Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters JB, what are your top 3 cartridges for Elk hunting?

JB, top 3 cartridges for Elk and can you add your top 3 bullets?

Thanks!

I'm certainly not JB but if I may add my two cents.....(and yes, I'd like to read JB's response as well)
1. .338-06
2. .30-06
3. .35 Whelen

Since I hunt where non toxc bullets are required, I use Barnes TTSX in a middle weight in all three. I'd use them even if any bullet was allowed.
second choice in bullets is Swift a-Frame and Nosler Partition third.

By tthe amount I"ve used it, 7mm WSM with the 175gr A-Frame or Weldcore.

In terms of what I'd use now:
.375 WSM 300gr A-Frame (serious bear danger)
.300 WSM 200gr Terminal Ascent (moderate to low bear danger)
28 Nosler 155gr TAor possibly 175gr ABLR (extremely long shots expected)

I'll play:

300 Weatherby or 300 Win Mag--------both with 200 grain Nolser Partition

7 MM Reg mag------160 grain Nolser Partition

30/06------180 grain Nolser Partition

I use the 30/06

The rifle I shot the most elk with doesn't use a cartridge. Its good to see that modern technology has caught on though.
:-)

1. 300 Win Mag using 180 grain Partition or Accubond.

2. 30-06 using 180 grain Partition or Accubond.

3. 7mm Rem Mag using 160 grain Partition or Accubond.

Those 3 would be hard to beat. If I could only have one for all North American Big Game, I’d have to take the 7MM Rem Mag with the 160 gr Nosler Partition.

1. .338 Winchester Magnum, 200/225 gr NBT/AB
2. 7mm STW 160gr AB
3. .270 Winchester, 150gr NPT.
Bonus pick. Something in 30 Cal with a 180gr NBT. Doesn't matter much with 30 cal, just pick one. If you are going to make me pick, 300 WSM.

"top" can mean different things.
If it means recommended you'll get answers on not what's necessarily best, but what the person asked likes the most.

If "top' means historically most successfully used you'll get facts that are unarguable, but that's not to say something newer is not just as good. It just means the old ones had more time and have proven themselves beyond argument. Those 3 are going to be the 30-06, 270 Win and 7MM Mag, almost for sure. If it were top 5 cartridges I'd guess the 308 Win and the 300 Win Mag would be there too.


If I were to rate my "top cartridges" for elk I'd just have to do it by the numbers. In other words, the ones I have killed the most elk with (which doesn't make them better than what someone else used.)
My #1 is the 375 H&H
My #2 is very close (Probably within about 8 kills) to the same number of kills as my 375 is the 270 Winchester.

#3 #4 and #5 would be a toss-up among several others that I am unsure of the precise count, but the 30-06 is definitely going to be in my top 5.

So would "a blend" of the 300 H&H, 308 Norma mag, 300 Win, and 300 Weatherby Mag, all shot with bullets of the same weights going very close to the same speeds. I load for good consistency and accuracy and have found the 300s I've owned and used all seem to shoot best at about the same speeds (+ or - about 75 FPS) even if the larger shells can be driver faster.

Thinking back and trying to count elk kills, one shell that may be in my top 5 is the 44 magnum, fired from handguns but the 308 Winchester may beat it out. I am not totally sure, but I think the 44 may have a bit more, in my personal hunting history.
Now the higher number of kills doesn't mean they did better than some shells and bullets with a lower number of kills. It's just my personal history of what I used and when.

So "top" can be many things to many people.

Awful big bunch of JBs out there, apparently.
;),
Rex

(just ribbing you folks, I like hearing everyone's opinions. I've only killed three elk with a rifle myself and they were with .35 Whelen AI and .358 Win, if anybody cares.)

I’ve never killed one. Out of the rifles I own I’d take these. A well place shot is more important than cartridge choice.

338 Win mag
300 Weatherby
300 Win mag.

Second three would be

7 Rem mag
270 WSM
26 Nosler.

What range would y'all limit your shots to with a 180gr bullet in the '06?

That would really depend on your equipment, skill level and terrain where you hunt. Properly placed, the 180gr NBT will kill further than most here can shoot.

I love my Sako Bofors steel 338. She really hums with 225 grain North Forks loaded on top of RL19.

I have also shot em with 300 Win mag and 300 RUM. Both using Jack Carter Trophy Bonded Bearclaws @ 180 grain or 200 grain Accubonds.

Zero complaints from any of the elk.

Exactly.

I have personally killed elk with various stuff from a compound bow (using an "antique" 2-bladed broadhead) to various .300 magnums, including the .300 WSM, .300 Winchester and .300 Weatherby. Back when I was guiding, also used a .338 Winchester Magnum on a few, but only after they were hit already by something smaller, and might need to be anchored. But as it turned out none really needed it--or died much quicker, despite my using "premium" bullets such as the 225-grain Trophy Bonded Bear Claw.

But have also seen a bunch of elk killed by others with various cartridges and bullets--which is one advantage of having spent time as a guide, and also a gun writer. Apparently some people believe that only animals you personally shoot count, but that's probably because not many get to observe others. Know an elk outfitter who had seen around 1000 taken, but only killed around half-a-dozen himself. Would take his word on elk cartridges over the opinion of most hunters.

It's been 56 years since I saw my first big game animal killed, and 55 since I took my first, a mule deer doe with my father's Marlin .30-30. Since then have hunted on 3 continents and a few other places, such as the North Island of New Zealand, including around 6 months in Africa on various safaris, which included hundreds of big game animals, due to some being "cull" hunts.

The conclusion I've come to is that cartridge, caliber and bullet don't matter all that much, as long as the bullet penetrates and expands sufficiently. Have seen elk killed with at least two dozen cartridges from the .257 Roberts on up. They all worked when the bullet worked. My old friend Layne Simpson once wrote that "Some say the .270 Winchester isn't adequate for elk. If you can't shoot, it isn't. If you can, it is." That's been my experience as well.

Killed my biggest bull with a .30-06, which is also what I used years ago when first getting serious about elk hunting, in the thick timber near the Idaho Panhandle. Still wouldn't hesitate to hunt elk anywhere with the combination I started using back then, the 200-grain Nosler Partition and H4831--though back then the bullet was the original "semi-spitzer" model.

Just to add to the question, out of idle curiosity, are your choices dependent on the situation? What I mean is, I get the impression from some of these answers that people are planning for long shots. Is that typical of elk hunting? Or do conditions vary, and perhaps rifle choices vary to match?

We don't have your elk here, but we have a deer nearly as big, and very tough, called the Sambar (aka Asiatic Elk). These tend to occupy more or less thick bush, and opportunities tend to be closer, more fleeting, and maybe at a deer which is already on its way. As well, if you don't drop them right there they can disappear into thick blackberry or lantana and be a bugger to find and even to follow up.

Now there may be times you'll get opportunities at undisturbed deer, but there's a good argument in favour of something that will do the job even when you don't. As a result while something like a .30/06 will do (and I've successfully used it) there'd be a fair proportion of blokes choosing calibres like .338 and even up to .458, with suitable bullets, especially the blokes who have the deer pushed up by hounds.

Are there considerations like these for elk?

I've never seen an elk "anchored," that wasn't spine hit. But I've only seen the one's I've shot. I have never seen any other hunters shoot one.

They did seem to travel less distance with a 50cal hole than a thirty cal hole.

They're amazing animals. Saw one run straight down a boulder strewn cliff once. Wasn't shot, just spooked. I don't blame folks for going big. For me, I just can't take too much recoil.

Dan,

The answer is, well, it depends. A lot of Colorado and Wyoming is mixed terrain. You can go from dark timber to lodge pole pine, walk into sage on the end of a ridge and glass the aspen at the base of the next ridge over that's across the meadow between that ridge and the one you're standing on.

Elk graze at night and generally head to the heavy timber during the day. I hate hunting heavy timber and heavy brush, but my in-law's kill plenty of elk in those conditions. I prefer to hunt the open area's in the morning and evening, especially those with water on the higher end of their elevation range for the weather conditions. Bad weather can help move them around during the day. We've killed more than one in a snow storm. So most of the time when you see elk during hunting season, it will be at dusk or dawn, in timber, bad weather, or they will be moving because they were pushed out by other hunters.


Growing up we hunting public lands with heavy hunting pressure, so just about every elk you saw was moving. If you wanted for the "perfect shot" that everyone talks about, well, you would never kill anything, so filling tag involved expecting suboptimal shots and arming yourself accordingly. That means big magnums with big bullets that can reach the spine or vitals regardless of the shooting angle. In contrast, if you get some of the private land tags available here in Colorado, a .257 Roberts is more than sufficient for shooting a cow off the ranchers alfalfa field, I just don't suggest if for more challenging conditions. Most guys who hunt wild public lands will tell you a .270 Winchester with a 150gr Nosler Partition is about the minimum for such conditions, with the edge going to something in the 300 to 375 WM range.



Here's an example of some Elk Country I've hunted:

Anchoring an elk with a spine shot's a very valid strategy. Often times in timber you can only see part of the elk, and usually not the parts you want. In such scenario's it's best to put on in the spine, anchor them to the ground so you can maneuver for a finishing shot.

The 30-06 with 200gr partition is one of my favorites as well.