Hmm. You missed. That means that you didn't get the perfect shot placement that every sub bore big game hunter insists that he gets every time.
Every time I hear someone advocating low energy rounds for large game, it always ends in "if you do your part right."
Obviously, you didn't. You missed. You could just as easily have blown off it's chin, shot off a knee, or sent a bullet through any poor location, and left a really deficient wound in an animal that would ahve been at least a quicker death if you had used a bigger bullet.
But, the second time, you did hit. You popped a round right through the central control panel of lungs, heart, blood, spine, nerve center. Good work.
So, what this proves, at least the way I'm seeing it, is that you aren't expert enough to take an elk with a .243, because only people who can "do their part, put the bullet where it has to go," etc, choose whatever cliche you want, should use a 6mm round. You put the bullet in the background, and could just as easily have put it through the lower thigh.
Hitting it right in a lethal zone proves nothing, either. A hit there could be lethal with a good 9 mm round. Could you, with a .243 at nearly 300 yards put a lung shot into an elk and kill it humanely? Dunno. That hasn't been proven.
Your experience on the one hand proves that the .243, given exceptional shooting and a strike in an exceptionally fragile zone, can kill an elk on the spot. The miss proves that you should be hunting with a cartridge that is a little more forgiving of poor shot placement.
Nothing personal. The .243 is still not, IMO, a 300 yard elk round, and should not be used as one even by the best shots on the planet. Failure happens, and missing the lungs and blowing a small hole through the intestines is unforgiveable
Why are so many modern men determined to undergun themselves in a hunt? Would these same men who want to hunt elk with a 223 carry a .32 acp into a gunfight at a biker bar?
