Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Mule Deer - Elk Cartridges Question

That's exactly what I (attempt) to tell them too........

Not to muddy the water, but here's one from way back. Keep reading--he gets around to elk and the 30-06 eventually:



I miss Allen Day.


Okie John

I've been elk hunting for 21 years and have been fortunate enough to kill my fair share of elk. With everything from a bow to 300 win mag. My last five elk with a rifle until this years bull were killed with a Kimber Montana 308 with a 165 accubond which has never required a follow up shot. This year I used a 30-06 in a Kimber Ascent with a 165 Accubond to take my bull. I would have used the Montana but my 12 year old son carried it and used it to take his first elk.
I think with the advancements in bullets over the years it has made a 308 a formable rival to the 30-06 with a little over 100 fps between the two. I've taken a few mule deer with a 30-06 as well and under 500 yards they are hard to beat, easy to load for and easy to find ammo for (in most years) at stores if you were ever in a pinch. But the same thing could be said for the 308 win I guess. If you told me to pick one between the two it would be hard for me to do. As for the magnum calibers I know the are elk medicine for sure but I find them to carry too heavy for me since I tend to put a lot of mile in during elk season. I always remembered that ounces makes pounds and over 10-12 miles a day makes tons.

I've got one of great uncle Elmer's 30-06's.

I've killed elk with a 257Wby/100TSX, 270Win/140TSX and 150 ABLR, and 300WinMag w/200 Partitions and 200TSX's.

I've seen elk killed while I was sitting right next to the shooter with 338Win/210 Partitions and 210 TTSX, 7Rem Mag/160 Partitions, and 280AI 150TTSX.

I'll pay the weight and recoil penalty and continue to carry my 300Win for elk.

I always thought thought was my saying. I don't remember ever reading it anywhere, but at age 60 I'm smart enough not to trust my memory, and John certainly could have penned it (and probably did)! As they say when it comes to ideas, "amateurs borrow, professional's steal."

I do know for a fact, "cartridges are more alike than different" is my original. And on that thought, I've taken elk with the 270 Win, 7-08, 308, 30-06, 300 WSM, and 338 WM, and seen elk taken with many more.They all kill well, but the bigger stuff is no longer fun to me. I've hung my hat on the 6.5 CM, 270, and 308 for any and all future elk hunting (or any hunting).

How cool is that?

I’m sure it’s still a perfectly adequate pest rifle…

How is the 6.5 CM holding up compared to your old standby 308?


Okie John

John, it will likely never displace it. I just really love the now 70 year old 308!

What happened to the 7mm-08?

I've played with 3 different 7-08's, and just can't love the cartridge - all have gone down the road. I'm limiting whatever I own to what I can get abundant, quality factory ammo for. The 6.5 CM, 308, and 270 all meet that requirement.

Have written about some of this before in various places, but the Montana hunter I knew who may have killed more elk than any of my other friends used the .30-06--one which would be considered pitiful today. It was a South American military Mauser in .30-06 (can't remember which country now, but it might have been Argentina), which he purchased while in high school for something like $25, back when such "war surplus" rifles were abundant and cheap. The stock had been cut down ("sporterized") and he never used anything except the military open sights.

However, he did handload--and was probably the only handloader I ever knew who actually saved money. He had a simple single-stage press, and bought whatever 180-grain bullets were cheapest at the local sporting goods store--except for Winchester Silvertips, which he hated. Of course they were all cup-and-core, and he used the "middle load" of IMR 4320 in the Speer manual, which probably got 2600 fps or a little more. He never owned a chronograph (or scope), but no matter the brand the bullets landed a little above the Mauser's front sight at 100 yards, and penetrated fine.

He was an excellent game shot. I not only hunted elk with him, but deer. We both lived in a small town in northeastern Montana, and in the prairie country surrounding it the typical technique of the day was to "push" brushy coulees to jump deer, sometimes tossing rocks into the thicker brush, and primarily shot them on the run. In that country most were whitetails, with a few muleys in the rougher country. I cannot remember him missing a running deer (though he had to, some time or other), and witnessed him dropping them out to 150-200 yards. He killed a lot of deer, because he was married to one of the enrolled tribal members of the Fort Peck Reservation (as was I at the time), and so legally had the same hunting rights. We both had large "extended" families, so helped feed them as well.

He hunted elk at the opposite end of Montana, in the steep mountains along the Idaho Panhandle, near a small town where one of his sisters lived, camping in the same drainage every year. He started hunting back when if one of the party got into a herd, they'd fill as many tags as possible. Quite a few were big bulls, but he also killed a lot of cows--often when somebody else had a permit. When I hunted with him, during the first week of the season either sex was legal, so that's when he and his family went hunting, usually before any snow had fallen. I also cannot remember him not killing an elk during that week.

By then he was in his 40's, and had been hunting elk there since his teens. I would guess his elk total was over 100, along with several hundred deer, but he never kept track.

Is it in as new condition?

I am friends with an older gentleman , that lived in prime elk habitat for 60 plus years. He has probably killed as many elk as any human ever. He killed most of them with a 243 and factory loaded 100 gr. bullets. Recently he moved up to a 6.5 Creedmore because of his diminished eye sight and figured he needed more power........ He also guided for 40 plus years and figured most carry more than needed. He lived in Grizzly country and respected the bears , but still did not power up to cover that situation either.

This is the first year in many I haven't heard of someone or several someone's getting wacked by grizzlies. I am ok powering up.

i think a few Archery hunters in Western Wyoming got charged,injured , but I did not hear of any deaths .

John,
One of my dad’s hunting partners has a similar story to yours. He was a farm boy who inherited his dad’s M721 topped with a 4x rimfire scope. He handloaded with his fathers old equipment and used whatever primers, powder, brass, and bullets—as long as they were 180 grains—he could find. He would hunt with that mixture of loads, and over the years killed more elk than any other guy in the group.

Back then party hunting was common, and if one or two of the party were lucky enough to draw an uncommon cow tag, the standing policy among the entire group was to "shoot the first cow you see!".

In the 60's and early 70's there was a fraction of the elk in Colorado as there are today, and for a party of four to all fill their elk tags didn't happen very often.

Guess what three cartridges I hunted with this year?..😁