If your wife is interested in hunting/shooting.... get another rifle. its only money.
If you are thinking elk..... as you see above.... a 30-06 would be a reasonable choice. The 270 or 280 also.
If you do enough shooting the recoil question goes away.
I like the idea of you shooting some possible rifles before you buy. Ask people. Do the due diligence.
Having a backup rifle is not a bad idea. Good rifles usually don't need back ups. but ..............
before I hunt deer in the fall I make sure I have 2 of my rifles ready to go. The one I expect to use, and a spare... at home.
Its an excuse to shoot both of em at the range.
the crew I hunt with dumped verbal abuse on me when I switched rifles in mid week....so I asked them, 'in baseball don't you sometimes change pitchers?' 3 of the times I did that I took a deer within 2 days.
Adding another rifle is a good problem to have....
