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

I can appreciate those who pay homage to the 300 WSM in this thread.

In my thinking, this may be closer to ideal: light, compact package, plenty of thump. My bro has a SAUM that is a light, short, and ideal, season after season.

The 300 Weatherby works pretty good on elk.

my favorite Elk rifle is the 338-06 Ack

Wow, talk about resurrection of an old thread!
In the few years since this original post, two more bulls have been taken with my MkV .300 Weatherby. It now wears a McMillan Edge stock, reducing weight with scope and mounts to around 8 3/4 lbs. Favorite bullet remains the Barnes 165 gr. TSX. I may treat her to a new Leupold VX3 2.5-8x scope, since I took the old one off to use as a spare for an Africa hunt.
If I get a return trip to Africa for plains game, the WBY gets to go along again- in addition to being a superb elk cartridge, it also performs extremely well on everything in Africa except the really big stuff.

300 Weatherby and 200 grain bullets, it is the ideal elk combo.

that pretty much sums up my experience with the 340 wby,using a 250 grain bullet, but Ive also had good results with the 375 H&H 45/70,35 whelen 358 win and a few others... while the 340 is darn impressive its sure not the only effective route to putting elk on their nose

Have used the .340 on three elk.. To me it was no more effective in dropping elk than any of my .300's..

I use a muzzleloader, and depend on the 290gr Barnes T-EZ to get it done on elk out to 150yds.

Yes!!!! memtb

I killed my first dozen with a puny .270.

The last 1/2 dozen elk, in a half dozen years have all been with a .308 Win.

Various cartridges in between.

While I certainly enjoy my .300 winchesters for long range target shooting, I find myself carrying my little 20" Tikka for all my elk and mule deer hunting. May play with an -06 this year.

Never felt the need for lightweight heavy recoiling rifles for big game.

In regards to the .243 for elk. A BUNCH of elk get killed by locals with them every year. Wives and kids tend to carry them. Husbands don't tell them that the internet says it is not enough and elk keep tipping over..

Excellent elk round as well. Not going to answer that OP's rhetorical question as we all know there are many cartridges that are damn near perfect elk medicine. 338 win mag really comes to mind, since it was made for elk hunting... ..OOPS, that was a slip up.. .. But true..

But these are the same guys who say the 338 recoil is bad but shoot 300 win mags and 300 weatherby mags all day long. Me on the other hand think the 338 great round, recoil not bad but I cannot stand the recoil of a 300 win mag. I rather get kicked in the nuts before I shot a either version of the 300 mag

Ah, the age-old argument: Keith vs O'Connor. Speed vs momentum. Flat-shooting vs raking-shot penetration. I suspect many who shoot the 300 Wby feel it is the perfect balance of the two sides of the argument: it shoots as flat as a magnum 7 and has the energy of a magnum 338. If there were fewer guys pole-axing elk with wee little calibers, then I might consider a 300 Wby. Or a 338.

But an '06 makes big holes through elk really, really well. And I can manage the recoil and gun weight.

I'd rather have a Toyota Camry to run around town than a Chevy with a Duramax. Of course, when getting firewood in January, the Chevy IS necessary. The elk hunting I've done looks far more like a Camry situation than it looks like a Chevy situation. In fact, I've put a cow elk in a Camry before.

I hope my analogy makes sense. It is a rough arthritis day today, and my head is spinning from pain at the moment. The point I am making is that small and efficient is a great idea for most situations, whether we are talking about running errands or guns for hunting elk. If I can do it with a Camry, I'll leave the Chevy in the driveway.

OH, now you are taking all the fun out of it. Sometimes I need my "chevy" to get to my elk hunting spots....

Good call. I don't go hunting in the Camry anymore. Plus, last year, when no elk could be found for the 12th time, I stopped and cut firewood in a foot of snow. It was far more successful than the elk hunting.

Ha ha.. A few years in a row (when I first started elk hunting) I thought about throwing my rifle in the ditch and taking up golf. . Those were the years I actually packed a 300 wby around. All this rifle/cartridge talk is fun in the off season. The main thing is getting into the elk. When you do this, damn near any legal chambering will get the job done. As long as you put the bullet in the right place. I hear you about the wood cutting though.

It's a good thiing then in the end that the various "elk states" describe various legal cartridges or acceptable "power levels" for cartridges that can be used for elk hunting.

The "best" is at best a theoretical best.

As much as I like .308, .30-06 and .300WM cartridges, I don’t have much interest in the .300WBY. Or any WBY cartridge for that matter. If I can’t get it done with my .300WM, a 300WBY won’t give me any warm fuzzies.

That's a tag line there, George. A quotable quote indeed.