My two main elk rifles both wear Leupold VX 3i 30 mm scopes. My primary one is a .300 Wby Vanguard in Fancy walnut with an 8 oz recoil reducer in it's stock and weighs just under 10 pounds. My foul weather rifle is a stainless Rem 700 in 7 mm RM that weighs just under 9 pounds. My primary deer, antelope, and the rifle that I shot all of my sheep with is a Mauser Mark X chambered in .257 AI that wears a Leupold VX 3 scope and weighs under 10 pounds with it's Fancy walnut stock. I'm only 74, but if I thought these rifles were too heavy I'd look into getting in better shape.
WStrayer posted that .300 Wby ammo was expensive, and factory ammo is. But as a reloader, my .300 Wby ammo only costs $0.04 more to reload than my 7 mm RM and $0.06 more to reload than .30-06 ammo.
Having hunted elk for almost 50 years and killed almost 3 dozen of them, I've never had to shoot an elk at over 300 yards, but I practice out to 430 yards, and I'm confident that either my 7 mm RM or .300 Wby would kill an elk at 400-500 yards.
A Christiansen Arms fiber barreled rifle has interested me for many years...
