The best one I have found for killing them sooner than later has been the ones I used to make a high shoulder shot with and dropped them in their tracks. I watched a bunch of cows come crawling out of a draw filled with blow down aspen. I knew I was not going to get a horse in there. So when one stopped on a little knoll, right at the edge of the draw, I put a 168 gr. TSX high in the near shoulder. At 292 yards the bullet took out both shoulders and the spine and dropped her in her tracks. I rode my horses right up to her. This was a moderate velocity load, 2800 fps, from a .300 WSM, similar to an '06 in velocity. By contrast I put a 250 gr. slug from a .358 STA through an average size bull right at 200 yards and he ran far enough I thought another elk that came running out of the draw was him. I tracked that bull for a good way and thought I had missed clean. I disbelief I started back and from an opposite hill side I could see the bull I had shot had run across the hill about 75 yards and crashed in a small depression. Which worked better? The CNS shot. I don't recall ever shooting an elk through the boiler room that didn't run at least close to 50 yards before falling.
