big deal though, as it gave me time to source rings and bases and a really nice condition 1st Generation Remington Ti stock. Different paint scheme than the rifle it was built to match, but same stock, glass, and rings.
Elk tend to heat up here in September and I love calling big bulls, so the new rifle was sidelined for a few days while I hunted elk with my Mtn Ascent 280AI.
Once I had an elk hanging it gave me a bit of time to put all the bits and pieces together, make a bit of an educated guess on a load that would work for forming duties, and make some brass.
Initial results were pretty promising, forming loads were consistently around a half inch at 100 yards. With some brass formed and a couple of shots from the hip in the yard to confirm where pressure might be I went with what I thought might be a workable charge weight and loaded up a handful and ran them out to 700 yards and change to confirm drop chart dope and velocity. Better than expected, considering the lack of actual load work up due to not having a lot of time, and having a new rifle I wanted to shoot. Patience isn't really one of my particular virtues when it comes to new rifles..... Mass production of enough rounds to get through the fall commenced.

October came and went, and a handful of coyotes fell over at varying ranges with the new rifle, but no giant whitetails made any appearances while I had the rifle with me. Coyote tests went as expected however, dogs shot end on had exit holes of around 2", with everything between the entrance and exit pretty squishy inside. Not exactly fur friendly, shots through the shoulders tended to tug parts of scapula's out onto the ground... Not unexpected though.

November came however, and up here in the Peace Country we have a two day moose season as everyone well knows. My best bud came up on November 9th of the 2022 season for a moose/deer tour for a couple of days.

To be con't...

[REMINGTON JIM]

Kkk Long enough Wait - Back to the Story Bud :-P RJ

[KodiakHntr]

Fine Jim, fine...

November 10th last year up here was fair chilly. was about -28*C when we parked the truck and started walking into a block that I had supervised logging in a few years previous where I thought there might just possibly be a bull moose kicking around. I'd also had the road access pulled back, so figured there wouldn't have been much for hunting pressure in the block, especially given how remote it was from pretty much anything else and how much work it would be to get a bull out of there.
I knew were there was an old hand cut trail that ran through the timber and across a beaver meadow that ended up in the bottom end of the block though, so we struck out cross country and got into the block at the crack of 9:30am. Did I mention that it was cold AF?

Once we got into the block we split up and worked around through the block with a rough plan to meet up on a road in the middle and reassess from that point if we hadn't found any moose. That part of the plan worked, we ended up meeting up around 11 am and decided to sneak through the block down to a lower road and a see if there were any fresher tracks. We'd gone about 200 m when I thought I saw something big and black a few hundred yards out from where we were. Putting the glass on him, I could see that it was a moose feeding, with a flash of antler tine barely visible. We put on some sneaky moves and cut the distance to 150 yards and got behind a stump with some smaller trees over it to get a better look. Giving him the once over, I could see that he was a clean 2x2. Then, off to the side from where he had just come from, a second bull appeared. Looking at that one, I could see that he was also a clean 2x2. How fortuitous. A pair of 2 point bulls, and us with a pair of moose tags!

I shrugged out of my pack and got my new moose hammer situated over a couple of sticks and my jacket. I said to my buddy that I'd poke a hole through the first ones shoulders, and then move out of the way and he could shoot the other one. He gave me a bit of a look, but didn't say much. Or anything.

I snuggled down, and settled the crosshairs of the Bushnell LRHS square on the point of his shoulder.

[KodiakHntr]

At the shot the unmistakeable WHUMP drifted back and the bull made a half turn to the side and fell over. I could see a leg kick twice in the air through the scope as I racked another round into the chamber, but that brief flash of hind leg was all I could see. I turned back to my buddy and gave him a grin as I stepped out of the way and told him to get set up. The second bull was still standing there, 165 yards out, broadside. He gave me a look again, and looked at the bull still standing there, and I gave him some friendly advice about not looking a gift bull in the mouth, or something along those lines. The words may have been a bit shorter, with mostly 4 letters.

He finally decided it was better to shoot the other bull rather than to listen to me insult his lineage and manhood. Whats the difference between one bull and two when it's -28* and you are 5km from the truck? Not much in my book.

He settles in with his RMR Thinhorn 7/08AI and lets drive with a 162. Bull lurches forward, and turns 180 degrees, so he gives him another one. The bull is starting to gain some steam now (although I could see steam billowing out of his ribcage on both sides) and he gets a third round through the neck as he passed between a couple of trees and he finally folds up.

We walk up, take some pictueres, and as it is now 11:30am and still cold as balls we get to skinning and quartering on each bull.
I was fairly impressed with the bullet performance from a bullet I hadn't used on bigger animals yet, the shot had been square on the point of the shoulder, crushing the big knuckle at the bottom of the scapula on the on side. I found most of it under the hide on the far side after it punched through that scapula. Permanent wound channel was about 2" in diameter, and the lungs were mush inside. Roughly 28 or 30" of penetration. Not bad at all really, I've had bull elk catch TTSX's at that range with that same shot from a 300 RUM more than once.
I'll admit, my buddy might have been a bit righter than me when it came to his reluctance to killing two moose on a cold and windy day, that required a LOT of effort to get an atv to within 250 yards, but packing moose quarters on your back builds character, I'm sure of it. It definitely spoke to my Jenga skills, getting 8 moose quarters, 4 assorted bags of meat, 2 sets of antlers, 2 backpacks, a Stihl MS170, AND two guys onto an Outlander 650 for the trip out, but I managed. AND got everything out without losing anything other than a jug of fuel, and probably a couple of years of life off of his atv....

Flash forward to October of this year, and the two day moose season....

[REMINGTON JIM]

Kkk :tongue: BUT Not gonna be able to Sleep tonite BUT I do UNDERSTAND if you want to wait till tomorrow to Continue :wink: RJ

[KodiakHntr]

Naw, I'm only half way through a gin and tonic here Jim, I'll finish it up yet... Besides, the last moose story that drug on forever irritated the shit out of me and I never bothered to finish reading that thread... Not sure if he got a moose or not...

[REMINGTON JIM]

Naw, I'm only half way through a gin and tonic here Jim, I'll finish it up yet... Besides, the last moose story that drug on forever irritated the shit out of me and I never bothered to finish reading that thread... Not sure if he got a moose or not...

I was gonna ask if you were going to do Arctic Lake moose hunt storey OR ? AL did get a Nice Moose ! RJ

[REMINGTON JIM]

Hey �� you into a few more G&T s :-) lol. �� RJ

[KodiakHntr]

The new moose hammer was starting to show some promise after adding a fall black bear the day after the moose hunt last year, as well as a "few" more coyotes, and a spring black bear this year. So far it's 14 heartbeats deep, with 14 shots as of this writing.
I had a pretty good feeling about the same spot this year, so the week before the two day October season this year the kid and I took the sxs for a tour out to have a look at whether the fires had burned up the magic moose spot or not. Turns out we couldn't get there, as the bridge had been burned up not too long before, and there was still fire actively burning in the area. A quick inspection showed that the creek was going to be a problem, being 6 feet deep and a soft bottom, even for the new Can Am XMR I was running.
On the way back out however, we bumped into a bull hanging out with a couple of cows, easy 60"+, quad palm 10 point. Gorgeous bull.
So with that in mind, when the season rolled around a week later I was out there for first light. A fairly balmy -19*C when I rolled the buggy off of the trailer and headed out.
Suprise surprise, a new bridge had been installed in the meantime. No 60 incher standing on the road though... The fires had burned through the area quite significantly though in the timber before the spot where I wanted to hunt, so it took me until 3:30pm to get a snarky little steep climb and off camber sidehill trail cut around a big patch of blowdown that had fell over the road on the hill on the way in. Fairly twitchy spot to be messing around on foot, with the spruce trees all with their roots burnt out from under them, much less on an 1800lb side by side...

Regardless, I made it to where I wanted to get too, although it took almost all day to get there. I rolled up into the block and went about a third of the way into it on the rocket before I started to think I should stop and go all sneaky style on foot from there. After getting out of the machine I had a quick peek about with my binoculars, and noticed a rather large bull feeding about 700 yards away on the treeline working his way along the timber edge.

Grab the rifle and start puddyfooting in his general direction, keeping an nose on the wind and an eye on the bull, I cut the distance to 400 or so yards. I could see him feeding along and figured that I should get a better idea on his legality before I became too focused on him and bumped something else. The bino's showed him to be a solid tripalm on each side, but it wasn't the bull I was hoping to find. Still, he was a big mature bull, and the season is only two days long. No point in being toooo picky.

He crested a small ridge and dropped into a draw so I snuck ahead another 150 yards as fast as I dared while he was out of sight. I caught a glimpse of him crossing another ridge so I moved uphill a bit towards some standing snags in the block. He must have caught sight of me moving at that point as he stopped dead in his tracks and stared at me for about 5 minutes. I stayed motionless until he started to feed again, and held it another minute longer, my intuition was right as he jerked his head up to stare in my direction again before I moved. After another few minutes of intense scrutiny he went back to feeding, but this time he visibly relaxed and started eating.

As he slipped into another draw I slunk ahead 15m to a small dead tree and dug out my range finder. I could see his antlers moving a bit in the alders, 180 meters out and angling towards me. As he moved up a bit I rested the rifle over my hand as gripped the little snag and waited until he was fully in sight.

I told myself to wait until he turned square broadside or quartered away, but at 8x his shoulder was just so perfectly surrounded by the big 2 mil circle in the reticle as he was quartered towards me I thought to myself "f*ck it, smash that shoulder knuckle and drive the bullet through his lungs."

The shot broke perfectly (that triggertech trigger is just sooo crisp at 1.5lbs) and the familiar WHOMP floated back through the air. The bull stumbled forward a couple of three legged hops, and stood broadside as I racked a second round in, and since the shooting is the fun part I gave him a second one through the ribs as he started to wobble sideways. At the second shot he rolled to the ground and kicked twice and that was it. The moose hammer takes another one.

When I was quartering this bull, I noted that the onside quarter was so broken at the knuckle that the quarter itself folded over in half when I was lifting it. The permanent wound channel on the inside of the shoulder and through the rib cage was 2" in diameter (same as the first bull), and both lungs were goo. The first round made it close to 4' of penetration, I found an exit hole in the offside of the ribs, but didn't find the bullet under the hide. I'll likely find it in my grinder when I grind up the rib roll for burger..... The second shot punched through and exited, fairly big bodied bull so around 3 feet of penetration, but only a couple of ribs were hit so not much for bone to slow the bullet down.

Edit… I had forgotten that I’d found the jacket and some lead on the outside of the rib cage from the first shot until I was sending a couple of pics to Matt. So nope, won’t find it with the ginder…

[KodiakHntr]

And of course, can't have a story without some pics...http://www.huntingbc.ca/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=9148&stc=1

[KodiakHntr]

http://www.huntingbc.ca/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=9149&stc=1

[KodiakHntr]

Apparently exceeded my quota for pics, so you don't get the best one.

[high horse Hal]

Good going on a short hunt

makes it sound easy, I'm sure all the locals are appreciating the lack of hunter traffic

[Arctic Lake]

Great story KodiakHntr ! Hey it was not as long and drawn out as my story , LOL.
The picture you posted was a good one ,any more ?
P.S. I did manage to finish my story as RJ pointed out .
Arctic Lake

[RackStar]

Thanks for the read. That’s a hell of a moose. Maybe the 2 day seasons will keep some crowd away , and benefit the locals. Still brutal loosing such a great moose season up here.

[Squire]

Great bull and a great job at rolling out the story. Are you planning on sharing any details on the “moose hammer” or did you already do that and I missed it?

[IronNoggin]

Awesome!
Great hunts & great writing skills!
Love it!

PS: Check your pm's re: pictures

Cheers

[KodiakHntr]

Great bull and a great job at rolling out the story. Are you planning on sharing any details on the “moose hammer” or did you already do that and I missed it?

Oh, gosh golly! I hadn’t realized I hadn’t shared that particular bit of info!

As I’d said before, The Hammer was built to duplicate a rifle I already had, which is a 243AI built on an A Series Remington 700 action. I imagine anyone that follows the 24HourCampfire forum might recognize the pattern as a “Faux Ti” - an imitation of the Remington Ti platform. Just heavy enough to hang tight on small targets, easy to point for close up movers, and smoooooth on the swing. The 243AI with 105 Amax’s sent at 3120fps is a formidable combination (although that rifle is only twisted 1:9.25”)- I’ve personally witnessed and used the combination on large animals out to some mid-longish range, with very impressive terminal results.

So with that rifle in mind, I wanted something that was its twin physically as that rifle fits me quite well.
And after a lot of online research the concept of heavy for caliber bullets flung at faster rates of twist started me down a rabbit hole. I picked the bullet that I wanted to try (but hadn’t seen in the flesh yet at that point, so to speak) and went from there.

Some obscure reference I read at some point talked about the similarities between bullets rotating at high and low speeds and drill bits being pushed into soft medium at slow versus high speed. A high rotational velocity will in effect pull a drill bit deeper and faster than a slow rotation. Made sense in theory to me, as long as bullet velocity wasn’t outside the construction window of the bullet where it would tear it apart upon impact. Same concept as a mono I suppose.

Any rate, I settled on the bullet, the 88 grain Hornady ELD m, spun from a 1:7 twist 223AI at 2750fps muzzle velocity.


Seems fairly effective so far, what with smashing heavy moose bones to dust and carrying on with a path of destruction after that in distances measured in feet.

[KodiakHntr]

Awesome!
Great hunts & great writing skills!
Love it!

PS: Check your pm's re: pictures

Cheers

Inbox was full apparently. Should be room now.

[FishandSticks]

Great story, great read. Congrats on your Moose!! Luv the picture too.

[Squire]

Oh, gosh golly! I hadn’t realized I hadn’t shared that particular bit of info!

As I’d said before, The Hammer was built to duplicate a rifle I already had, which is a 243AI built on an A Series Remington 700 action. I imagine anyone that follows the 24HourCampfire forum might recognize the pattern as a “Faux Ti” - an imitation of the Remington Ti platform. Just heavy enough to hang tight on small targets, easy to point for close up movers, and smoooooth on the swing. The 243AI with 105 Amax’s sent at 3120fps is a formidable combination (although that rifle is only twisted 1:9.25”)- I’ve personally witnessed and used the combination on large animals out to some mid-longish range, with very impressive terminal results.

So with that rifle in mind, I wanted something that was its twin physically as that rifle fits me quite well.
And after a lot of online research the concept of heavy for caliber bullets flung at faster rates of twist started me down a rabbit hole. I picked the bullet that I wanted to try (but hadn’t seen in the flesh yet at that point, so to speak) and went from there.

Some obscure reference I read at some point talked about the similarities between bullets rotating at high and low speeds and drill bits being pushed into soft medium at slow versus high speed. A high rotational velocity will in effect pull a drill bit deeper and faster than a slow rotation. Made sense in theory to me, as long as bullet velocity wasn’t outside the construction window of the bullet where it would tear it apart upon impact. Same concept as a mono I suppose.

Any rate, I settled on the bullet, the 88 grain Hornady ELD m, spun from a 1:7 twist 223AI at 2750fps muzzle velocity.


Seems fairly effective so far, what with smashing heavy moose bones to dust and carrying on with a path of destruction after that in distances measured in feet.

Say it ain’t so! Isn’t it true that only heavily constructed (bonded) bullets or mono metals are able to penetrate thick skin, smash bones, and turn soft tissue to mush?

I guess it’s time to look you up on 24HourCampfire to learn how a light, low-recoil rifle and calibre can inflict that much mayhem. In any event, thanks for sharing.

[kennyj]

Great story! Thanks for sharing your adventure.
kenny

[Spy]

Big thumbs up great story beautiful moose :-)

[Livewire322]

Wow! All that with a .223 cal - impressive.

[KodiakHntr]

Say it ain’t so! Isn’t it true that only heavily constructed (bonded) bullets or mono metals are able to penetrate thick skin, smash bones, and turn soft tissue to mush?

I guess it’s time to look you up on 24HourCampfire to learn how a light, low-recoil rifle and calibre can inflict that much mayhem. In any event, thanks for sharing.

Oh I prolly post more on Rokslide than I do on 24hr when it comes to pics and vids… Maybe even on the 223 thread there….(grin).

[Husky7mm]

At the shot the unmistakeable WHUMP drifted back and the bull made a half turn to the side and fell over. I could see a leg kick twice in the air through the scope as I racked another round into the chamber, but that brief flash of hind leg was all I could see. I turned back to my buddy and gave him a grin as I stepped out of the way and told him to get set up. The second bull was still standing there, 165 yards out, broadside. He gave me a look again, and looked at the bull still standing there, and I gave him some friendly advice about not looking a gift bull in the mouth, or something along those lines. The words may have been a bit shorter, with mostly 4 letters.

He finally decided it was better to shoot the other bull rather than to listen to me insult his lineage and manhood. Whats the difference between one bull and two when it's -28* and you are 5km from the truck? Not much in my book.

He settles in with his RMR Thinhorn 7/08AI and lets drive with a 162. Bull lurches forward, and turns 180 degrees, so he gives him another one. The bull is starting to gain some steam now (although I could see steam billowing out of his ribcage on both sides) and he gets a third round through the neck as he passed between a couple of trees and he finally folds up.

We walk up, take some pictueres, and as it is now 11:30am and still cold as balls we get to skinning and quartering on each bull.
I was fairly impressed with the bullet performance from a bullet I hadn't used on bigger animals yet, the shot had been square on the point of the shoulder, crushing the big knuckle at the bottom of the scapula on the on side. I found most of it under the hide on the far side after it punched through that scapula. Permanent wound channel was about 2" in diameter, and the lungs were mush inside. Roughly 28 or 30" of penetration. Not bad at all really, I've had bull elk catch TTSX's at that range with that same shot from a 300 RUM more than once.
I'll admit, my buddy might have been a bit righter than me when it came to his reluctance to killing two moose on a cold and windy day, that required a LOT of effort to get an atv to within 250 yards, but packing moose quarters on your back builds character, I'm sure of it. It definitely spoke to my Jenga skills, getting 8 moose quarters, 4 assorted bags of meat, 2 sets of antlers, 2 backpacks, a Stihl MS170, AND two guys onto an Outlander 650 for the trip out, but I managed. AND got everything out without losing anything other than a jug of fuel, and probably a couple of years of life off of his atv....

Flash forward to October of this year, and the two day moose season....

The best atv to abuse is an OP atv….. other peoples lol. What a great day!!

[Husky7mm]

Oh, gosh golly! I hadn’t realized I hadn’t shared that particular bit of info!

As I’d said before, The Hammer was built to duplicate a rifle I already had, which is a 243AI built on an A Series Remington 700 action. I imagine anyone that follows the 24HourCampfire forum might recognize the pattern as a “Faux Ti” - an imitation of the Remington Ti platform. Just heavy enough to hang tight on small targets, easy to point for close up movers, and smoooooth on the swing. The 243AI with 105 Amax’s sent at 3120fps is a formidable combination (although that rifle is only twisted 1:9.25”)- I’ve personally witnessed and used the combination on large animals out to some mid-longish range, with very impressive terminal results.

So with that rifle in mind, I wanted something that was its twin physically as that rifle fits me quite well.
And after a lot of online research the concept of heavy for caliber bullets flung at faster rates of twist started me down a rabbit hole. I picked the bullet that I wanted to try (but hadn’t seen in the flesh yet at that point, so to speak) and went from there.

Some obscure reference I read at some point talked about the similarities between bullets rotating at high and low speeds and drill bits being pushed into soft medium at slow versus high speed. A high rotational velocity will in effect pull a drill bit deeper and faster than a slow rotation. Made sense in theory to me, as long as bullet velocity wasn’t outside the construction window of the bullet where it would tear it apart upon impact. Same concept as a mono I suppose.

Any rate, I settled on the bullet, the 88 grain Hornady ELD m, spun from a 1:7 twist 223AI at 2750fps muzzle velocity.


Seems fairly effective so far, what with smashing heavy moose bones to dust and carrying on with a path of destruction after that in distances measured in feet.

Crazy. Almost unbelievable. Thanks for the story.

[jimzuk]

Great stories thanks for taking us along

[REMINGTON JIM]

Excellent ! Awesome story- really enjoyed it . Thxs fir that -RJ

[HarryToolips]

Excellent bull and a well written story, congrats!

[IronNoggin]

The pictures:

2022:

https://i.imgur.com/tFQ325a.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/AYBXdgC.jpg

2023:

https://i.imgur.com/qjAxJVu.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/6k6vuAG.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/ll5zLDz.jpg


Impressive performance from such a small diameter bullet alright!

Congrats again!

Cheers,
Nog

[KodiakHntr]

Thanks Matt!

[Nechako Outdoors]

and here I thought flat tops and fire balls was impressive :mrgreen:

[Arctic Lake]

Great 2023 Bull !
A word of caution . It looks like an Opinel knife you used for dressing the moose . They are great knives but not having a bolster at the handle can be dangerous . You can run you finger up the blade easily and with a very sharp blade can inflict a nasty cut . I prefer something with a guard for you finger . Not trying to be critical !
Arctic Lake