Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Minimum Elk Cartridge

And eyes.

Rather than some minimal benchmark, I think in terms of your personal maximum recoil tolerance. Foot pounds of energy isn't as important than putting a good bullet in the right place. I know my personal recoil tolerance has decreased markedly in the past year. I've made the decision not to fight it and develop bad shooting "skills". For some their maximum could be a 300 WM, for others, a .270 Win.. Accept it and adapt accordingly.

Or skip the cartridge altogether and focus on the bullet.

Mercifully, I have very little brain to damage.

bigwhoop,

Recoil tolerance tends to decrease with age, as our bodies become less flexible, and not just the joints.

However, this can be compensated for in more than one way. As smokepole suggested, focusing on the bullet rather than the cartridge case helps a lot. That said, there's often resistance to "downsizing" among big game hunters, because so many ideas about cartridge "adequacy" were formed back when cup-and-core bullets were almost universal.

My experience as both the shooter and the guide is that full penetration is more important than raw power. If all wounds are 100% deep (that means they exit) the only thing left to adjust is the diameter of those wounds. As the cartridge gets smaller the importance of super good bullets becomes even more critical.
My daughter and grand sons have killed a hand full of elk with 257 Roberts and they have never lost one, and none have stayed up after the shot for more then about 10 seconds. But all were killed with Nosler Partition or Barnes X bullets. So in my near 1/2 century of hunting elk and guiding elk hunters, I would have to say the 257 Roberts is "my minimum". But I also have a friend who killed 9 elk with a 243. All were brought to bag, but some he shot 2-3 times. So I have little to say about the 243 as an elk rifles because I have never seen one used, but I do know some who have used it successfully. My friend Rich did later go to a 257 Weatherby Mag, and later still to a 270 Weatherby mag. So he thinks of the 243 as antiquate, but the larger and more powerful guns as "better".

I have personally killed them with 270 Winchester and 270 Short mag, but also with 44 magnum from handguns. The 44 magnum doesn't look all that great from it's calculated ballistics compared to most rifles used for elk, yet one got away, none went far, and none ever took 2 shots.

I also killed one with a wood arrow shot from a Bamboo Bow. Worked fine.

So I fall back on my 1st statement that penetration is the thing to look for more then raw power.
I do acknowledge that sometimes we see poor performance from small rounds. However we also see it from big ones too. In all my years I have had more long tracking jobs with elk shot with 7MM Mags and 300 Mages then any other calibers, but in nearly all cases, those were shot with bullets that blew up, or simply not hit as precisely as they should have been.

2 nights ago I saw a large White Tail Deer killed with a 9.3X57 firing a 250 grain Accubond. The hit was center of the chest up and down, and about 2" behind the leg bone and the exit was as big as an egg dead center on the off side of the chest. Yet the deer went over 200 yards and had to be be tracked down by a long blood trail. That cartridge is then the same ball-park as a 358 Winchester or 35 Whelen, firing the 250 grain bullet at 2350 FPS (Loaded and chronographed by me personally) but the deer didn't drop very fast. It was amazing, and I seldom see such resilience. But it didn't prove to me that a 9.3X57 Mauser is not powerful enough for deer. The diameter of the wound was very good, and the perpetration was 100%, yet the deer ran off a good distance through thick brush and it took some time to find and bring back. Just "one of those thing" I guess. Weird.

But in thinking about "minimums" such a result might be "proof" to some that the cartridge was inadequate. If that had been a 223 or a 243 LOTS of men would say it was proof. But it was not an "under-powered" shell. This was very much like a 358 Winchester with a very hot load.

Explanation?
I have none.

So I look at the "track records" of shells and bullets.

I am sure having an odd animal now and then that just doesn't seem to die as they should will happen, but overall we have to look at the high averages. In my 50 years of hunting, I say the high average for reliability comes from a bullet that gives a good size hole (of at least 1" in diameter" and always goes through to the other side, and most times leaves an exit.

All the rest is simply tripe to argue over.
Cartridges do not kill.
Bullets do not kill.
Guns do not kill.

Bullet holes kill! All the other goodies are just tools to make those holes.

Exactly!

Much easier on the body and wallet to shoot fifty or a hundred rounds in a practice session with something like a 6.5 Creedmoor compared to a typical 30+ caliber magnum.

I'm sure the above is correct and I have moved down in power, but not because of recoil, I've just found for me, the perfect cartridge.
I just need to practice more, to get the correct mindset and focus on the target. The rifle isn't going too hurt me, no need to toughen up.

Must be happening to me, as my 7 lbs Ruger #1 Tropical in 45/70 is starting to rattle me. Probably has something to do with a 325gr FTX travelling 2000fps....

I know I don't need that much speed, but what does "need" have to do with anything??

As to recoil, I have preached this before, but here it goes again: Wear a good shoulder pad at the range—Past, Cabela’s, etc … When I started doing that, my days at the range became much more comfortable with my .375 Wby and .340 Wby. It doesn’t just protect the shoulder; it takes most of the snap out of the recoil, which affects the neck, head, etc … too. My dad shot my .300 WM back in the 80s, when he was in his forties, and he hated it. Over twenty years later, when he was seventy, and we were planning a hunt, I talked him into shooting it again, but gave him a shoulder pad. He shot 1/2” groups with it and said that he was amazed by the difference. My elk hunting buddy for this year and I went to the range a couple of weeks ago with his 7mm RM. I lent him my pad, and after shooting it extremely well, he said: “Wow, that makes a BIG difference.” My boys say the same thing. Just my anecdotal experiences, but I have never seen anyone use one with a decent boomer who said that it didn’t make much of a difference. Use one at the range and be comfortable, and in the field a couple rounds at game won’t both you. No matter how much I shoot my .375 Wby or .340 Wby at the range, I can’t get even the slightest bruising of the shoulder when wearing a pad. It makes the recoil more of a push than a snap. And with no prospect of something even bruising me, I just calmly squeeze the trigger thinking “No big deal.” YMMV.

Same here.....we use the PAST, when shooting from the bench. And, a volley ball elbow pad.....stops the bench top “rug burn”! memtb

OMG, no kidding on the rug burn. The first range session I had at the range I have switched to, which has a rough surface on the tables, I had blood pouring out of my right elbow like it had been hit by a .50 cal. My younger son, who was with me and also shooting his 243 Win asked me: "Daddy are you okay"? Since then, I bring an old cotton t-shirt to rest my right elbow on. No problem since then.

I used a soft, worn, Terry cloth towel, for years. Still got a burn, with enough rounds fired. Now, I’ve added the elbow pad....big improvement! No burns, and additional padding! Try it....you’ll like it! memtb

True that. I killed a decent bull on opening day this year with a .270/130. I believe Ol' Elmer considered that to be a decent coyote cartridge.

But Ol' Elmer was entertaining to read. And he did know quite a bit about old buffalo rifles and cartridges.

I've had a PAST pad in my range bag for many years, since I constantly have to range-test a wide variety of rifles. Generally use it on rifles from .300 magnum up, including various .338 and .375 caliber magnums, along with really big rifles from .40 up, such as my .416 Rigby.

Have also killed elk with not only the .300 Winchester Magnum, but the .300 WSM and .300 Weatherby. But have killed at least as many with the .30-06 as all .300 magnums put together, and have never found any noticeable difference in "killing power." Could also say that about various calibers smaller than .30.

As pointed out in the chapter on recoil in my latest book, GUN GACK II, have always found it interesting that some hunters apparently believe felt recoil is a measure of a rifle's "killing power." But increased recoil doesn't necessarily translate to how hard a bullet hits game. The example used in the book compares the .30-06 with a 180-grain bullet at 2700 fps, using 55 grains of powder, compared to a .300 magnum with a 180 at 3000 fps, with 75 grains of powder. In an 8-pound rifle, the recoil energy of of the .300 is 37 foot-pounds, 68% more than the 22 foot-pounds of the .30-06 load in an 8-pound rifle--but the muzzle energy of the .300 bullet is only 23% higher.

Off topic but after reading this entire thread I can tell who is +/- 60ish with 40-50 years of shooting under their belt and who is +/- 40 or less and haven't "got it" yet even if they think they do. LOL

I'm 61 for the record.

Carry on.....

57+

Last elk I saw taken with the .30-06 was a mature but not huge 6x6, killed by a friend from "back East," on his very first elk hunt. He brought a light rifle with a 20" barrel, and used Federal factory loads with 180 Partitions, so muzzle velocity probably wasn't even 2700. The range was 365 lasered yards, and the bullet landed in the crease behind the left shoulder, a third of the way up the body. The bull ran less than 50 yards before keeling over.

Betting you missed the mark is some cases.
I've been shooting longer than you've been alive

Wow. We ARE a bunch of old dubs. No offense intended Mule Deer. Just turned 56 myself.