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

I suppose you have killed more elk than Shrapnel!!!!

Maybe nothing better, but dozens that work as well.

The best elk rifle is whatever the best elk hunter has in his hands. The rest is bullchit... or elkshit.

Everyone in the east seems to think the 300 Weatherby is the best Elk cartridge. Normally when somebody I know books an Elk hunt their next move is to purchase one. I even heard of a guy who booked an Elk hunt in Colorado and proceeded to sell his .300 Winchester mag in order to buy a .300 Weatherby mag!

There of course is really little difference between the two..
I don't use mine alot, because it isn't my favorite rifle.. It is a good one just on a favorite..

You do seem pretty emotional about the .300 Weatherby. About the first clue someone has their feels hurt is when reading comprehension goes right out the window.

I wrote this:


You felt this:


When "Lots of better options" feels the same as "all you need" it gets hard to have a fun discussion without somebody getting butthurt.



Kroo88,

But that really is the point. Almost everyone who claims there isn't "anything better" than the .300 Weatherby is using longer range as the justification.

The interesting thing is that the self imposed range limits for most of the .300 Weatherby fans are shooter limitations, not killing power limitations. That is a bit of food for thought.

If a guy with a .300 Weatherby says he can only shoot well enough to reliably hit elk vitals at 500yds what happens if we give him a rifle with more downrange "power" and more recoil? Could he shoot ethically further or should he actually reduce the range he is willing to shoot?

All things being equal would he be able to extend his ethical range by using a cartridge that delivers less, but still plenty, downrange power but also was significantly easier to shoot from field positions?



Brad,

Sort of and maybe.

We put 10 elk on the ground (all with the rifle in the pic) the weekend before Christmas. 8 out of 10 were 1 shot kills (600yds- 180yds), one cow kept her feet long enough to get a 2nd and one took 3 because of behind the diaphragm placement on the first.

I don't know if a suppressed G2 .308 Win is "better" than anything for thinning cow herds but it sure is the best I have ever seen, in that application.

You weren't hunting, you were shooting.

Best and Happy New Year!

Brad

The 300B is enough gun for elk. If you like it, run it.

I don't care for the recoil and blast personally.

Oops I forgot the only way to hunt elk is by hauling a 12lb rifle on horseback and shooting broadside animals with match bullets. My bad.

I will be glad when this long range "hunting"/ sniper boy fantasy stuff runs it's course.

Well that sucks.

My rifles only weigh 10lbs.



I only have mules to ride.



Sometimes I don't wait for a broadside shot.



Not to mention I shoot elk with "Hunting" bullets.



In the future I will try harder to comply with your rules.

I'm not trying to make you comply with any rules.

But there are other methods of hunting elk where your guns don't work so well. That's all.

This long range stuff has been going on for far more than 50 years.. I doubt it goes away, with improvements in scopes, range finders, etc... I would guess it will only continue to grow..

Long range 10 years ago was 4-500 yards with a hunting rifle. Not 800 with a 10+ lb sniper wanna be rig. It's about as ridiculous as the tactic oil guys that show up to the range looking like delta force albeit 8lbs too heavy.

Some great bulls there!

Gosh darn john.Some day I'm going to convince you to trim up those mules so they don't look like gang of hippies,

B, When I was young some of the guys were already killing deer and chucks at well over 1000 yards.. BUT there were not many doing this due to the expense of getting equipment.. Most used army range finders. They had bull guns equipped with target scopes. That was well over 50 years ago..

There have been 1,000 yard hunting clubs in PA longer than I've been alive. They were using the .30-378 before Weatherby ever offered it and they used the .300 Weatherby mag prior to that. I just learned on another thread they also pioneered the 6.5/300 Weatherby mag. This long range stuff is nothing new.

John B -

Those are some pretty awesome bulls.

I dare say, though, that if you didn't have four-footed transportation you might quickly decide that a 10 pound rifle is unnecessarily heavy.

A gentleman's hunt on horse or mules is on my bucket list but for the last 30+ years I've carried my pack and rifle on my back, often doing 6-8 miles a day in and back. For me, lighter rifles are much preferred.

Yes,I remember growing up in PA in the 50's hunting in Clinton County of guys doing LR shooting. The ones I knew sported a .308 Norma Mag. We hunted out of Renovo. As I remember there were matches in a town east of there.