As much as I would love to kill an elk with my .260, I really have a hard time justifying it, with a pair of 7 mags sitting in the safe. I have seen too many good results with 160 Partitions, to experiment with a light caliber. I drew a cow elk permit this year for just south of my house here in Nebraska. The permits are too hard to come by, to not use all of the horsepower that I have at my disposal. I really like my .260 and it HAMMERS deer at whatever range, but I think the 7 mag is going to get the nod.
Although I've hunted with less powerful cartridges than the 7mm RM, and may do so again, I tend to agree -- The .44 Mag got hunted because Dad gave it to me, the .30-30 because I wanted to and the .257 Roberts got stoked with 120 A-Frames at 2947fps. In every case I knew I was limiting the range at which I could take shots (less so with the Roberts) and I was OK with that. Biggest bull I've ever had my sights on was at 100 yards with the .44 Mag. Let it go because my buddy had just put one down with my 7mm RM and I figured we had enough work ahead of us. A couple days later we saw the same (we think) bull at 100-125 yards and I let it go because it was end of the last day and I decided not to ruin a perfectly good hunt with a lot of back-breaking work. That time I had the 7mm RM in hand.
To anyone intent on putting elk meat in the freezer, I recommend staying away from the smaller cartridges if they have and can shoot larger. For Daughter #1 I recommended a .308/130TTSX because she is petite and hates recoil. She doesn't even like the 150's in the .308, but she shoots the 130's' great. Would have preferred a more capable combination for her but bowed to known limits of the shooter.
AFAIC, my 'elk' rifles start with my .280 Rem.
