Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Minimum caliber to hunt elk??...

That SOB...I thought you just didn’t care anymore.

Figured he had been around, the dogs ass was shaved and my beer was gone.

Sixshooter’, I would suggest you make a few rolls on the water and try to spit the hook,

From the looks of it, Jud doesn’t go barbless.

If I look at your past postings and his sorry but neither of you impress me one bit, nor does your mutual admiration of each other

Now let's try a different tack for you Mr. 31156

What is your caliber of choice in Colorado and why, instead of yammering on and on about what you think doesn't work how about you tell the OP what he should use

I even gave you the out of "In Colorado" so you can claim it as your excuse

Please enlighten us

He’s flossing 80lb braid in this River.




LMAO

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Opinions .... Oh well you probably know the rest,,

And NO I didn't ask for yours

He’s a Canuck smoke, canucks are great folks

I doubt making “sense” of things is your forte as you are still trying to explain your original post. In fairness though another adult telling you about 1500 ft lbs and elk made sense to you 40 years ago, so there is that.

This seems logical to me. Steering a bit away from the energy debate, assuming you have a well-constructed bullet impacting at well-above the minimum expansion velocity, how much bullet mass would you think starts to get a bit too low for comfort? I've seen 85gr .243 bullets work wonders on deer, but would you all be comfortable with that on an elk hunt? If not, how much mass would it take to make you feel comfortable? And by comfortable, I mean that you're getting ready to pull the trigger with the sight on a front shoulder, are you kind of wishing you had a bit heavier of a bullet to launch, assuming the velocity is sufficient? At what weight of bullet would that thought not even pop into your head? Again, assume that the presentation is such that you gotta break bone.

I think folks would be a whole lot better off taking care of their physical health, and learning the ins and outs of their hunting areas than worrying about bullets and head stamp's as much as they do. Especially in today's day and age when we have so many wonderful options out there. Someone said it earlier, but that is one of the last things on my mind when trying to fill my family and I's elk tags.

You think I'd steal from that mangy dog? He has nothing I am interested in (except maybe a life).

Besides, I have my own lifetime stash of rubber dicks. They're MAGNUMS too, as I prefer at LEAST 2000 foot pounds of butt pressure. KNOCKDOWN POWER!

As most here can attest - speaking specifically about Jordan. He knows I’m not too scientific. 😬

But, I have probably as much or more experience than some here on killing public land elk. Approaching 70.

I’ve killed or been next to a hunter gunning a 30-06, 7mag, 270 Win, 300 Win, 300 Roy, 300 Ultramag, 30-370 Roy, 7mm-08 and a 28 Nosler.

Range has been between 842 yards at the tips, and as close as 60 yards.

Aside from a poorly made shot. All had died quickly with either one and done, or quick follow up shots to anchor it.

The unfortunate mountain rodeo retrieval has always been due to a bad hit with several follow up air ball shots. Caliber and bullets don’t matter much if you’re not connecting with tissue.

The only situation where I was personally behind the scope that had me miffed, was a cow hunt a couple years ago. I sunk a 140g Abond iirc, from a 7-08 behind the shoulder of average sized cow - 325lb ish that was *static* not under any stress.

I hit her at 425 yards. She absorbed the hit, and looked unfazed from what I could tell after coming off the recoil. Without indication that she had been hit,,,,,aside from the audible tell of my round slamming into her.

I had to watch the cow for several minutes to make sure I was still watching the elk I had hit,,,,,Mountain erupted with elk going everywhere at the break of my shot, and without any visual indicator the cow was hit, I had to wait until all the elk had moved away, leaving only the one cow. She was still standing, not swaying, finally she lowered her head and took an unstable step.

I hit her again about 2.5 inches apart from my first shot. That stoned her.

I recovered both rounds. One on the opposite side shoulder. The other under the hide on the opposite side....Good penetration on both bullets.


It’s still a mystery why the first shot didn’t provide more visual confirmation of a hit...Elk, can be a tough critter sometimes. That’s just a fact.

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My god!! You got a pic of that bone pile??? That’s some serious bull killin!

Nobody in this thread has disproved that it works, so there is that

You wouldn’t enjoy my life, it involves females.

Not judging,....Well, maybe a little.

Thanks for the kind words, fellas.

This is painful.

Nobody in this thread has claimed that bullets with 1500 ft-lbs of kinetic energy at impact don't work. What you don't seem to understand is that the 1500 ft-lbs bullet is a subset of bullets that work. Bullet performance and placement can make up for a bullet that has much less than 1500 ft-lbs. A VLD in the ribs is decisively lethal, as long as the bullet arrives with enough velocity to expand/implode, even if it has nowhere near 1500 ft-lbs of kinetic energy.

My theory is, like humans, some are just tougher than others.

Pards bull, killed 1340 yards, 7 mag 180 Berger. How many flbs of energy was remaining there?


Beautiful pack out by the way, 5 guys, old road grades the whole way...

+1000 Jordan. For a while now I’ve looked at velocity limits and used that as one of the main factors when choosing a bullet for a given cartridge.

Nice bull. With no knowledge, I'm assuming 5,000 ft elevation as a median or so. With HSM's factory load with that bullet, it had dropped 38 MOA, or 46 ft from the LOS. It would have been moving around 1,450 fps and had an energy of about 850 ft-lbs, about like a medium .44 mag loading at the muzzle. That's pretty amazing shooting. How did they account for the drop and/or wind? Quite a shot. It looks like they took out the spine. I'm seriously impressed.