Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting 300 Win Mag factory ammo for elk?

After this article I will be supporting Hornady,.

https://www.tactical-life.com/news/hornady-new-york-agencies-ammo/

Pretty much anything that is accurate in your rifle will work most of the time. Son-in-law took his first elk at about 400 yards with Winchester 180g white box ammo.

My preference and recommendation, though, is to use premium bullets that are proven to hold together at high velocity impacts and still expand nicely at longer ranges. Most of my ammo is loaded with North Fork SS, Nosler AccuBond and Barnes TTSX. The AccuBond and TTSX see the most usage these days.

If buying ,300WM factory ammo I'd be happy with Partitions, AccuBond, TTSX, A-Frame, Edge TLR and Trophy Bonded, provided they all shot well. 165g to 210g would suit me fine.

I ran afoul of how the airline wanted the reloads I had put together boxed and I had to give them to my wife before I went through security. So I land in Jackson Hole, rent a car to Pinedale Wyoming and head for the big sporting goods store there right off the main street. The only ammo on the shelf for my 300 Win mag were 150 grain Corelokts! Far cry from my 200 grain Partition reloads but I buy two boxes and as soon as I got on BLM land I set up a target, took 6 shots to get it sighted in 3 inches high at 110 steps. We head up into the mountains and before we even get to camp I see and shoot a nice 6x6, big bodied old elk too. Hit him just behind the shoulder about half way up the body and he is laying on the ground when I get him back in the scope. Range was 150 yards. The bullet was under the hide on the far side expanded almost flat with less than a 1/4 inch of bullet shank left. Well that elk went down as fast as any I have ever seen shot so I can't really snivel, I was pretty lucky as all I had to do the next two weeks was take care of camp and keep the beer stocked.

This is why I'm switching to a 30-06 with factory ammo, especially for hunts where I have to fly. After a summer of testing ammo, I've learned to chronograph everything as well as checking accuracy. One of the first loads I tested was Federal's 30-06 180-grain Partition because it makes the most sense as a factory 30-06 elk load. It’s accurate enough, but I was surprised to see that it runs 2,550 fps in a couple of my rifles instead of the advertised 2,700 fps. That difference won’t make it harder to kill an elk, but it could definitely make it harder to hit one at longer range if you zeroed in the field and weren’t expecting the lower velocity.

My goal is to identify loads that a) my rifle shoots fairly well, b) run fast, and c) that I can probably find in a big-box store in game country.

Once you know the velocity in your rifle, you can use https://www.norma.cc/us/Ammunition-Academy/Ballistics/ballistics-program/ or https://www.federalpremium.com/ballistics_calculator/ to get some idea about your drops.


Get it by the case. https://ammoseek.com/ammo/ is your friend. It crawls all of the ammo sites and lists stuff by price. Try to shop in the few months after hunting season when distributors need to clear out inventory. A lot of times you can get breaks on shipping.


Okie John

I have been hunting and shooting elk since the 60"s, any ammo that shoots a 180 Nosler AB or Partition in your rifle, would be my choice. Elk are not bullet proof, but every once in a while, you will run into one that thinks he is.

Most any 180 bullet in a 300WM will work just fine on elk.

For cheapies, Federal Fusions work well and are usually very accurate in everything.