"... advice to a 24 year old newer hunter who needs to buy his first hunting rifle. He wants to be able to use it for elk & seems OK with a little recoil..."
This was me back in 1967 (only I was 21). I had a college summer job with the Forest Service in deer and elk rich northwestern Colorado. My Dad wasn't a hunter so I asked this question to a couple of guys that I worked with that had grown up hunting in that area. They told me to get a .270 Win or .30-06. They said that only the city dudes from Denver shot .300 Win magnums.
So I bought a .30-06, put a cheap 3-9x scope on it and proceeded to use it to get a few antelope and my deer and elk every year with it. After I had been hunting for a few years I was impressed with the 7 mm Rem mag, but it's ballistics were so close to my .30-06 that I didn't get my first 7 mm RM until 2001.
Of the rifles the OP listed, I would recommend a Weatherby Vanguard. I currently have 3 of them: a .300 Wby, a .308 Win. and a .223. I re-stocked the .300 in Fancy walnut, and the other two have Weatherby's Griptonite stocks, that I really like. All 3 shoot sub moa with my handloads. All of them wear Leupold scopes with Talley rings.
The choice of chamberings today is many times the choices that we had when I got my first rifle, but if I would buy my first rifle today I would buy a Weatherby Vanguard chambered in .30-06 or 7 mm Rem mag topped with a Leupold VX 3i CDS scope with Talley rings.
