Thanks for your imput guys. It's good to hear accounts of elk being taken out to 300 yards or so. To some this may not seem like too far, to others a great distance. My personal max range on big game is 300 yards simply because with a hunting rifle in a field position with natural elements things can go bad quickly. As far as the distance question I was thinking more from an energy perspective. My concern is bullet performance on the animal. To say 150 is what the round is made for seems a little pessimistic. As far as the bigger gun side of things... I bought my Montana for it's light weight and toughness. It seemed like the perfect elk rifle and I guess you could say this entire posts is based on my dreaming of an elk hunt in the coming year.
