Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Deer & Occasional Elk Rifle

If you lived in the east/south and 95% of your hunting was deer/hog size animals with an occasional Elk size animal every 2 or 3 years. Would you have a full blooded “Elk Rifle” just for those occasions or would you have a deer rifle in a caliber that is adequate for elk size animals now and then. What would your set up be rifle, cartridge and optics? I do have some strictly deer rifles.

I admit I was mostly bored making this post and wanted to see if opinions had changed much with the new cartridges out in the last few years. Still looks like a lot of the same answers, 270, 7mag, 308, 30-06, 300 Mag with a few 6.5 Creedmoors thrown in.

Tikka t3x 6.5 kreed w/ 3-9x42 HD super chicken.

I’ve been seeing that lately. Maybe I’m slow but what the heck is a super chicken?

308, 30-06, or 270 in a rifle that you like. 6.5 wouldn’t be bad either.

2.5-8 or 3-9 scope

30-06, 7 mag, 270 WSM

It is an SWFA brand 3x9.

How did they get the nickname super chicken?

280. All three boxes checked (and more) without beating up your shoulder. 140 TTSX.

308 or 7mm08

Swede or 270 for me

.30/06 or .270 Win in a Winchester Featherweight topped with a 6x scope.

My 1980s Winchester 70 Featherweight Winlite blind mag 270 with Zeiss Conquest 2.5-8x32 in Talleys shooting Barnes Vor-TX 130s is excellent medicine for deer and hogs. Am thinking it would be fine for an occasional elk as well.

Seems kind of a waste not to take advantage of an excuse to buy another rifle-

But, there are so many choices that would work great you could throw a dead cat at the rifle rack in Cabela's and wherever it landed would probably work fine.... as long as it blows your skirt up, buy it....

Nailed it. Can't go wrong with either

The Scope line is called the SWFA 'Super Sniper" is "SS" scopes .They are called Super Chickens because he Super Sniper logo lazer etched on the Turret is a Masked Hunting Falcon. Hence the name "super Chicken.

IMHO- unless you are going to shoot game a lot past 400 yards you will be just as well served by a decent caped turret scope with a drop reticle like a Burris FFII with the Ballistic plex reticle. Spend that extra $200 + you would have spent on the SWFA scope on more ammo, load development and range time with your rifle.

Also, the SWFA scope is about 12oz heavier than the FFll if that matters.

If a 270 will exit both shoulders of a black bear i don’t see why it wouldn’t do the same for a elk

my niece and her family in colorado kill 'em with a .308 and 6.5 creedmoor ...

Hypothetical / arm chair analyst here.

For me, I would go with a 300 WSM, with a Swarovski Z6 1.7-10x42 mm (or similar). This setup would get me distance wise as far as I would be shooting, and as close. Bullets, I would choose a tipped monolithic or solid shank, in the 165-180 weight range.
I would consider this more-than-adequate, for me and any elk involved.
I am not a longer-range shooter so that eliminates lots of other brain numbing possibilities.

Of course, picking someone’s else’s rifle, bullets, and optics is like choosing their spouse. Best avoided.

I’ve read all posts as of now. Not to differ from others but

30-06 covers N A well. Only 1 Rifle.


Jerry

I dunno, picking someone else’s spouse could be a lot of fun. Just don’t let anyone pick yours.

All the good cartridges for this have been named, so “Amen!”