Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting What do you consider minimum cartridge for elk?

Handy, how many dozen elk have you shot to back up your claims.? You are not even proud enough to identify the state in which you live. Probably N.J.

30-30’s,32 Win, 38-55’s and even the slow poke 44-40’s put a lot of elk meat on the table. By todays standards where writing a big check and being limited to a week’s hunting I guess you have to adapt and maximize your odds. But lots of locals I hunted with were in good shape, no altitude problems and most importantly understood where elk moved and could track. They also didn’t need a map of which outfitter leased which parcel. Yes animals were wounded which was certainly not uncommon but they were tracked and finished off. If you read much history about meat hunters who supplied the old forts in the prairie or Rockies it was almost rare to put down an animal with one shot ( no scopes) . Buffalo could absorb 2000 grs of bullets or more before bleeding out. Cutting up a bled out elk or deer is a treat. So if 300-400 yards is as close as you can get then that’s no reason to doubt that a good still hunter with good legs and experience can’t do it with less. My late Brother guided and wrangled in Wyoming and Idaho for about fifteen years. He took lots of game starting off with. Win. 64 in 38-55 and a sporterized Enfield 303.

Rick

How did you know I live in New Jersey? Haha I tell ya what, I'll be sure to get you some pictures of the two elk I kill this year with a 6mm and "match" bullets. Deal?

You are quite astute in your grasp of the reality, that a miss or poorly placed shot is not desirable……no matter the cartridge!

However, your assumption that all shooters of heavy recoil rifles are like you in their inability to handle recoil, clearly shows that you deny reality! memtb

Back in the 70's I went to college in Colorado and hunted as much as I could on public land. As a poor college student, I had a well used military Mauser sporter rebarreled to 30 06, with Lyman 48 peep sights. Back then as I remember, a lot of hunters used the .270 win and the 30 06 with a bunch of different other military surplus calibers commonly showing up in sporterized rifles with the guys I hunted with, all poor. Several I knew used the M1 Garand rifle for Elk. In college, I do not remember one person I hunted with in the 70's that had a rifle scope. Conversations about them were generally centered around how unreliable they were.

Fast forward to 1988 when I could afford a guided hunt on private property about an hour away from Aspen. The property owner and guide had to have been 80 years old. One night around the fire after we had been searching for an elk someone shot with a 7mm Magnum which we finally found, he started telling us about all of the Elk lost or took a considerable of tracking to find that were shot with magnum rifles. He was not fond of Magnums for Elk. He said the highest performing rifles for Elk were the 30 06 and 8 x 57 Mauser
in his lifetime.

Would be nice if for once we could dispense with the personal attacks and stick with the facts but I suppose that is too much to ask and it certainly doesn't help to achieve a 10k post count.
Thanks for the replies which have verified my thoughts on cartridges and posters (posers?).

Minimum for me is a 270win. Over the years I've used a 30-06 the most, but a 270win got it done as well. I hunt elk every year, and have since around 1996. I travel too far and spend too much each year to take anything less than what the 270win brings to the table. Whatever you use, I hope it's a one shot kill.

In all honesty and with respect to this group I have always found that a clean meat saving kill on elk can be readily accomplished with a steady offhand shot 1-2” behind and level with the base of the ear, I can’t even tell you how many elk I’ve taken with this this shot placement — cause I don’t know.

Handy, how many dozen so far? We'll see, but I know you won't be showing any cripples that get away.
I haven't shot many elk with a 7mm Mag. a few, but my two pals probably have shot around 100, maybe not that many but close. They have found them excellent elk killers. No one mentioned where the elk was hit in the Aspen country. I know this, not all shots turn out as well as we want for whatever reason, if you don't know that you haven't hunted much. Power doesn't make up for poor shooting, but with a less than perfect hit, it does more damage. As far as shooting elk behind the ear, I would again ask, how many dozen have fallen to these shots? I shot one behind the ear, she was close, and it was just at shooting time being over. I had a good rest and she wasn't far. The only guy I knew that liked that shot, was an old logger because he shot a .243. His nephew's are the 7mm mag. shooters I mentioned earlier. They usually hunted with their uncle and said it took forever to get him a shot. Often they shot the elk for him so they could all go home.

Coyotehunter

Just maybe my sense of hunting humor runs a bit thin here. But trying to place a “ a steady offhand shot 1-2” behind and level with the base of the ear,” on a ‘ live ‘ elk should, if nothing else, sound impossible if not just plain facetious
But who knows with this crowd

Sorry I miss understood.

.270 Winny. First 13 elk I killed was with a Pre 64 Fwt in .270 win. Only centerfire rifle I owned at the time.

I’ve seen a few dozen elk killed. With calibers from .224 to magnum 30s. I have never seen a bad result that was due to anything but poor shooting. In no case have I seen any indication that a little bit more diameter, weight, or speed would have made any difference at all in the outcome.

Majority of my experience is with bulls and many if not most of them shot with 270s. Shoot them where it counts with a bullet that will penetrate and don’t sweat the rest.

In my experience cartridges around the .243 Winchester in work fine, but so will .224 centerfires from the .223 on up. I knew a Montana game warden years ago, when the MT Fish, Wildlife & Parks Department used to kill "problem" elk off rancher's haystacks. He preferred the .220 Swift, whether for head or chest shots. He killed hundreds.

Of course, it also depends on hunting conditions. If you're hunting in open country where specific shot placement/angle is more easily acquired, then smaller rounds definitely work. One of my local friends is a retired outfitter who only hunts cows anymore, and he prefers .224 rounds like the .22-250 and .220 Swift, because he doesn't want the bullet to exit--as it did most of the time when he carried a 7mm Remington Magnum while guiding.

Back when I started elk hunting here in Montana in the 1960s, most public-land elk spent much of the rifle season in pretty thick timber, where shots were rarely as long as 100 yards. Consequently most hunters considered the .30-06 with 180s as minimum, but I eventually went to 200-grain Partitions, which proved adequate for any shot angle.

But another factor, even back then, is where I hunted most was close enough to Yellowstone Park to run into grizzlies--partly because that was when the Park had just closed down the open dumps and bears were wandering farther to find food. Never ran into one there, just tracks--but have run into them while elk hunting in other parts of the state, and while pheasant hunting in northwestern Montana on the Flathead Reservation, where several hunters have been mauled in the past few decades. And they keep "expanding." The area where we live didn't have any when we moved here in 1990, but they're found in the both the mountain ranges on either side of the valley--and it won't be long before they're in the valley itself.

Grizzlies are why I tend to prefer something a "little" heavier when hunting in their territory. Twenty years ago I got a bull elk and moose on a horseback hunt in northern British Columbia, in an area where my guide and I ran into 10 grizzlies in nine days of hunting--one of which tried to come in while we were taking apart my bull moose. Luckily, the horses spooked after scenting the bear, warning us, and we managed to get the job done without a problem--though we kept my .300 Winchester Magnum and 9.3x62 handy while taking turns during the dismantling. When we rode out a couple days later, on the main trail that went right past that spot, a big boar was sitting next to what remained of the carcass, his stomach bloated by moose parts.

On the 9th day of that hunt I killed a 6x6 elk in thick riverbottom cover, near where one of the guides in camp had killed a charging grizzly a couple weeks earlier. I used the .300 Winchester on the bull, at the vast range of 75 yards, and didn't feel I was "overgunned" in those circumstances....

I usually hunt elk with no cartridge at all. Just a primer, powder, and a bullet.

Last year, when I went on my first Elk hunt (bucket list) I worried about everything, especially my rifle. I kept asking my guide what he recommended after witnessing literally hundreds of kills. His response never changed.

He said bring what you are familiar with and what you shoot well. I brought my old early 70’ s REM 700 BDL .30-06 that I bought new. Practiced out to 550 yards but would limit my shots to 400 or less. It worked! Duh!

168 Barnes TTSX hand load. I admit that I felt under gunned after reading a lot of internet gack, but my guide knew what he was talking about.

Not really I have a way of screwing up what I meant to say
Rick

Gasp! How could you! Considering "pound feet of energy" and all......lol

You wait right here, some elderly folks from Wyoming will be here shortly to scold you....their way is THE way. Ain't that right memtb?

Sounds like you had a good, smart guide! Congrats on a successful hunt! memtb

Well stated