Guess I'm a bit "old school" in my choice of an elk rifle. I started my elk hunting with a Remington 700 chambered in .338 Mag. and scoped with a 2x7x33 Leopold and have never seen the need to change.
While it is a bit on the heavy side (just under 9 pounds scoped and ready to go) when compared to "modern" elk rifles, I have never seen that much difference in any rifle between 7 and 9 pounds (over 10 and I do begin to feel it at the end of the day). I stay in good shape through the year and at 58 don't mind a bit of weight in my hands (it's bad knees that limit me more than the rifle I carry). Still I typically cover 5-10 miles in a days hunting.
I totally agree that getting an elk out is much harder than getting in to shoot one. I have come to believe your best investment is to have pack horses located that you can hire to get the meat out once the killing is done.
What I do notice more than weight is the handiness of a shorter rifle. The 24" barreled .338 is a bit more awkward and slower to into action than my Ruger Mannlicher carbine I sometimes carry when hunting thicker timber, but no real handicap when glassing more open areas.
I really like the .338 on elk size game, but do sometimes hunt with a .308 (the Ruger), .30-06 or a Savage 99 in .358 and have never felt under armed.
Only once or twice have I ever thought the "power" of the .338 was a real advantage and only then when I had to take a severely angled shot at over 300 yards....and the lighter rifles would have likely have done just as well even then.
I have carried some type of handgun on my hip almost daily for more than 40 years and feel kind of "undressed" without one. Most often it is a SAA in .45 Colt with 260 grain cast bullets loaded to 1000 fps. I've carried so long that I don't even notice the extra weight.
