Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters All the Elk Gun Anyone Will Ever Need?

Yup, and back in my younger years the home town family that owned the butcher shop used to slaughter livestock like Hulstein bulls at 1500+ lbs with a 22 short (longs were too expensive let alone long rifles) between the eyes. Occasionally, it took two shots but usually it was a one-shot DRT.

The 20-something kid I ran into way back in the John Day Wilderness Area (Tower Mountain) with a strip of elk lung about 6" long in his pocket, that had hung up on a log the wounded elk jumped over, sure made an impression on me.

He lost the elk after tracking it in the snow for several miles, when it joined with a bunch of other elk, and then it snowed that night.

I'm for hittin' elk with "enough bullet". To ME, that means 140-ish grains minimum at some reasonable starting velocity, say 2700 fps MV. That's less than a 7mm-08 does. It is less than the above kid was using. It would also be considerably less than anything I've ever personally see kill an elk, so I'm taking what some of you are saying on faith here...

Getting much below that get's into what BobinNH is talking about- a stunt for the heck of it- IMHO.

Jeff_O,
If he had a 6" "strip" of elk lung in his pocket, then I think that bullet did all that a bullet could do. "More" bullet probably wouldn't have wrecked the lungs any more than the bullet in question did.

I think it's a case of either:

a) only 1 wrecked lung, rather than a double-lung shot.

or

b) it was just one tough SOB of an elk.

or
c. One of the biggest bullspit stories that's ever been told.

It was a spike elk; that's the burden us poor Oregonians labor under in that unit <g>. Spike tags most of the time. It's almost not worth hunting... So I don't know how tough a spike is or isn't compared to "other" elk; maybe you do.

My guess is he one-lunged it. I don't know what bullet he was using in his rifle (.308). Whether he was bullshitting me, I couldn't say. Dunno how ELSE he could have ended up with fresh elk lung in his pocket, following an elk track with a blood trail (both of which I witnessed)... but who knows.

Whether I'm bullshitting is something I can say rather conclusively: nope! :-)

Guy in my camp, Jerry, lost an elk hit with a .338 with a good blood trail... so I'm not casting aspersions towards the .308, just saying that for me, personally, I'm going to hit them with all the rifle I can handle and a good bullet!

My PERSONAL experience amounts to shooting two elk one time each and seeing them fall over PDQ... I'd like to keep it that way <g>...

I don't rate elk on their toughness by their antlers, just like I don't rate men on their toughness by their ***** size, but rather, how well they can take a good shot to the chin. In fact, I've seen animals WITHOUT any antlers at all run off a good distance after a solid hit!

The other option, that I didn't list, is that he hit the elk well, and just sucks at tracking. Maybe the elk made it 150 yards and the guy couldn't find it.

I say- hit them in the chest with a good bullet, and the distance they run after the shot will depend more on the toughness and vitality of the individual animal than on the size of the gun used.

I shot a big bull through the shoulders[just above the scapula]with a 270wsm,130ttsx that was in the hide on the far side. This was a measured 216 yards. Sort of suprises me a 53 will shoot through.

Fred

Jeff O call a veterinarian, and ask just what chances of survival and for how long would an animal last with a "6 inch strip of lung tissue" that got torn out from getting snagged on a log.

I agree they are not hard to kill with good bullet placement.

I read often that they will run when hit, but it isnt the experience I have had.

Our elk camps take 3 to 5 elk a year, and I have not seen a single elk need tracking. Of course we are all country boys and with the exception of a lone 270 shooter, who has killed scores of game over 40 years with that rifle, we all carry 7 Mags or more powerful 300's, 338's 375's and even the odd 416 now and then.

The people I elk hunt with either use a 7mm since the day they started elk hunting, or have moved up to heavier rounds after using 270's, 06's or 308's when they started. In Oregon the 7 dominates our camp, but in WA 375's are the number one choice.

I am not sure what a standard caliber is - but certainly in the west, on elk, it includes the 7mm and 300 magnums. I dont think you can argue that there are any calibers except the 30-06 and 308 that are "standard" big game calibers in NA - unless you include the 30-30 which is better on elk than a 25-06 - so it is a question of semantics.

On the other hand I believe anything less than a 30-06 or the 7 Rem Mag, which isnt all that different, should not be recomended for anyone asking what gun to take, though you may make an informed personal decission to use a lesser gun. I dont believe in giving marginal advice to others, even though I may handicap myself once in a while.

I believe good bullet placement with an adequete rifle will kill an elk in its tracks most of the time. I actually believe deer tend to run more often than elk do, but then their vital area is smaller and it is easier to be a little off of the heart area. I think most deer tracking is a result of high lung shots, which are not fast killers, all of which are the reasons why I dont use my 22's on deer.

If you want to risk your elk success on a .22 go right ahead, but dont expect me to track it for you. Or, for there to be much blood to track.

As for me I think Elmer was right about proper rounds for elk, though I use a small bore - 300 Weatherby - with heavy 200 grain bullets. Which I am sure Elmer would use also, if he saw an elk while rabbit hunting.

As for those goats shot by Ackley... they look like medium size dogs to me... Not impressed at all! I think he could have killed them with a high-powered air rifle!

Seriously, they look about the size of some of our northern coyotes.

And speaking of whitetails... there are whitetails and then there are WHITETAILS!! Our northern whitetail bucks can easily go 350 lbs! And I have yet to meet up with anyone in our neck of the woods who would even THINK of using a .22 centerfire on them, though it is legal! I find a 300 magnum about right!

Bob

www.bigbores.ca

Hunting elk with a hot 22 is just pure BS and anyone that does that will wound elk, and if he is dumb enough to hunt elk with a 22 then he will probably lie about the results in total...

I'm not saying it can't be done, I know it can, it can and has been done with a 22 L.R., but you put yourself in a position of having to pass up some easy shots that you would have made if you had a big bore rifle..if you take those kinds of shots with a 22 then your apt to wound a fine majestic animal. I have too much respect for the Elk to do that...

Elk calibers begin with the .270 and go up, not down..and I have chased down more than a few elk shot with the .270 and 06 class of cartridges with pretty fair bullet placement and on those that a rear end shot with the wrong bullet for that caliber...

I have killed elk with small calibers. I started my elk hunting as a kid with a 25-35 and it worked well enough up close and broadside as did the 30-30 and 250 savage..I shot a lot of deer with the 222,223 and a few with the 22-250 and you do not eat up to the hole with any hot 22 centerfire, you always end up with a lot of bloodshot meat. They kill deer with proper placement and short range, but their are better choices IMO.

The other thing is the 22 centerfires are illegal in most all states as I recall...A mature bull elk is much larger and tougher than a spike or a cow so there is a differnce their also.

I hate to see Elk hunted with the ultra sub calibers, it shows a disrespect for the animal in most cases.

No way man! The vet's are like lawyers around here... they bill you for phone time!

As far as THAT goes... PM Rost495 (Jeff) and ask him about the deer that his friend DOUBLE-lunged with, I believe, a 30-06... they "recovered" it several weeks later when it was shot by someone else- while chasing a hot doe IIRC!! Clear evidence of being shot right through both lungs, though the bullet appeared to have failed to expand. That's how I remember the details; PM him if you are curious.

I'm for thinking that a vet would call THAT impossible, but... I believe Rost495.

This one isn't worth arguing about; I saw what I saw, and was told what I was told by a despondent young man blood-trailing an elk in the snow... he'd tracked it from the drainage he shot it in, up and over the ridge, down into the next drainage, and I was on the side of the ridge on the way up and over to the NEXT drainage. Which is where he told me he lost the track as I described above.

I have a picture I've posted too many times, so I won't again unless someone wants to see it, of a little buck I shot with my .358 at clost range, perfect shot right behind the shoulder. A rather large exit wound. That sucker ran over 200 yards with NO LUNGS and blood pouring out like a fountain. You just never know what an individual animal can do. Ah hell, here's the pic:

I'm still leaning towards the idea that he lost the track 100-200 yards from where the elk was shot and was following some other elk track.

That, or it's just one tough elk.

Following a DIFFERENT bleeding elk? Possible... but that seems unlikely.

Maybe it was a 3-lunged elk! :-)

LOL. I guess I'm unclear on the blood trail. Did you see the blood trail where you were hunting and met the guy, or did he just tell you that he was following a blood trail?

My thought is that he followed a blood trail for 100 yards or whatever, and then when the blood trail ran out, he tried to follow the same elk's tracks, which he confused with different tracks.

Tell me if I'm wrong.

Yes, there was blood on the snow.

Now... having said that, the first elk I ever saw over a gunsight that I actually had a TAG for, was one that someone else had wounded. I cut his track, followed it to where he'd bedded down where there was a goodly pool of blood in the snow (red snow I mean, not a pool), then followed his track from there as it was a small track and hence probably a spike -which is what I had a tag for. Damn spike tags will make a monkey out of you <g>.

I followed him for a couple miles, where I jumped him out of bed and proceeded to shoot over him with my iron-sighted 45/70. It sucked.

Anyway point being he bled a fair amount just in the time that I was tracking him. It wasn't lung blood, or at least it wasn't bright. It was from his front right quarter as far as I could tell.

My bud Jerry shot an elk with his 338 (I think he was using 250-gn Partitions then) and he and Paul followed a good blood trail for about a mile before it petered out.

So the suckers can BLEED a lot, or what seems like a lot to me, and keep going.

But what I'm describing with this kid was that he had to have at a minimum, opened one side of his chest up enough that lung tissue hung out. Sitka Deer has said that ungulates have one big common chest cavity (from a sucking air standpoint) and that if you pop one lung, you've destroyed their ability to draw air into the other lung once a little time goes by. Given THAT (and that's probably what Ranch13 is referring to), I don't have an explanation for what I saw.

But I saw it!

Earnest kid too. Carhart's, old "shop" boots... you get the picture. Seemed credible. To be honest I never even thought to question his story until relating it here (on this and other threads) and having people disbelieve it. I mean... you are 3-4 miles back into a roadless wilderness... kid is following elk tracks with a strip of lung in his pocket that he pulls out and shows you... he's BUMMED... and you see him the next day (at camp) and he tells the unhappy ending of the tracks finally mingling with other tracks, snow coming in over night...

"it was all pretty "real" at the time!" :-)

Just goes to show you that internet speculation is more real than life...

ahh, I see. Well in that case, I'm back to my original two theories

IMO this entire thread,and the notion of using 22 centerfires on elk, is a classic example of how silly things can get on a chat forum.I don't care what kind of monolithic wonder bullet you feed it;the entire notion seems ridiculous to me.

I am with BobinNH. Just what sort of an i**** would take a stick to a gunfight?