Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Old Shoulder Friendly Elk Rifle

Funny, that at least in my case. Old age, old injuries, and a deteriorating physical ability were not needed for me to seek the greater comfort of less recoil and muzzle blast.

My advice begins with "get closer." The reason is, for any given bullet, the farther you shoot the faster your bullet has to leave the muzzle to retain velocity to expand when it arrives. The faster it's gotta start the more it's going to kick. The next item of advice, is either a heavier rifle, a brake, or a suppressor to reduce recoil. I think you can do just fine with a .270, 7mm-08, .280, .308, or '06 in a medium weight rifle if you manage the distance a bit, kill elk, and not get the hell kicked out of you. If you can't "get closer", then rethink where you're hunting. There is a way, just gotta find it.

Tom

Out of 6.5CM, 270, 308, 30/06 and 9.3 I always reach for The tikka 06, with limb saver, pushing 168 ttsx at 2950 as my main elk medicine.
The 270 with 130 ttsx at 3100+ fps is my back up when my daughter Is not carrying it.
Never felt under gunned, and recoil with limb saver is manageable where I can shoot couple boxes at the range with out a worry.
My 9.3 is in the classifieds

All good info guys. I especially like the Limbsaver recoil pads too!

I'm not a muzzle brake fan, but do have one, an Ed Brown Damara 300 Win Mag. The Damara is the light weight version of Ed's 704 actioned rifles.

Ed contends that his rifles with brakes shoot more accurately, especially the lighter weight ones with slender barrels. This Damara is a noisy SOB and I can understand why some Africa PH's, reportedly, don't like clients shooting guns with brakes. I tried my Damara with and without the brake. It stays, big difference. I had a piece of paper lying on my shooting bench not far from the muzzle. That thing shattered the paper into shreds. Amazing.

Noisy, but they do work.

DF

Yep! Both the .35 Whelan and 9.3x62 are only "light-recoiling" compared to, say, the .340 Weatherby....[/quote]

I've owned all of them, never found first two terrible to shoot. The 340 had a brake on it, gutted my scopes.! I once tried a 280 Remington necked up to 338. It made a beautiful round, was easy to shoot in the 9+ pound Mod 70 Super Grade, but the brass was nickel. I had so many split necks I abandoned it. I am seriously considering a JES rebore to 338/06 and "maybe" have a brake put on it. I have a wad of components.

I've had a 340 Wby and a .338 Win, both went down the road.

I do like the .338-06 and have a nice Mauser. It punches hard, but doesn't slap the shooter.

I don't think game can tell the difference. The big boomers have an advantage at longer ranges, but for average hunting distances, probably not so much.

Like our sage of wisdom from the North loves to say, "It's the boolit, not the headstamp".

Could be some truth there.

DF

One thing I've learned in using a 338 Win Mag load I got from Mule Deer, the amount of powder has, in my case a significant, an effect on the amount of recoil. Meaning to say, look at the loading manuals for whatever you choose and look for a powder that is max loaded at a noticeably lower charge weight. Might not give up that much performance, but will reduce recoil.

Back to my 338 experience, the 72gr 4350 loads recoiled noticeably more than the 65gr R15 loads. Never chronographed them, but according to the books I was only giving up 50fps with the lower recoiling load.

Just something to ponder on...

Your right Pointer...the 59gr/Speer 200 this rifle shot well and was very manageable. I really wanted to try the 225s in this rifle, at 338wm speeds though, and I never got there before my better judgement got to me, ha. I did get to work up a load of H4350/280 Hammers, but "groan"! ha. If I'm going to settle on 338/06 speeds that's what I'm going to go with, just for the sake of having a lighter/faster handling rifle for mixed cover, but with a good thump. Thanks guys!

I'm in the middle of a suppressed 7mm-08 build for precisely this reason. For what it's worth, I'd grab a Tikka T3x Lite, get the barrel shortened to 18" and threaded, add a suppressor, and dial it in with Barnes 120-grain TTSX. Plenty of power for elk within reasonable range and the recoil of a .243. Lots of good suggestions here, you'll find what works for you. Good luck!

I have had a SS T3x 06 since they first released that model. Extremely accurate with any sort of factory ammo but this year I noticed more recoil then ever. I Put a Limbsaver on it and it is back to normal.

9.3x57mm Mauser. Anything based on the 7mm Mauser case is lighter recoiling, and this round was developed for larger game at modest ranges. My 286gr load clears the muzzle at 2020 fps and work fine out to 200 yds or so. It could easily stretch on out to 300, but that's beyond its point blank range. My Husky model 46A Mauser weighs 6 lbs 14 ozs. It's not unpleasant to shoot from the bench

Haven't been that route yet. This fall I will be 76 my old .300 still lays them down.

Killed three cow elk with three shots with my 6.5x06 and three with my 30-06. There is no doubt in my mind my 6.5x55 with 140gr speer Hot Cores won't get the job done just as well with less recoil. Got a 250 Rem on the way I suspect will do the same. have never liked recoil! And well constructed well placed rifle bullet simply kill things!

My Church Deacon has a daughter who is small and weighs only 93 pounds, but is a real go-getter and wanted to hunt elk. So we conspired and he had me make an AR in 308 for her. AR308s are fairly heavy in the 1st place (most of the DPMS Patterns anyway) so I made the barrel 19" long and of a light weight contour. I used a long boring bar to take some weight out of the FF tube too. All together with a 10 round mag in it the rifle came out at 8 pounds 15 Oz. and the little girl carries it with no problems at all. I didn't get a picture of her and the elk, but I have these 2 of her with a WT doe and a mule deer buck.

She flops down on her belly and can hit my 6" steel gong at 300 yards, usually 10 out of 10. So a 12 year old skinny girl does just fine with such a riffle.

She doesn't mind a bit of weight but hates getting kicked. I have a large break on the muzzle and it takes the kick down a lot, as does the weight, and so does simply being an automatic. Shooting 165 grain bullets she has her rifle and feels she's good to go for anything from small antelope to elk. I have to agree. She's now 16 and in the last 4 years she'd helped to fill her family's freezer with deer, antelope and elk meat and took 2 shots on the buck deer in the pic, but all others have been 1 shot each.



IMG_1694 by .com/photos/156296479N08/]Steve Zihn, on [bleep]

KIMG0132~2 by .com/photos/156296479N08/]Steve Zihn, on [bleep]

You have plenty of rifle/cartridge recommendations.
I used to have phantom pain that moved around my body for no reason at all. Laugh at what I'm going to say, but I am PROOF! Eliminate GRAINS from your diet. All bread, pasta, corn, rice and even beer/wiskey. It must be 100%!! Eliminating 90% only gives you a 10% result. I go grain free for weeks and then I give in and have a piece of cake or a brownie (flour). The next day I will have joint pain for no reason in a joint. Once I ate 3 pcs of pizza, I had elbow pain for 3 days that felt like somebody was drilling into my elbow with a dull bit. I now know that I will go through the rest of my life w/o pizza. Try it for 30 days - let me know what you think. This is for joint pain only, I still have muscle pain if I split too much wood...

I’ve never killed an elk, but there seems like plenty of guys that kill them with 243’s.

No flies on the 25-06 for open country elk sniping. Feat happens with mine now and again. My ol' man pulled it off with his couple times back in the day when solid base bullets where forerunners of the ballistic tip bullets.

Just like any other scenario, shot placement...Less recoil makes more pleasant, accurate shooting.

I am gunna try to shoot an elk with a handed down sporterized 1917 Enfield 30-06 this fall. Nostalgia and I have yet to plug an elk with an 06' being the top reasons. The load that I am going to use is proving to be the real conundrum......

I know of a guy in Colorado that grew up with a 243 and used it on Elk apparently not aware it could not kill them.

They should have never let him out of the asylum.....

Half of Colorado resides there. The other half are adjusting lamps in their basement.