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

How many elk did you get?

I'm a little surprised at the number of people afraid of the recoil of a 300 Wby, or any bigger 30.

I watched my ex wife make 14 one shot kills without a miss in Africa, with a 7 Lb 6 oz 30-338. Brown stocked and carved up Enfield.

Granted she was only getting 3065 FPS with a 180 not 3200+ but she only weighed 135 Lbs.

They aren't for everyone but there is not many circumstances where they are the wrong call.

The same number we would have if we had used a .300 WBY.

Oh, no not this chit again....

Glad to hear everyone tagged out.

no...

300 WBY is a great elk cartridge, but it's just one of many great elk cartridges. Of the WBY lineup, I prefer the 340 for its heavier bullets. Personally, I like the grand ole 375 H&H.

Well, nineteen pages and there you have it.

YUP. To sum up, the .270 Winchester is likely the best cartridge of all.

Else, use a 24" barrel and shoot a .300 Win Mag and get better performance for the value & recoil over the .300 Wea.

Or use a 30-06 and be done with it

I just found a Kleinguenther K-15 at a pawn shop for 800.00. Got to get scope on it and see how well it shoots. It's a 300 Weatherby

What many folks just don't get, is that the smaller the person quite often, the less recoil bothers them. The larger the body mass the more you soak up the pounding.

My wife is not tiny or petite, to many folks way of thinking, but she is 5/2 and 114 or so. She has shot everything up to 460 wtby and 50 bmg. Including shooting a squirrel with a 378 wtby after I'd shot it, and after I said I'd never shoot that ever again.

I guess its a YMMV thing possibly, but everyone thats ever wanted a brake on a rifle of decent size has been a bigger person than average...

We used to do all our doe culling with 300wtby and head shots only. I"ve had quite a few small folks shoot deer with my 300 wtby. Its loud, and if you give em hearing protection, and tell em how to hold the gun, most of the recoil is straight up... I"m MORE worried about a scope cut from the rise, than someone saying it kicks to bad.

Now the 300 with a brake we got as a tip one time, its really loud and a total gravy gun to shoot... even easier than the non braked one.

I regretted not getting the .340-Wby over the .300-Wby.

What J Gregori said.

I've never seen one not work. I don't think elk are as hard to kill as some people think.

While I've only taken a .30-06 elk hunting three times, I've taken three elk with them. No drama.

That doesn’t work for any of my three daughters.

Daughter #3 wanted to shoot my .45-70 with my ‘Rhino Blaster’ loads (460g hardcast at 1812fps, around 52ft-lbs recoil). I started her on standard .45-70 (relatively low recoil) loads, then let her work her way up through loads with successively greater recoil. When it came time to shoot the ‘Rhino Blaster’ load I removed the scope. She found the higher-end loads increasingly unpleasant to shoot and the ‘Rhino Blaster’ extremely so.

No surprise there, although all three of my daughters love shooting the .45-70 with my 300g and 350g plinking loads. (They use a miniscule 13.5g HS6 for 1167fps and 1097fps respectively with far less recoil than a .30-30. Hell, I love to shoot them, too.) Nor is it any surprise the girls love to shoot my .243 Win, .257 Roberts, .30-30 and heavy-barreled .22 and 6.5 rifles. They all find .30-06 recoil levels unpleasant and generally decline to shoot them, let alone my magnums.

Use whatever you want to use (243 and above are best) and with a heavy for caliber, bonded or mono bullet and have the patience to wait for the animal to die or keep shooting til they go down. Personally, I have killed elk with 7mm's, 338's and 300's. All with handloaded NP's and all succumbed in their tracks or within feet. Switching to AB's and ELD-x for the higher BC. I'm 5'7, 140 lbs, 67 years old and am a bi-lateral amputee below the knees. My point is, if you have a reasonable caliber you can go after elk. Beyond 243, anything will work but YMMV and you may want more gun as insurance. Just make sure you can shoot it straight. Good luck.

Mac

You should get your daughter a 300 WBY

I would suggest you stop being an idiot but doubt you are capable.