Marinehawk, thanks for taking the time to post Boddington's opinion. I could've saved you the trouble though, I've read it. There's really no firm basis for it, as far as settling on 2,000 ft-lbs, 1,500, or any other round number you can think of. It's all anecdotal and it's just his opinion. He didn't do any kind of systematic study or investigation, he didn't shoot elk and vary the ft-lbs of energy, he didn't record the results or analyze the data to see if or where there was a drop-off in effectiveness.
When Boddington wrote that he was a proponent of big calibers/cartridges for elk and that was the basis for his opinion which as you noted has changed. He was also a gun writer and needed something to write about and generate interest, and as this thread has shown, there's almost no better way to do that than to talk about "minimum elk cartridges."
It literally brings the "experts" like sixpooter out of the woodwork.
But again, thanks for going to the trouble to post it.
