Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting How Many Hunt Elk with a Lever Action Rifle??

There is a lot of lever action talk about hunting with your lever action rifles. How many actually hunt Elk with their lever action??

My Marlin 45-70 is not my primary rife, but I bought it just for the really bad days, heavy snow and low visibility, where something with a lot of close up energy and iron sights give me a fast shot chance

I suspect a lot more will, once that new Marlin 338 Express starts getting around. Pretty sweet lever gun.

I carry a '95 Marlin in 45-70 and on sunny days I tote my '71 Winchester .348 Win. The .348 is yet to get bloodied by me. Hopefully this year.

Joseph

If i decide to go on another elk hunt my open sight Savage 99 will go to for the snow falling days in the high country

I have hunted a shot a few elk witha 1886 ,but at 13 lbs it was a tad heavy to lug around. On days when I know I will be in heavy timber and want soemthing light I carry a Marlin 94 in 44 mag. I have only shot one elk with it,but it died about as quick as anything else I have shot elk with.

I hunt elk using a Remington 700 30-06.

I own a Marlin 336 30-30, but I have never used it for elk hunting. I just like the classic lever action design.

One time, a guy from Arkansas hunted elk with us and he used a Browning BLR .308. It sure looked like a sweet gun and did the job effectively.

Someone else mentioned using hard sights. My old eyes can't focus on the front sight so I have scopes on all of my rifles.

KC

Try a good peep sight old eyes tend to like them better.

Like this one?


My dad is the happy hunter here. Both of us put this bull down on the last morning of the 1st rifle season in 2008. He had hunted elk with his .30-06 for almost 30 years and then decided he'd like to kill one with his Pre 81 BLR in .308 win. Been hunting with this rifle the last 10 years and finally accomplished his goal. I also started out with this gun for elk hunting when I was 12. Carried it for 9 years till I could afford my own rifle. It is indeed an excellent elk gun and very handy in the timber.

Kelk:

Yep. Looks like the same gun. Are you sure that you didn't steal that from the Arkansas guy?

Your dad looks like a happy hunter.

KC

KC,

Luckily no, he didn't take it from someone in Arkansas. He bought that new before I was born for $189 and another $129 for the Leopold 2-7 VX-II scope.

Crazy story and depressing thing is. That about 10 years ago we stopped into Gene Taylor's Sporting goods in Gunnison, and there on the rack was another Pre-81 in .308 win and the exact same scope. NIB, for $529. Sure wish one of us would have bought it. I'd love to have one in my rack.

Nice Elk with the Browning BLR

1895M 450 Marlin, pow-pow-pow, cow, cow, cow.. only one I've ever shot with a lever. but this is what that gun was bought for. dark timber, close range, quick swinging elk thumper.

This one has been dropped, scratched, you name it, over the past 25 years. It's a BLR in 7mmRM.
I've tried hunting with my other rifles but always come back to this one.

I've taken elk with 243 browning blr, 308 savage 99,250savage 99, Winchester 94 3030, Winchester 95 405 win. I also have carried a Marlin in 30-30 ai but did not shoot elk with it, but have shot antelope with it.
My wife fills her elk tag every year for the last 15 or so with her blr 308.
If you count underlever my Ruger #1 06 and Sharps 45 2.3 have taken elk also.

I've hunted elk with two levers. The top one is my .325 BLR. I carried it every day season before last stoked with 200-gn TSX's. The bottom is my 45/70 (don't have it anymore); later that day, I took the scope off while tracking a wounded spike elk, wounded by who knows who, because I was getting into bedding areas and [bleep] was thick in there. I shot high with the buckhorns when the spike staggered up out of bed. Aargh. Lesson learned- use a peep, or a scope:





The

I've shot elk with my Marlin 1895SS in 45-70 and a Savage 99 in 308. They work. The Marlin wears the old Ashley Outdoors (now XS) sights. The Savage carries a Vari X-III 1.5-5.

I've never hunted Elk with a Lever Action, but I do remember running into an ole boy out near Forks years ago and he was carrying an old Winchester in 45/70 about 25 years ago. When I asked him how it worked on Elk he said that it worked just fine. That he could shoot it out of season and that the local game Warden wouldn't even come out to investigate as he would figure it was some logger or farmer out there blowing stumps.

I know a man, now long retired, who, over many years, used his old Savage 99 in .300 Savage, to kill over 30 bull elk.

Worked for him.

L.W.

Shot an elk this last year with my new Marlin 1895 Cowboy .45-70. A joy to carry and the 26" octagon barrel puts down some nice groups, its going to be my elk rifle for a long time to come, I just love the nostalgic look of the old levers.