Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting New rifle for 1st Elk / Mule deer hunt

I’ve hunted elk far less than many of the guys reporting. I carried a 308 on my first hunt and had a close encounter with a brown bear. After that I carried either a 338 or 350 with 250 partitions.
Last year I was pretty sure that the area didn’t have big bears, - blacks but not browns. I carried a 270 and it worked well on the lead cow.
I think most cartridges from 308 or 7x57 on up work well. But as I wrote, I’m just a beginner compared to others here.

I know a guy who used a 25-35 and it worked for him. I wouldn’t recommend that cartridge though. His dad owned probably more land in the Black Hills in good elk country than any one else. He was lying down and shot a elk that passed nearby. There was no other people hunting, likely, for miles.

I haven't shot many elk compared to some. One with a 270win, spine hit and down. Some with a 30-06 and most with a 50 cal muzzleloader. Spine hits fell right now. Lung hits ran about 30 yards and fell. Some kicked awhile others not. Hardly ever any blood trail. They got elastic self sealing hide. The do kick up the ground when they run. Found everyone by noting the location at impact and direction of travel afterward. One I had to use the enlarging circle technique. Mostly because I was excited and missed the signs.

Strange stuff happens at times and many times a bigger cartridge won't necessarily solve the issue. I had a problem on similar shot (left side, quartering) on an Oryx a few years ago that turned into a rodeo because evidently, the 180 Barnes out of a .300 Weatherby didn't reach the vitals.

I’d go with the 7mm if it were me. 300WM is a bunch of extra recoil for no real reason.

Why stop there? May as well go with a 270. Kicks a little, kills a lot.

I have to chuckle a bit when I hear how bulletproof elk must be in some of the areas these guys hunt... and the fact that a rifle that is perfectly fine for killing elk in open country is suddenly useless when you enter the brush or trees... It has been proven over and over that shooting through brush to hit a game animal is a fools errand and usually results in a wounded animal. Big, slow bullets deflect in brush just like fast and smaller bullets do and any bullet that doesn't hit its mark isn't going to do you much good regardless of the charge of powder behind it ....

About the only elk I can remember losing is one my son shot with my 300 H&H Improved (basically a 300 Weatherby). He grabbed the wrong bullets when he left the truck that morning so he was shooting 180 grain Hornady Spire points instead of the Nosler Partitions he and I prefer. I watched as a herd of elk trotted by and he hit the lead cow in the shoulder. When she ran off she left a blood trail Stevie Wonder could follow for about 200 yards, then it stopped. It was obvious from the tracks she lost the use of the leg that was shot and I saw the ripples of the shock through her side as the bullet struck, but she was nowhere to be found and we tracked her all day long with at least 4 people for miles... if that bullet had been a few inches back, dead elk right there- but the bullet failed on the large shoulder bone and didn't penetrate.

Anyone who has spent enough time on public land and talked to other hunters (and some in our own camps) realize that you could give a guy a cannon and an elk broadside at 50 feet and a lot of people would make a bad shot and blame it on the rifle, cartridge, the wind, etc... anything but lousy shooting.... but we've also known those guys who go out every hunt with their trusty 270 and call a couple hours later to help drag their game out....

IMO, I would spend the money on the perfect scope for the situation than a different cartridge that you're unfamiliar with...

Bob

While I make no apologies for my bias towards my .300 Weatherby, I’ve seen a dump truck load of elk cleanly killed by 7mm magnums, .300 Win Mags/WSM, and .35 Whelen. The last 4 bulls I killed in the last 5 seasons dropped quickly when hit with a 168 gr TTSX from the .300 Roy at ranges of 240 to 307 yards, although I experienced the same results with 150 gr TTSX from my 7mm Weatherby. Also, lots of one-shot drops with 160 gr TBBC from my son’s 7mm Rem Mag. So, lots of great options out there. The .300 Wby has just been my “lucky charm” the past several years and I see no reason to mess with the karma.

This ^^
I would have recommend the as 270 well. The 7 mag doesn’t offer that much more shooting 140s. Except more recoil!

But it seems like when guy a gets the magnum bug for elk. It’s hard to convince them otherwise.
Maybe the 6.8 western? I see their ammo is available all the time

How long until your hunt?
Do you have, or have ready access to components or ammo for one or both the 7 or 300?

I killed 1 cow w/257Wby and 100TSX. I shot her through the lungs in her bed @ ~275yds, she struggled to her feet and dropped back into her bed on the 2nd shot.
I killed 9 more w/300Win using 200gn TSX and 2 w/200partitions from the 300.

I prefer the 300Win as IME an elk doesn't "shrug-off" being hit w/one. What I mean is there's a very definite reaction to the shot vs. what I've seen w/the 257Wby and several elk shot w/270Win.

Jordan,

The last elk I saw "visibly rocked" was the biggest cow either my wife and I have taken, as large as many branch-antlered bulls. Though it managed to stumble 20-25 yards before falling, it was obviously dead on its feet.

Eileen killed it at 250 yards with her "big" rifle, a custom .308 Winchester, using 130-grain Barnes TSXs handloaded to 2850 fps--which result about as much recoil as she can stand anymore, even with the rifle's muzzle brake. The cow was quartering toward us, and the bullet landed in the thick bone just above the left shoulder joint. We found it under the hide over the right ribs, retaining 62% of its weight due to losing all its petals.

John,

Your story is not believable. Only chamberings .300 Mag and up have that effect.

Well, if I was doing THAT, I’d go with a 6.5 something or the other.

Fair enough, but I personally wouldn’t/ don’t hunt elk with 140’s from my 7mm’s. I use 160-gn class bullets.

How many elk have you shot with a 25 caliber? How many have you seen shot by a 257 Weatherby? What was their reaction? I’ve seen a big mule deer shot at 300 yards, it took 2 in the chest to stop him.

I realize it’s trendy to hunt elk with a 6lb 6.5 Creedmoor & that most guys under 40 assume heavy kicking rifles are impossible to shoot well. But before the rapid testosterone loss generation people shot fast flat shooting magnums. More because of range finding limitations than horsepower but the horsepower works if you can shoot them accurately.

Please let me know the next time an elk does a backflip when hit by a little caliber at 550 yards. My 300 Weatherby afforded me that lovely sight a few years ago - some really cool kind of confirmation bias there.

I have to ask - your 25-06 using friend - is he hunting highly pressured public land or on the neighbors ranch? If you are the only hunter for miles on a big private ranch a 600 yard run isn’t a big deal & your shots tend to be fairly close. I know here & elsewhere hunters describe picking up their elk with a front end loader - that a different kind of hunting than most people. Nothing wrong with it just different.

Elk rifle threads are always a hoot.

He mostly hunts public land. The 6x5 bull he killed this past fall was taken on BLM ground in the Missouri Breaks, in an area which gets considerable pressure. He and his brother (who also had a bull tag) hiked a total of over 100 miles, according to their GPS's, before finding their bulls.

My buddy's bull never moved after the shot. I sincerely doubt that he would use any cartridge on elk that allowed them to go 600 yards after a well-placed shot--but then again, I have seen elk taken with a wide variety of cartridges, and haven't seen one go 600 yards with any of them with a basic double-lung shot.

He used to primarily use 7mm and .300 Magnums but eventually grew weary of the recoil after he found out smaller cartridges, shot accurately, killed them just as dead. One of the "transitional" cartridges he used considerably when down-sizing was the .257 Weatherby, and it worked fine. He's 63 years old, and has been hunting elk for 50 years. Might not have taken 100, but probably a least 70-75.

May I ask roughly how many elk you've killed? Cows and/or bulls?

By far more important to choose a bullet that will work in the way you use it. Diameter isn't very important, velocity can be if the bullet won't perform at the velocity you're using it at, in the chosen shot placement.

I'm old enough that when I started out bigger bullets did work better. A lot has changed in the last few decades. Bullets are better now than many believed would be possible back then. Do some homework on your choices of bullets in ballistic gel and compare. Then compare a smaller cartridge with similar bullets.

There really isn't as much difference in wound cavity as many believe.

Not nearly as many as some folks here having to travel to hunt them but 5 bulls & 15 cows all on public land. 1 with a 30-06, most with a 7mm Rm the last several with the 300 Weatherby. The 600 yard run I reference was hit exactly where I aimed behind the front shoulder with an older Nosler Ballistic tip. Palm sized entry wound shrapnel through the lungs. But I’ve seen lung hit elk go over 100 yards more than a few times. Including elk shot with a 300 of some kind.