Regarding just how tiny of cartridge a hunter can possibly get by with…
The bull, whose rack is hanging over one of my benches was shot with a 338 Win Mag and 250 grain partitions. That bull was walking into the thick dog hair when I pulled the trigger at dawn; he made it about 25 steps. That bullet entered the Texas heart hole and ended up in the neck. That bull was the largest bodied old bull the butcher in Belle Fourche ever saw and he had been a butcher for about 60 years. It had been kicked out of the heard by a younger bull. Carrying it to the butcher, it was hanging out over the down tail gate on an 8 foot box pickup. All the meat was made into hamburger per the butchers strong recommendation.
Yes, I know a guy who killed an elk with a 25-35. He was pretty sure that was the perfect elk cartridge - didn’t ruin any meat.
In my experience bullets make more difference than cartridges.
A friend of mine retired early and started going on dream hunts. One was an Alaskan moose hunt, and he took his trusted old .30-06 with Federal factory ammo featuring 180-grain Trophy Bonded Bear Claws. The hunt was for 10 days, and on the 9th day he finally found a legal bull (in at least that part of Alaska they had to have a certain number of brow tines, or at least a 50-inch spread).
But it was splashing up the middle of a creek 100 yards away--going away. He got excited, and at the first shot the moose stopped and shook its head vigorously. Before it could start walking again he put one in the same place you did on that bull elk--and the moose splashed over to the shore and fell over dead. He and his guide found the "little" bullet just in front of the bull's heart--and Alaskan moose are a LOT bigger than the biggest bull elk. (The first shot put a hole in the left antler.)
Oh, and the antlers got him an invitation to the annual Boone & Crockett convention for an award as one of the top trophies taken that year.
“Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans.” John Steinbeck
