I think a lot of people see the size of an elk compared to a deer and think it’s going to take a much bigger cartridge just due to the overall body size. What they don’t realize is that the depth to penetrate to the vitals difference between an elk and a deer is only a couple inches. It’s not the overall size of an animal that matters, it’s the depth of the chest across the body.
When you look at animals that way it makes a lot more sense why a 243 class cartridge can cleanly take elk, which I have done myself several times.
