Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting 308 verses the 300 win mag

I have killed elk with a 300 Win mag, a 308 Norma mag, a 30/378 Weatherby mag and two 300 H&H mag and also with 3 different 308s.
The longest shots of any of the rifles listed above were actually made with my Mossberg MVP 308 with the lightest bullets, WW 150 grain Power Points. (not planned that way, but that's how it worked out) Those kills were made by myself and my wife at just shy of 400 yards.
All my kills with the various 300 mags have been made at 275 yards and less, with one made with the 300 Win mag at only 30 yards.
So the ones made at super close range with the magnums were easy to get good hits with. The 3 different 308s I have used are a Smith Enterprises M14, an FN-FAL and the Mossberg MVP. The M14 was loaded with 180 grain Round Nose bullets made by Hornady. The FAL was loaded with 165 grain Nosler Partitions and the MVP was loaded with 150 grain Winchester Power Points and 165 grain Nosler partitions. One elk killed wiuth the FAl, 2 with the M14 and 6 with the MVP 3 by me and 3 by my wife and one friend who borrowed it on one hunt.
The 30/378 (one elk) was loaded with a 180 grain Speer Grand Slam. The 300 Win mag (one elk) was loaded with a 180 grain Sierra. The two 300 H&Hs (4 elk) were loaded with 220 grain Hornady, 190 grain Hornady and 200 grain Nosler partitions. My 308 Norma (2 elk) was used with a 165 grain Hornady and a 180 grain Nosler Partition.

So the problem with any comparison of a 300 mag VS a 308 would have to be shots of near identical angles of the elk, and at the same ranges, and using the same bullets.

So I definitely can say I have done what you ask, but I doubt my results can be said to be of any real value in any valid comparison. Of the elk I have killed with those rifles, some were cows, some bulls, some as close as 30 yards and as far as 390 yards, some moving, some standing, and in the whole bunch there were also bullets of several makers and weights of 150 165 180 190 200 and 220.
Some dropped at the shot and the one shot with the 300 Win Mag at only 30 yards went about 75 yards before he dropped. In that mix I didn't add those I killed with 30-06s (5) and one with a 300 Savage.
So I think it's not good to give advice on the question as asked. Far better to say what bullets to use and also to ask about your hunting style and hunting location.

What I can say without reservation, is that the 308 is just fine for elk hunting. Obviously so are the 300 mags. But we are told all the time that the 308 is only good up close, or that it's not going to "put them down" as well as a 300 and in my 50 years of hunting and guiding I can say those statements are simply not based in reality. A 30 cal bullet of good construction, even fired from a lowly 308 (or a 300 savage) will go clear through, break bones, and exit ----------and kills elk just fine. All the dedicated 300 mag shooters I ever knew were confident in their 300s and with good reasons, but none I know have actually killed vary many elk with 308s, 300 Savages, 303 British, 8X57, 7X57, 7-08, 6.5X55 and a whole bunch of others too, so their idea that they have "the best tool" is not actually based on knowledge, but far more of what they believe the other cartridges would do. In other words, they guess. 300 and 338 shooter DO have excellent arms for elk. But to say they do better then some other cartridge , they would have to have seen 15-50 others shot with each of those other cartridges to know without doubt that X is "better" then Y.

I have done it and seen it about 5-6 times more than I have done it and I am not guessing. I know what I know, and I admit there are a lot of bullet and cartridges I don't know, but I can make some guesses too. Many I have shot myself and about 5X more I have seen shot by friends, family members and clients. When I write something as a fact it's a fact. I ALWAYS tell my opinions but make sure I write it as an opinion. All my educated guesses are exactly that................guesses.
But when I say that I shot X at Y angle at Z range with Q bullet and the bullet hole was like thus and such... you can bank on that being the truth. If I see it several times in a row I assume it is going to be like that most times. One shot on one elk is not a pattern.

Seeing a similar behavior with a round over 5 to maybe 15 kills is how you learn what to expect. I started killing elk when I was 9. That was 54 years ago. In those 54 years I have shot a lot more, and as a guide or sub-guide as well as just a friend of MANY other hunters, I am betting (and not exaggerating) I have seen hundreds and hundreds of them killed. As a sub-guide working for outfitters in 5 different states it was very common for me to be in on the killing of anywhere from 6 to 20 per year . Over a span of a half century.

300 Mags work very well. That's a fact. Not just an opinion.
So do 308s and that's also a fact. Not just an opinion.

You can have rather poor results with any rifle if your placement of the bullet is poor, and also if the bullet doesn't go through in a fairly straight line when it hits perfectly, yet veers off course inside, or breaks up and doesn't go very deep. My 30 yard kill with my old 300 Win Mag is one such kill. The shot was only 30 yards and the elk went into a very deep and very steep gully totally choked with alder brush and even though it only went about 75 yards after the hit it took me 45 minutes to find him. 180 grain bullet, but what I recovered weighed 37 grains and was an empty jacket. That bullet hit dead center of the chest, but turned about 45 degrees and took out the back of the lung on the other side and went down the body into the paunch even though the elk was not facing in that direction. It broke up because the shot was too close for such a load in my opinion, and the velocity of that hit was too high for the bullet to hold together. Bad choice of gun? NO! It was a M70 in 300 Win Mag. I was young then and wanted to believe what I read, so I thought a long range load and bullet would be fine if I had to use it at close range. And yes, I got my bull. But I am 100% certain if I had used that bullet at a slower speed (as in from a 308) I would have done better, or if I had used a tougher bullet with the "old fashioned flat base, thick jacket and "poor long range flight abilities" I would also have done better. My longest range elk kills have all been with "poor flyers", (lower BCs ) yet all of them were quick and human kills with short runs, and one with no run.

What is a fact is that 308 should be loaded with a bullet that doesn't break up easily for elk hunting. The same is true (even more so) with all the 300s. Loaded with bullet that don't break up a 308, 30-06, 300 Magnum 303 British, 300 Savage, or for that matter, a 6.5MM or 270 or 7X57 all drop elk with real authority, and when they run after a hit they run a very short distance.

It's also a fact that poor bullets kill. There is no way to "bless an elk" and "do it good" by shooting them.... with anything.

But the best performance is always going to be from good bullets over time and involving a lot of kills if you shoot enough elk to see the patterns develop, over decades of experience. All bullets can do weird things occasionally. Even the very best ones. But the best bullets do odd and objectionable things FAR less then the others.

Even the worst bullets kill well if they hit the heart or break the neck. So to say one is "bad' and another is "good" you have to see them used several dozen times at various ranges and angles to see any valid pattern.

Looking at the facts I wrote about above about my kills from all my 308s and all my 300s, you can see that there is still not enough info there to make a valid case. There were too many variables.

So that is why I droll on about the hunts I have been on where others have done the killing. In seeing many hundreds of kills I can argue a pattern for certain bullets, but in my 50+ years of killing elk I can't say that a 308 is really a worse choice for elk killing then a 300.
Use a good bullet and take the rifle you shoot best. If you shoot a 308 better then you do a 300 mag they YOU are going to do a LOT better with your 308.

The kill is 98% about how you do, and 2% about what you do it with. Forget about getting the best elk gun and concentrate on being the best elk hunter.