Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting .308 for elk ?

I really can't tell much difference between them and an'06.

They worked fine in my tiny sample.

I have only killed two elk with 308's. Been around ten or so more killed with them.

One with a 165 grain Sierra, elk was moving, about 125 yards out. It went 65 yards in an arc and fell on it's side

The other with a 150 grain Power Point. I got a little high and broke it's back.

I started using an '06 after those and now use a .338 most of the time.

My grandfather hunted in the old days when you could do stuff that you'd be ticketed for today.

He figured he'd killed around 100 elk in his lifetime. 30-30, 308, 25-06 were the guns he used and all he ever shot was factory core-lokts. He even stopped a charging grizzly with the 308, but that is another story.

I'd like to hear that story, no sarcasm, I'd really like to hear that story.

Run what you brung.......I just would suggest using a premium bullet for a bit more certainty........



Casey

Zactly what I say..

See my post below some about 308 vs cow elk.

I just made a one shot kill on a cow elk at 200 meters. I used a Sierra 165 SBT at 2800 fps.

The bullet pasted all the way through the body including the HEART!

It was a perfect shot with a very accurate custom built rifle with a 6.5X20 Leupold.

If I had been hunting a Trophy Bull, I would have been using a 7 Mag or .338 just because I have them.

Shot placement, as always, is very, very important.

After dozens of threads just like this, I begin to wonder where the notion that elk are as tough as elephants started. I mean, why do people even have to ask if a general-purpose .30 caliber big game round is enough?

Among my acquaintances for several years was a former outfitter who operated in Montana's Bob Marshall Wilderness. His ONLY big game rifle for several decades, up until the time he died, was a Savage 99 in .30-30. He killed his last elk with it at age 80, a big 6x6--and with one shot. He also took 5 grizzlies with the rifle and said he never had a problem.

Yet somehow a cartridge that essentially duplicates the .30-06 is considered sort of wimpy for anythung bigger than whitetails.

I know what you mean.

You have to wonder if these Walmart-nimrods have any business in the hunting fields.


"Will a 308 work for elk?"

DUH!!!

JB,

Very well put.

John I feel that it started with gun writers and too much reading and too lil experience by those writers. IMO many of the writers especially during the 70's,80's and such loved to write about the use of bigger guns for those raking shots and all that load of crap!

You've been the exception, near as I can tell I've not read an article by you that has eluded to such nonsense. But then again you're not what I would call the typical gun writer. And that my friend is a compliment!

You love to hunt, you do a lot of it and you also write very well and for all I know you may love to write. But, I see too many gun writers that write about things they have no business doing so. No doubt they may be given the assignment but I don't feel they do the topics the proper justice. (they're probably set up to fail, or at least those more experienced will see it that way, and others less experienced will never know the diff)

Then there's what I call the gun store BG (ballistic gack) and this happens at parties during the holidays, at the gun range and where ever men congregate to cuss and discuss life.

Much of what is said at these impromtu meets is done with people totally talking out of their azz. Bottom line, they really don't have enough experience with said topic to be spouting about. But they do and people with less experience have a perpencity to suck it up like the gospel.

There are some people that are members of what I call the 50/50 club. These guys, like you, Ingwe and myself are all over 50 years old and and been in and around the taking of 50 head of elk. We've been there enough and bought the t-shirt to know what's bS and what isn't.

The last thing that IMO can lead to people wanting to use bigger cals than they really need is someone championing a certain round for whatever reason. Many times this is the fella in camp that for whatever reason is looked up to be the gun guru, and or at the gun club or at the Fire. People look to these people for advice whether that is wrong or right they do it. And these people have the choice to direct them in certain manners. Some do it well and without prejudice, and some have a tough time not letting their ego get involved and thus they feel a need to transform others to their way of thinking.

One doesn't need to look very far or sit back around the Fire and observe for very long to see this one in effect/affect (can't recall which to use here...grin).

Enough of this, the 308 is more than capable and I spect that most could hunt elk a lifetime with a 308 and Rem CL's and or Win P-P's and do just fine. I know I for one at one time thought the 308 to be very lowly. But have come to the time/place in my life where if I had to hunt with one rifle the rest of my life and it was to be a 308 I'd just ask that it be a Lil Sky and I'd rock on happily.

Have some super holidays!

Dober

(how's the ice on CF?)

Yeah, this topic has been around a long time and you can be assured that it will surface again. I responded to this same question on the old Shooters forum on August 1, 1998 and although some of my rifles have been changed out my opinion has not:
�I also have a half a dozen belted magnums in my gun safe that are seldom taken out in woods anymore. Generally, I only carry one of them on opening morning of elk season. After the shooting starts and the elk head for cover, I am after them in the brush with one of my .308s. (Rem 600, 700, 7SS, Ruger 77SS or my favorite Win.70SS classic). The 600 has open sights and the other 4 have Nikon 4xs mounted on them. Because of my age and the good fortune of living most of my life in the rural west, I have enjoyed a reasonable amount of shooting over the years. I have killed elk in Colorado, Montana and Idaho and on one occasion harvested them in all three States in the same year. The Colorado hunts were exceptions because my 300 Win .mags did most of the work there. Starting in 1964 with a Win. model 100, the majority of the game that I have taken has been with .308s with factory loads, included a pretty good Royal. Before the model 100, I hunted with a 30-06, 270, 30-30, 300 H&H and even an old 38-55. I fully appreciate all the arguments about the .308 being marginal for elk at range, I have listen to them for years, but I am here to tell you my .308s work for me any many others here in Idaho. I am with the guys on this board that champion safe and consistent shot placement for big game over another 700 lbs. of energy.� CP.

This topic rates right up there with "should I use a 270 WSM or
7 WSM for elk?"

CP-you'll get a kick out of this, the first CF rifle I bought was a 100 carbine in 308, about 1972 or a bit later I'd guess? I bought it at a Coast to Coast in Brookings SD. Cool lil gun, and unfortunately it's still in pristine condition..

I still have the old Yellow box ammo that came with it. Ah yeah the good old days.

Dober

Mark, they were good times. And also I think we were all better off not knowing all of the �facts� that these forums offer, and instead just hunted with what we knew worked. CP.

The argument isn't about cartridges. It's about guys wanting another new rifle. We American's are suckers for marketing and materialism.

That being said, I do enjoy having choices in my gun safe. That being a 30/06, a 300 Savage, and a 7x57. Mule Deer's praise of the 9.3x62 has me interested in getting one those too. I like being a Rifle Looney!

9.3x62 is a great black timber elk round especially when you have "three shots quick" (sorry Savage).

I suppose you could trace the roots of the origin back to the cross pages feud between Keith and OConnor.
Fast forward to the 1980's and Petersons Publishing, Boddington gut shoots a 5x in Colorado 5 times with an 06 and pronounces it not enough cartridge. G Sitton claims you have to have a 338 win mag minimum just in case on the last hour of the last day an elks ass majically appears 300 yds across a canyon, followed by Seifried's steadfast statements that anything less than a 300 wby is to little for elk.
Follow that on by now the onslaught of television infomercials proclaiming the greatness of the "magnum" cartridges as minumum for elk, unless of course you're only on a "cow" hunt. Never mind that experienced folks know a cow will be in much better body condition every bit as tough and probably more of a zest for life, than a herd bull by the time rifle hunters get a crack at em.
Combine that with all the internet experts that may have seen as many elk as folks that don't own a computer have killed with their 257 Roberts and 250 savages......

I find it interesting that the same person that says a .308 is not enough gun for elk will wack away with a 30-378, 300 WHATEVER Mag, or the like at 800-1000 yards. A 30 cal bullet is only 30 cal no matter how fast you push it. Yes, I know the big magnums all carry more poop at the end of 800 yards flight, but the fact of the matter is a 308 is a great little round that has smashed many an elk, bull our cow. I picked up a 308 many years ago for the wife and kids to shoot. It has shot a pile of elk, a dandy 6x7 bull for a first bull kill for a young friend and I took a young bull with it a couple years ago. I personally shoot a 378 Weatherby for elk, but I am just trying to make up for a small penis and being a piss poor shot.

Both small and bad? I'd go to a 505 Gibbs.(kidding)

+10 on a 308 being a 308. A HUNTER can kill his/her Elk with a 30-30, a sniper wannbe is undergunned with a 30-378.