Most of my hunts are day hunts and estimate I walk from 3 - 12 miles. I don't have a dedicated elk rifle and usually carry a couple of different ones each season. I carried M70's in 300 or 338 Win Mag for years but no longer have either. In recent years, I've carried bolt actions in 270 (Win and Wby), 7x57, 325 WSM, 9.3x62, and 35 Whelen, and single shots in 7x57, 300 H&H, 9.3x74, 375 H&H and 45-70.
More and more, I'm grabbing the lighter/handier rifles and my preferences in optics have changed to smaller, more compact scopes (1-4x or 1.5-5x, up to 2-7x or 2.5-8x) etc. Future scope purchases will likely be low power variables or fixed 6x.
