Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Would this .303 load be adequate for elk?

Hi guys,

I have just purchased a nice sporterised .303 and I got 60 reloads with the rifle.
The load is very accurate but also very mild. The 180gn Sierra soft point is only travelling at 2160fps.
Now, as soon as I have enough empties I'm going to reload and try for around 2400fps with the 180gn pill - and I know that's enough but I've got 60 rounds to use first.

So my question is would you use this load on Elk?
I'm in Australia and I'm planning on using it on Sambar deer which are a little smaller than Elk, but people recommend Elk cartridges for Sambar...

So would a 180gn projectile at 2160fps be suitable for Elk sized game at closer ranges?

Thanks guys,

Russ

Yes.

Yes. One of the largest bull elks ever taken was shot with a 30-30 Winchester

I would, specs pretty close to the 30-30 with 170 grain bullet. It has killed tons of elk.

Good to go.

But I guess it all depends on how far you’re shooting.

He stated "at closer ranges"--which are where sambar are normally taken in Australia.

I think a similar loading may have been the most used round on game in Canada at one time. Not to mention Africa, Europe, and probably Australia as well. It's possible that it's been the most used center fire cartridge in the world on game.

I'd use it :-)

yes with some reasonable distances as mentioned

Would lie to see a picture of your new .303 sporter.

Not to hijack this thread, but this post has me thinking…

Mule Deer,

I just started reading Gun Notes by Elmer Keith and early in the book he mentioned recovering elk with old bullet wounds through their lungs. Do you believe Elmer, of do you think he was spinning yarn?

The reason I ask is because we always see on the fire that bullet placement is key, more so than bullet construction, velocity, etc…

I don’t know anything about sambar, so please excuse my ignorance. What would you consider the OP max effective range to be l, strictly from a ballistic standpoint?

Check this out: https://www.boone-crockett.org/worlds-record-moose-verified-bc

BadboyMelvin;
Good afternoon tomorrow to you sir, I hope the day's been decent to you.

While I can't say how that load would work on an elk, there's about 6?? BC moose that died for a family member using 180gr Sierra's in his Parker Hale modified No. 4 Mk. 1. A bunch of mulies and blacktails too, but there has to be a half dozen bulls he's killed with them over the years.

They'd be - I'm thinking - between 300lb and 500lb carcass into the cooler weight bulls, so not as big as the moose up near the Yukon border, but not exactly tiny animals either.

The velocity was around 2300fps if memory serves? Perhaps a tad more - I could go through the notes, but he said "keep on doing whatever you did as they're dead".

Hopefully that was useful to you or someone out there with that fine round.

All the best.

Dwayne

John;
Good evening, I hope the day's been a good one for you and Eileen and you're well.

Thanks for the link to Heinz's bull, it's a dandy alright.

A bit of a funny story about that, a good friend from Whitehorse sent me a photo of Heinz standing holding up the antlers above his head, so I texted him back that it was indeed a pretty good bull.

Then he texts me back and says something like, "No you don't get it Dwayne - Heinz is at least 6'7" and weighs in the mid 300's!!"

"Oh....", I texted back.

It was for sure a nice bull for a meat bull though wasn't it?

All the best to you both.

Dwayne

Hi Dwayne,

As always, good to hear from you. Our day was great--we went on a hike with a friend through some good Montana moose country, but all we saw was a rooster pheasant,. some Canada geese, and a couple of eagles.

We have put a few moose in our freezers over the decades, including a good-sized Alaskan bull I got in 1996, but it's hard to imagine how much meat the Heinz bull had on its bones.

Hope all is going well. Pretty "tropical" around here lately, sunny and about 10 degrees above average. Hope for some more mountain snow before "real spring"!

Good hunting,
John

I've taken a big elk with a 30-30 at close distance with little issue. Your 303 is more similar to our 30-40 krag in performance and the 30-40 was used by a guy named Plute in 1899 to take a massive bull in Colorado. 30-30 and 303 have been used extensively in Canada to take untold number of critters.

Hey guys,

Thank you all very much for your replies and I now feel confident to hunt Sambar with this load in the .303

As I stated when I have enough empties I'll start reloading for myself and aim for around 2400 - 2500 fps that I know the .303 is capable of.

But until then I'll use the load I have (for close range) with confidence.

Below is a pic of my latest .303

Russ

Wow that is a nice Enfield.

That's a really nice rifle sir! FWIW I have a contact there who's friend killed two Sambar bulls with head shots from a .204! ha

Back when I was young and starting a family there was not much extra for fancy (commercial) rifles. Somewhere I acquired a SMLE that had been cut down to simulate a Jungle Carbine, the barrel was lobbed back to 16-1/2" and it had an unfinished Fajen or Bishop stock on it. I finished out the stock and turned it into a reasonably good looking rifle and proceeded to kill deer and elk using 150 gr Handloads, it has been so long ago now that I don't remember what bullet or powder but being that most of the shots were within 200 yards it worked well. I ended up selling it to a someone who needed an inexpensive hunting rifle and he continued doing the same thing. While I was not overly fond of it at the time it is one of those rifles I wish I would have kept. Likely it was all that I ever needed even to this day.

Go out and kill a Sambar, just put a shot in the kill zone and you will have meat.

drover