Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting The 300 Wby Mag for elk- is there anything better?

I've never said I won't use AB on elk nor is it any secret that I have used them in the past. To date I've taken one elk with a .30-06/150g AB and two with a .338WM/225g AB. The .30-06 was a new rifle to me and the 150g load was developed for antelope. I had been practicing with the .30-06 for a couple months, had taken it antelope hunting a month earlier and was pretty confident with it out to 600 yards. As a result the .30-06 became my primary rifle for my elk hunt that year and the 150g load was used because it was the only hunting load I had developed for the rifle at that time. The .30-06 launches the 150g AB at 2991fps but because I wasn't anticipating any shots under 200 yards, expected impact velocities were under 2700fps. I wasn't too concerned about the AB holding together at that velocity.

This photo has been posted before, but here it is again, my cow taken in 2010 with the .30-06/150g AB, 282 yards. Shot in the neck on the facing side, no blood around the entry wound and no exit but the cow dropped instantly because I hit the CNS. The lack of an exit surprised me and didn't engender any confidence in that load.


Last year I intended to try a 140g AB in my .280 Rem but they are launched 300fps slower than 140g bullets from my 7mm RM - 2901fps for the 140g AB vs 3214fps for the 140g NF and 3358fps for the 140g TTSX. (I don't have any AB loads for the 7mm RM or .300WM, which get NF and Barnes exclusively for hunting loads.) In the end I tool a 6x4 bull at 411 ayrds (my second longest shot ever) with my buddy's 7mm RM and a 160g 'brick' Speer calls a 'Grand Slam'. The bull went 4 steps and down so obviously the 'brick' failed.