In order to obtain a valid picture of the performance of any new ammunition or bullet, we really need to know what it will do in the game fields as well as on paper. It's the combination of these informative factors that helps us to match the cartridge to its intended use and to understand its limitations, if any. And that's just the sort of review you see on these pages regarding the new LeverEvolution bullets from Hornady, Dept. ST, P.O. Box 1848, Grand Island, NE 68803; 308-382-1390; www.hornady.com. The field test was my assignment, so I took it elk hunting.

For years we gun writers have passed on the sage advice that one should only use roundnose bullets in tubular-magazine lever actions. The reason for this is quite simple. If you load pointed bullets into a lever gun's magazine, the bullet tip rests against the primer of the cartridge in front of it. Under recoil, the bullet tip will very likely detonate the primer, and you are in for a pyrotechnic experience, not to mention a painful one. Steve Hornady, Wayne Holt, and the good engineers at Hornady Manufacturing Co. decided they would try to do something about this. The result is the brand-new LeverEvolution bullets.

Hornady has designed a pointed bullet and loaded it in the various popular lever-action cartridges. The secret is that the red polymer tip has a soft and spongy consistency. This soft tip acts as a buffer and doesn't allow the adjacent primer to receive the hard, sharp blow that would set it off. The result of this engineering innovation is a bullet that has a better ballistic coefficient and greater accuracy at longer ranges. At a recent Primedia gathering of gun writers in Illinois we were busting soda pop cans at 300 yards with the new ammunition using a scoped Marlin rifle from a benchrest. Now, in my book, that's pretty good performance out of a lever gun.

Still, the best test is to use new ammo on game. For that reason I jumped at the chance to make a Utah elk hunt with the new setup. For this hunt I used a Marlin Model 1895 444 with a 22-inch barrel and a five-shot magazine. The rifle was topped off with a Leupold 2-7X scope with duplex crosshairs. The ammunition was the new Hornady .444 LeverEvolution ammo with 265-grain bullet. The published muzzle velocity for this round is 2325 fps, and I suspect the muzzle energy is over 3100 foot-pounds. I sighted-in the rifle so that it placed its bullet about three inches high at 100 yards and got ready to go hunting.

Sand Creek Ranch is located in the mountains east of Salt Lake City, near Tabiona, Utah. It is a 20,000-acre ranching/hunting operation that is owned and managed by Outdoor Expeditions International (Dept. ST, 119 Oak Ridge Dr., Canton, GA 30114; 800-211-8638; www.oeionline.com). Outdoor Expeditions International specializes in obtaining quality hunting lands, improving the habitat and facilities, and offering them for sale to those seeking the ultimate hunting experience.

Our hunting party arrived at Sand Creek Ranch at just the right time. The bull elk were still bugling, and we had some excellent elk callers in the crowd. Standing out at the shooting range on our first evening at the ranch, we could hear the bulls calling up in the mountains, as if they were heralding our arrival. It was a harbinger of the good things that were to come.