This is just one observation on the performance of a 7mm Rem mag Corelokt ammo on a medium moose but I thought I'd share it.
One of my hunting partners shot his first moose, a medium sized 2 yr old this last week. He was using regular Rem 175 corelokt factory ammo. Shots taken at roughly 125 to 150 yards or maybe a little less. Sorry wasn't there for the shooting, just the gutting and packing so some of this account is what he described to me.
He was standing in very tall grass so had to shoot offhand. First shot appears to have hit the left front leg just above the joint (elbow) near brisket - destroys bone and joint but leaves no bullet material in the wound, doesn't penetrate the chest or body and moose stays standing. Moose hops in a tight circle. Second shot on the rotating animal knocks it down and anchors it; and later shows to have hit square in the paunch but not exited nor even ripped up the stomach. That full stomach stopped the bullet dead. There is a chance the bullet was a 150 gr load that got mixed into the box of 175 gr bullets.
Shooter gets up to animal, its not dead, so makes a finishing head shot.
We clean this animal and there is this only one hole in the right side, no blood or mess in gut or chest cavities, no holes in chest cavity, clean pink lungs no holes in heart no wounds to back bone. Its the cleanest animal internally I've worked on in a long long time. So clean we spent a lot of time discussing bullet performance, which hit was first and how in the heck did this animal get anchored with these two relatively poor shot placements. Possibly the leg shot was sufficient to prevent running and may have caused massive bleeding from the brachial artery. The stomach shot with all the energy being delivered to the animal knocked it down and sufficiently shocked it to prevent fleeing. But it all seems almost a lucky accident. And I thought the 175 gr 7 mm bullets were known to be great penetrators.
What I come away with is that conventional corelokts in this caliber cannot be expected to penetrate the stomach of a fully fed moose and don't seem to be a great choice for moose hunting. I'm more than ever convinced that high penetration bullets like Partition, Fail Safe, Barnes X are a better choice for large game. AND of course best of all, good shot placement to go with it.
I have another friend who has shot many head of game from large moose,caribou, black and brown bears to Kodiak deer with his 7 mm mag factory loads and its a popular caliber for Alaska. So I'm not knocking the cartridge but I encourage hunters to select their ammo with more care. My other partner on this hunt was packing a 7 mm Rem Mag too and I noticed he quietly buried his box of 150 gr ammo and dredged up some 160 gr ammo (brand?) for the rest of the hunt.
After this experience and the performance of my 300 Win Mag on a couple moose makes me think a fatter bullet like .338 + (of high quality) might be a better choice for moose, especially in thick cover.
