I've done two full elk hides. I have two more salted now that I haven't been able to steel myself up to start.

**it's a lot of manual labor**.

elk are about my upper limit, size wise, for DIY tanning.

a wet elk hide coming out of the pickling or tanning will weigh about 200#. that's 200# of sloppy,slippery, cold, spilling everywhere weight.

breaking a stretched elk hide is a nice shoulder workout too wink

fwiw,

I've had good success with Van Dyke's (a Cabelas Co) products:

--"whatever they call their re-wetting agent"
--pickling crystals
--Lutan (TM) tanner
--Pro Plus(TM) oil

I use a small spade shovel to break a stretched hide.