Having lived in Montana for over 25 years, and hunted quite a bit in those 25 years, been with a lot of other people that have taken game, worked in a gun store or three, and having friends that are guides and knowing a gun writer or two, I have never, ever, not one freeking time, heard of an elk hunt going sour because of not having a powerful enough scope.
Very few of the elk that I have seen taken, or heard of being taken were situations where someone can sit down and diddle with the parallax adjustment, turn the power up and down, and get the same cheek weld that they get at the range,
Elk have a habit of materializing at the end of the day when you have given up hope, sometimes at snowball distance and sometimes 400 yards away, and you had better be able shoot sometime this week.
Reliability is the first requirement.
Secondly, if you think increased magnification is the only requirement for precise aiming at long range, you are sorely mistaken. I have seen some top name brand scopes that has so much parallax at 400 yards that you could walk the crosshair off a feed bucket at that range.
Those fine crosshairs that let you shoot those 3/4 inch groups at the range aren't going to do you a damn bit of good when you get on some elk in the timber on an overcast day ten minutes after first shooting light.
Trying to get on an elk moving through timber when your rifle scope has the eye relief and/or eye box of a micron microscope does not work well.
What is my idea of a good scope for elk or for any big game hunting in Montana or Wyoming is to start with a Leupold 6X32 scope. They work excellent in low light conditions and are smaller and lighter than the 6X42. I have also had less parallax problems with the 6X32. They also have more than adequate eye box and eye relief.
Then, I sent the scope to Leupold and have the parallax corrected to 400 yards (the parallax turns out to be minimal at all shorter ranges, too) and have the thick duplex installed.
The last elk I killed with that combinations was running at what would have been a short shot for a handgun. I have killed antelope and elk with that combination at over 400 yards with first shot hits. I have killed coyotes with it when it was damn near too dark to see with the naked eye.
I will grant that I am probably in the running to be the world's worst big game hunter, but, for S*** sake, the learning curve on this stuff just isn't that steep.
