I have owned a few 35 Remington's over the decades but have not shot a single animal with one. The Marlin forum has an excellent write up on 35 Rem. bullets. An extensive amount of testing was done at varying ranges. One of the best articles I have ever seen. It would serve you well to study this article. While many tout certain bullets in certain calibers because of their great accuracy, I find this useless information. An elk is a large animal. You do not need benchrest accuracy. At the ranges a 35 Rem is capable of killing an elk, 3" hundred yard groups would be acceptable. As for elk not being harder to kill than any other animal, I am of a different opinion I feel based on experience. Yes if you lung shoot an elk with a good expanding bullet you pretty much have a couple hundred pounds of meet in the freezer, but these are some robust animals that can take a beating. I escorted elk hunters for 9 years and have seem @125 killed with everything from a 416 Taylor to a 22 handgun. Unlike smaller animals, elk show little effect from a bullet unless bone is encountered. No they are not super tough to kill IF perfect placement is made. But after chasing them for 45 years I have had some interesting experiences with the mountain camels.
I agree with you 100% in that shooting an elk through the lungs is a great way for the elk to run quite a way before it realizes that it is time to die. One of my most miserable hunting experiences was a moose that was lung shot and managed to run off and die in 4' of near-freezing beaver pond water. If we hadn't had a chainsaw-powered winch, I don't know how we would ever have gotten it out of that gd pond. My elk hunting mentor told me to aim to break the shoulder, so that the elk couldn't move far or fast, and to keep shooting until the elk was down.
