Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting 22-250 and Elk

Just picked up an issue of Trophy Hunter. Inside is a picture of a young lady holding her Ruger 22-250! She's standing behind a very large 5x5 bull! She shot it at 170yds!!

Once again it's shows that shot placement is way more important than caliber! Don't know if there's on online link to a pic for you guys or not. Bull was killed somewhere in Montana.

On another note it will prolly be the last issue of the Trophy Hunter I buy. Every issue just get's worse with advertising. Most stories never even mention type of gear or statements about what caliber or bullet dispatched the critted. Bummer

"A hunter should not choose the cal, cartridge, and bullet that will kill an an animal when everything is right; rather, he should choose ones that will kill the most efficiently when everything goes wrong"
Bob Hagel

Got this off another post and kinda thought it fits here. Just cause something will work doesn't mean it shoudl be done.

But what the heck I "killed" a elk one time with a 22 stinger. I had shot the neck bone into with a 30-06 but it was still breathing when I got up to it. So there ya go a .22 CCI Stinger can kill a elk. even witha a 1 1/2 inch barrel American Arms. LOL.

Very sound advice! Thanks for the quote.

CD

wow, that takes guts! i would never attempt that!

I've been there done it and dined on the elk steaks via the old '250.

Most likely it'll happen again some day.

Not that I condone it for most people and or most circumstances.

Dober

I once defended a guy who killed an elk with a .22 mag.

They also don't tell you how the guy spent $5000 on a landowner tag, was driving around on private land, and blasted the deer/elk as it came out of the hayfield, LOL. But they make sure and tell you the score.

And people argue the .30-30 isn't enough gun...

Placement, placement, placement.

I don't suppose the article mentioned the other 2 that she wounded before she got one to go down. Information like that is usually left out of hunting articles.

Dick

The sad thing is that THIS will turn into a flame war...
Count me in on the group with shot placement rules....

It should be up to the hunter to ensure that everything does not go wrong. S*#T happens but a lot of it can be avoided.

As Phil Shoemaker noted in his last article in Successful Hunter, the .223 is the most popular cartridge in Alaska and is used on everything from small furbearers and pests up to moose and grizzly. That doesn't mean that it is the cartridge of choice for taking bruins and large ungulates--it's often the only one that is at hand for the task.

I believe that it is incumbent on a hunter to select a cartridge/rifle combination that he or she can shoot accurately and that will kill the quarry quickly and reliably with any shot that will be taken. The more "marginal" the cartridge, the lower the percentage of possible killing shots relative to the number of animals encountered.

Regardless of how large or small the bullet and how fast it is leaving the barrel, you still have to be able to get it into the heart/lung complex or the central nervous system to gaurantee a quick, clean kill.

End of sermon--pass the plate...

Yeah, when I was in the gunshop the other day buying some 60-gn Partitions for my .223, I mentioned that it was for my "elk load" and you could see about 4 sets of shoulders stiffen up as they prepared to explain to me what an idiot I was!

They were for my home-defense load for my AR...

The minimum caliber I'd personally like to hunt elk with is a 7mm-08, but it's legal to go all the way down to .243 in Oregon. They are tough animals, in tough country, and I personally want to hit them hard, and I want lots of penetration. Since I CAN'T afford "gimmee" tags, and elk is a low-percentage affair in Oregon, it just makes sense to carry a rifle that isn't going to be an impediment to the killin' should such a chance present itself. So while I would carry a 7mm-08 if I had to, in reality in my opinion "proper" elk rifles start at 30-06 and go from there.

The rifles in my safe that I consider "ideal" elk rifles are 30-06, .358 Win, 325 WSM, and 338 Win Mag, with the last one being the best for the job IMHO. The best combo of trajectory and terminal ballistics in a shootable rifle.

Rifles in my safe that I would use in a pinch or in special circumstances include 7mm-08, 30-30, 32 WS, 44 mag, .308, and 45/70.

I couldn't see hunting elk with a .22-anything or even a .243, personally.

-jeff

They also didn't mention the guy standing behind her with a 338.

Jeff, so you wouldn't use a .270? Let's not forget that if I'm not mistaken isn't it the swede's that have killed thousands of moose with a 6.5!

CD

Sure, I'd use one... but I don't own one so I didn't mention it. It would be bracketed between my choices of 7mm-08 and 30-06.

But to be honest, I consider it a notch below the 30-06, and the 30-06 is my minimum "ideal" elk rifle. The .270 would fall somewhere in my "adequate" category with 7-08, .280, .260, .308, etc.

A 30-06 with the right bullets is a bona-fide bull elk rifle, capable of most any shot angle. Get below that and you start to lose shot angles, you make a smaller hole, you make a less-deep hole, etc etc etc.

Of course, the caliber I consider truly ideal for elk is .338 Win Mag. Next up would .325 WSM or 300 maggie.

And now, sit back and watch as I get clobbered by all the .270 guys! Please let me note, NOWHERE IN THIS POST DOES IT SAY THAT .270 IS INADEQUATE FOR ELK! Also, this is all just an opinion, worth what you paid for it, and my opinion is formed by the terrain I hunt and my style of hunting- your mileage will vary.

It's neat that we have so many great calibers... I love 'em all! Just not all of them for elk.

-jeff

props to jeff!

What'd I do? Manage to cover all my bases? :-)

-jeff

I was a little worried I might have offended. You remained civil.

Ho jeez, I've been on the internet since 1992 or so... I've got pretty thick skin! Besides, you didn't say anything offensive or aggressive. And besides THAT, I have posted with my real name since the beginning and I'm not in the habit of getting in fights... it's just no fun, and it follows you around if you use your real name.

It's funny, 270 is a caliber that's just never interested me. Everyone talks about how flat it shoots but 30-06 shoots just as flat for practical purposes, and hits harder... if I want to shoot flat, I'd choose a 7-mag anyway.

I know .270 is a fine, fine caliber and if my first hunting rifle had been a .270 things would be different for me but as it turned out, it was a 30-06 so I got branded that way. Or something.

Pretty much everything ever made that's based ont the 30-06 parent case is a great caliber and same with the .308 case IMHO.

Of the new crop, I really like the 325 WSM. It's too bad that it's probably destined for the scrap heap because it really is useful, slotting right between 30-06 and .338 about every way. Note that I say between them... in my .325 WSM, at least, I get nowhere near the advertised velocities... it's no .338.

-jeff