Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Favorite 30 Cal Elk bullet?

I've had excellent performance from the 200 gr. Nosler Partition over 59 grs. of H4831. With a zero of a little over 200 yds. which is about +2.5 inches at 100 yds, I'm down about 7 inches at 300 yds.
I also like the 180 Sierra GameKing and the 180 gr. Nosler Partition over 58-58.5 grs. of Ramshot Hunter.
I want to try the 155 gr. Scenar over about 58 grs. of Ramshot Big Game. E

I know Ive already 'voted', but I must say... I havent shot an elk since 2003 and it was a 180 Fusion from my 30-06 at say maybe 30 yards (cow). I never recovered that elk but found lots of blood and trailed it for a solid half mile and nothing. Looked the next day too, never found her.

But, in Africa I shot a couple animals that were near the size of an elk and had nothing but perfection on all accounts.

168g TTSX and 165g North Fork - use them both.

180gr. NP's......foolproof, at least in my experience.

Movin' at 300WSM speeds.......the 180gr. TSX with the same resulting experience.

Agreed. It MIGHT be one of the best All Around BG bullets ever made.IMHO

looking back over this thread, I can,t help but think back on my early elk hunts with a 30/06 and ask why not have a 35 whelen or 338 caliber rifle, at least you can pack a 225-250 grain bullet and in my experience thats a minor advantage, worth having.
like I said before I started hunting elk with a 30/06 and it killed them, with a single well placed shot, but when I swapped to the 35, and 338 calibers with 250 grain bullets there was an obvious improvement in getting the ELKS FULL attention on bullet impact, they did,t get any deader , but they seemed to get hit a whole lot harder, and the distance traveled from bullet impact seemed to be shorter.
enough shorter that most of the guys I hunted with that were sworn 30/06 worshipers, bought slide action Remington 35 whelens over the years after they became available

After I killed my first elk with a borrowed .30-40 Krag I built my first centerfire rifle, a .30-06. I then proceeded to kill 8 elk with that rifle shooting 150 gr Hornady Spire Point and 180 gr Sierra GameKing bullets.

Then a friend showed me a .30 Gibbs shell and I thought it looked cool so I had my .30-06 re-chambered to .30 Gibbs. 21 Elk and 2 Shiras moose then fell from 180 gr Nosler Partition bullets from my .30 Gibbs.

A few years ago I built a .300 Weatherby, and last year my bull elk died from a 168 gr Barnes TSX bullet from it. It shoots 168 gr and 180 gr TSX bullets equally well, so the rest of my elk will probably be shot with either of those bullets. Unless it's raining.

Barnes bullets don't give good blood trails?

It had been the Speer 180 mag-tip hot core, cheap, tough, accurate,no longer available.
so 165 TSX is the current favorite.

180 gr. Swift Scirocco II...

I've killed a few elk with the 180 NAB's at 2775 from a 30-06. They work but I really like the 200 g NAB and I'm working up a load for it in the 30-06. I sold my 300 ultras and have a bunch of 200's to use. I'm getting over 2700 fps with the 200's over RL-17 from a 30-06.

Bb

180 Nosler Partition over 84.5 gn of H4831SC. Moves out at 3200 fps +/-15. Worked every time so far.