Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting 6mm Remington and Elk

Personally, I believe the right age for a young person to start elk hunting is when they have the skills to spend a "lost" night in the woods, alone, with what they normally have in their pack.

With me, the first priority is woodscraft, then hunting skills, then weapon mastery... and then when the kid has straight "A's" in those subjects, I think its time to sit down and talk caliber. Before a young person points a rifle at a big game animal, I believe that they should have shot several thousand rounds using that very rifle and in "field conditions," i.e., different positions, different ranges, different targets. The 6mm/243 is one of the easier centerfire rifles for a young person to master. As noted here, however, it is generally an "expert's" caliber for elk. Or to put it another way, there isn't a big margin of error.

There are some very fine cartridges in the 7mm range (like the oft mentioned 7-08) that can be loaded with lighter bullets and powder loads to help a youngster develop mastery. The bigger cartridges also give the kid some "room to grow." Of course, I'll go back to my first paragraph... at 10 I don't know how many kids are ready to hunt the hard country. I'm not saying this to be disrespectful in any way... but in the woods Mr. Murphy tends to be a frequent companion.

Royce, I have seen that in one camp where the fellow was struggling to keep his 7mm mag on a paper plate at 100yds. And it was a Rem mag not one of the later STWs or RUMs or other coke-bottle-sized 7mm wildcats. He later shot at a bull and knocked a piece of horn off and then the bull ran into his second shot..

While I'm conflicted-very conflicted-about it perhaps there is merit in having to pass a shooting test with your weapon of choice before being allowed to hunt as is done in parts of Europe - to prove your proficiency.

Gdv

I've met more than a few hunters that couldn't spend the night in the woods alone, let alone a kid...

And for that matter, I know a fair number of successful hunters that haven't fired a thousand rounds of centerfire ammo, much less several thousand over the course of a lifetime of hunting.

A thousand rounds is a lot of shooting. And I would bet if you took a poll at the fish and game club in any area, more than half would admit to never having fired a thousand rounds in a ten year period.

You are bang on the money there Royce...

Most of the bad shots I have seen critters have been from guys using more gun than they can handle.

Heck, Kodiak, I know guys who go into the woods without doing anything except shoot a couple of rounds at the local range to see if the rifle is still "on." When I was a kid, I would scrounge every nickel to buy .22 shells. We would shoot and shoot and shoot. The way a kids learns is through good coaching and repetition. Now, I'm not going to tell another father how to parent or another hunter how to hunt. This said, I think we have people who get lost and die every year. We also have people who go into the woods unprepared and wound animals. My focus with a ten-year-old is how to start a fire (and Lord knows, every ten-year-old loves making fires). It's on finding shelter in the woods, knowing where to find a dry spot, reading the lay of land, learning directions and habits like turning around and looking hard at the back trail, it's about learning patience. And if you are going to hunt elk with a rifle, it's about shooting... and shooting... and shooting.

True enough Hamp, true enough.

I started with a 6mm though, and hammered my first deer at 6 years old...And I have yet to see another deer hit the ground as hard and as quick as that first liver shot muley...I hunted everything from whitetails to moose with that gun till I was 17.

And I don't remember ever having to shoot one twice with it either. Not saying I didn't shoot a couple twice, but none really required it. And that was with plain jane bullets.

Loaded with a TSX, I'd take my daughter elk hunting with it.

Unrealistic.

Several thousand rounds? The barrel would be worn out before you could hunt it.

No trick to learning marksmanship with a 22, shooting a few dozen rounds with a centerfire for familiarity, and getting on with business.

I learned to shoot a 22, and was killing deer within the first 20-round box of ammo out of my .243....

Ditto, but I learned on an air rifle, shot my 3 round of centerfire ever into my first muley buck...

However, once I snag a 223 or 22-250 for my 5yr old daughter I'll start her poking out TSX's with that...And before spring it'll be a chipmunk or crickett I think.

"If the kid is capable of hitting an elk correctly it doesn't matter whether the bullet is a 100 from a 6mm or .25 or a 120 from a downloaded 7mm-08."
BINGO!

"the thing I have seen go wrong most often is people missing an animal or hitting it poorly because they were using more gun than they could handle."
BINGO!

This discussion comes down to one thing - bullet placement. If it's hit in the right place with a well-constructed bullet (Partition or TSX in the 6mm's case) the elk will die, period. Too much gun causes flinches and misses or poorly placed shots. I'm one of those guys that hates recoil, so I shoot light-recoiling guns with hig quality bullets and guarantee that I can put a bullet in the vitals out to 400 yds. with a .243 or a .260. I've done it on big whitetails and big mule deer, both calibers deliver pass-through one-shot kills with Partitions or equivalent bullets. If this 10-year old is familiar with the rifle and confident of shot placement and bullet performance, take him out and kill an elk with it!
Selmer

Load up a bunch of rounds with quality bullets(TSX, NP, TBBC, etc for the hunt). Place about 15 gallon milk jugs filled with water at ranges from 50-200 yards. Have your son shoot at these from real field positions, including using shooting sticks. See how well he does. You should be able to assess if he is ready or not. Then review proper shot placement with him the night before you head out.

What is your son's body weight? Is he slightly built or is he mor athletic. It does make a difference. My son is 10 (95 lbs)now and shoots a 7mm-08. When he was 8 and 9 he shot a 243 (all deer hunting). Get him a 22 lr and a brick (500) rounds and go shoot. go squarel hunting.
If you re-barrel I would go with a .308 win. It will serve him better in the long run.

I'm not entering the fray as to whether a ten yr old is ready to hunt. That is not what is asked, and I did state that one does not need a big magnum to kill elk,so I'm not entering that fray either.
Muledeer does make a good point in that usually young hunters are accompanied by a mentor and bad shots don't usually occur in that situation.
However to state that a .243/6mm is a 400 yd elk gun is sheer fantasy. Just one look at the retained energy of that cartridge at that distance should convince anyone of that.Of course by the time this thread hits 30 pages there will still be ones out there that contend it is and ones that contend it isn't. Doesn't matter to me. My opinin is still if the lad cannot handle an adequte elk cartridge,he should wait until he can.
I think too many fathers have too much of thier egos wrapped up in the fact that they can get thier 6 yr old kid go out and shoot big game. Sort of like getting bragging rights or something

What is the twist rate of your 6mm Rem 1:14 or maybe 1:10? 1:10 is good and 1:14 would be bad!

This text is from Midwayusa.
http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/showproduct?saleitemid=750318&t=11082005

Barnes TSX 85gr


Sectional Density: .230
Ballistic Coefficient: .398
Notes:


Made of solid copper (no separate core or jacket).

Heat treated for extra toughness.

Three rings in bullet designed to allow higher velocities and less bore fouling.

Hollow cavity inside bullet tip for rapid expansion.

Recommended for antelope to elk.

Barnes recommends initially seating bullets .050" off the lands. Best accuracy will be found from .030" to .070" depending on the rifle.

I started with a .30-06 when I was 13 and it kicked so hard I dreaded pulling the trigger. It took a lot of fun (and accuracy) out of my shooting. My uncle built a .257 Bob for me and we traded straight across the next year - uncle still complains but with a smile on his face.

A guide friend make his hunters shoot their rifles before going out. If they can't hit the target he pushes them awfully hard to shoot his .243. Of course he stays with the hunter and tells him exactly wher to shoot. They've taken a lot of elk with the .243.

But with all that said, I'm a convert to larger diameter bullets and think a reduced recoil .308 would be a better choice.

I'm 28 and still don't enjoy shooting my .30-06 with 165 gr. loads from the bench! I'll admit it, with a rifle, I'm a recoil wuss. (.454 Casull is my favorite handgun cartridge, go figure...) So...I bought a .260 Remington Mt. rifle from Bill Davis here on the 'fire. I doubt my .30-06 will see much time until my daughters get old enough to shoot the .260 and whatever else pops up my gun collection. Lower recoil takes the mental game out of it for me, if I'm scared of the recoil I won't hit what I'm aiming at, but take away that factor and I've killed deer past 400 yds. cleanly with .243 and even my .30-06 before I turned wussy.
Selmer

When I was a pup in Montana them minimum age for a hunting license was 12 and you needed to pass the hunter's safety course. I started elk hunting at 14... and I learned that a man with stubby legs (my old man) could walk my backside into the ground. There were more than a few times I was tripping over my tongue.

Now, I'm not sure what kind of hunting we're talking about, but I associate elk hunting with humping some hard country in all sorts of weather. So, what happens if a guy hunting with a 10-year-old son or daughter keels over dead from a heart attack? Does that 10-year-old kid have the sand and the woods savvy to make it back to the rig?

I think SS makes a good point. I see the same things happen in Little League or Pee Wee football or whatever. There are times when parents get carried away rather than focusing on the point of the game (having fun and learning some important life lessons). I'm all about teaching kids to hunt. For me, this education involves more than just setting them up on a rifle and having them pull the trigger. If you want to read a great book about what I'm talking about, try "The Old Man and the Boy." It's a classic and something every hunting parent should read.

Dang, the little 6mm Rem was my very first centerfire rifle, back in 1974. Huge change from using one of the family .30-06's. I figured it was perfect for coyotes and varmints. Even started hunting deer with it. But elk? Wow... That's asking a lot of a 6mm Rem... Sure! Let's do it! Why did I buy all those other guns over the past 30 years? If I'd only known my 6mm was an elk rifle I could have saved a lot of cash on rifles & loading components!

Regards, Guy

Shooting at a range is NOT shooting at an elk. A kid that young is going to have some jumpy nerves the 1st time he looks through the sights at an elk and the odds of a bad shot are very high.
If he can't handle a gun capable of putting one down with a bad shot, let him grow until he can. No way should a young kid be using a 6mm on elk.

Dick

Don't assume that because the youngster is going elk hunting that he is going to backpack ten days back into the Bob Marshall.
Many people here have access to ranches where there is very little or no other hunting pressure. They can sit beside a haystack and pick out a fat cow to assasinate. The toughest part is waiting for legal shooting light to come. I know other hunters that just by virtue of being very very good hunters can put their kids within 150 yards of an elk every year on public land.