Possum said:
Wyosmith-
What is your opinion of the 200 grain Sierra Game King for elk, fired from a .300 Win Mag? Is it satisfactory, or would you rather use a Partition or one of the other bullets you listed in your post?
I have only used that bullet as a practice bullet in my 300, and I never killed anything with it, so I can't give you an honest answer.
I would say however, if in doubt, go with the Noslers 200 in Partitions or AccuBonds or 220 grain Partition. I KNOW how well they work and the Sierra is an "unknown" to me.
The Sierra is very accurate in my Mauser 300H&H and I like it for my practice rounds. It is far less expensive then the AccuBonds or Partitions, and that lets me fire several hundred a year in practice without breaking the bank.
I bet it would work, but probably not as well from quartering angles. That's my guess because I have used and seen used the 180 grain Sierra GKs on elk deer and once on a moose, and I am going to guess the 200 grain is probably made from the same thickness of jacket, but I could be guessing wrong there.
So if time and money are issues to you on your elk hunt, go with the Noslers.
If hunting them is an every year activity you might try the Sierra, but if I ever do that, I'll load the mag with Noslers and one Sierra in the chamber. If I don't get a "flop-over" I'd shoot my 2nd round, which would be a Nosler. That's only if curiosity gets the best of me. I do try various bullets, so as to have a broader base of knowledge, as I did with 170 grain Hornady SSTs in my 8X57 3 seasons ago (bad choice for elk) but if you are doing a hunt of a lifetime, you can't go wrong with a Nosler Partition.
If I know what a certain bullet will do from using it myself or being next to a hunter who does, and I get to gut and butcher the animal I am 100% comfortable saying what I have seen in print, doubter and haters be damned. But if you ask what I think of one I have no actual first hand knowledge of, I will also tell you the truth, as I have here, and say I don't actually know. If you use one please report the details to us all.
There is a gent here on this site who used a 180 gr Sierra (I think it was) a few years back and killed an elk with it, and having seen that bullet used a LOT I told him before hand what to expect. He got his elk, but the bullet did what I said it would do, and now he's a believer in Nosler partitions. He'll tell you that his results did the job, but not super well.
I don't condemn them, (as I do Burgers) but I can say there are many better choices.
The other side of the argument is always based on the fact that people do kill all kinds of game with poorly designed bullet. I do not deny it at all. Nothing you can hit an animal with from any high powered rifle is "safe" for the game and all bullet will kill. But that is similar to saying all cars can carry bricks. Yup, sure can. But a 3/4 ton truck simply does it a lot better then a Yugo.
The fact that many people kill game with bad bullets is not an argument that those bullets are just as good as those the also kill the game well, but hold together and give 100% penetration even when the angles are sharp or the bones are hit.
There are far too many variables to be 100% dogmatic, so we have to look at the average and the over view.
So ------------------- that's the basic overview.
Happy hunting.