Gday disco
Congrats on your buddy’s bull & the time you spent together is precious
Nice impact velocity on the eldx ( I personally don’t like them much higher than 2700 for what that’s worth) & am I correct in assuming that was a spine shot ?
Now the bad one
Running shots are the hardest to execute especially as distance increases & got no words for how sorry I am on the loss
Only thing I can add for the future if you considers this shot again is rolling tyres are great for muscle memory
start @ 50 & increase to what ever you would like to do distance wise along with various speeds & a spotter is valuable on these practices as distance gets out especially & if your interested in trying that out or anyone else I’ll be more than happy to describe better
Really not many harder shots than what you took imo
I know nothing of how quickly your birds & yotes etc can strip a carcass
But in Tassie I’ve seen our wedge tail eagles strip a carcass In 6 hrs with help from crows but they leave bits of hide as that thing of your is bare
Now northern Aussie we have a smaller bird of prey that will congregate on carcasses in big numbers & they are incredible on how quickly they can turn a carcass to bones but once again hide is present in patches even with wild dogs taking their bits & pieces
Africa we were in a area around howick that had a vulture feeding area that my mate supplied the carcasses ( these were free birds not caged) & man those things were incredible @ stripping critters to the bone but we did open them up for access after we shot them
So on that skeleton I’m lost on if your birds & yotes can do that & I’ll go with Les on what he’s seen as being better information than mine
Now I’ve zoomed in the best I can on my phone & will on the iPad later for a better look but I can’t see anything that shows me where a pill has broke a rib , now it could be a low rib brisket shot but a wallop doesn’t sound like that shot along with the animals non reaction
Left side of elk should be impact side correct ?? Not that it matters to much as if broadside that pill would most likely exit I’d assume based off buff cows but no experience with elk only elk hybrids
So we can go between the ribs no worries but to get both sides between ribs is harder not impossible though & I can’t see all off the far side ones let alone not all of them there & the sound of a wallop & no reaction I’m leaning more as a gut shot as on the left you’ve impacted the paunch on impact & if this is so the shank probably exited catching some liver or a main vein -artery giving you the bit of blood you saw hence the loud enough report back to you from that distance & also could have been a impact in front of hams also catching a main blood vessel
What was the colour of that blood & any gut material in with it ( that’s hard to see sometimes)
The distance travelled also leads itself to a non chest cavity shot when I run the impact numbers on what that pill has done damage wise on critters yet it may have also landed in no man’s land just clipping top of lungs but once again no ribs showing impacts & the petal pattern should show up here
Really I’m lost on what happened & these are the ones I’d love to know what did happen & as reluctant as I am to say it it’s one that we will most likely never know
But thanks for sharing & your honesty is one that should be complimented on
What has happened has happened & that we should move on from
Cheers
. After that I didn’t see much til about 11a when I noticed a bigger darker bodied deer with a doe and fawn I’d seen earlier. Sure enough it was a good buck. Things didn’t go as expected but I bagged the buck at 488yds with the 270wsm and 156hh. A second good forked horn buck came by during the day as well. Saw a dozen deer. 5 bucks. Three were legal. Decent rut activity for us this year. That’s a wrap for my first tag. Will continue to document my second buck tag and bear tag (hopefully) as well. Full story in big game success thread. 
