Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting 9 Pound Elk Rifle

I agree 100%. American's in general need to work a little harder to stay fit. Myself included...put on about 15 lbs since last summer...but it's cold as hell!

I consider any 9 lb. rifle too heavy for the elk hunting I do. But, if I were packing a .300 WM, it wouldn't be much lighter.
My current elk favorites are a custom mauser that runs 7 1/4 lbs. w/o sling and ammo. That would come out to about 7 3/4 lbs. ready to hunt. My other is a slightly heavier 7.5 lb. Rem 760 w/ custom iron sights. My backup is a custom .280 @ 7.5 lbs. bare.
Lighter rifles, lighter clothing, and a lighter pack all allow me to hunt longer and harder before I burn out. And that's how I hunt. I've been known to hunt 6-7 weeks and walk until I'm really tried before even doing the walk back to the trail head. I do it for a few days, then take a day off. Often I try to cut down on the weight of my gear while resting.
I spend alot of time trying to cut weight from everything for my hunting.
There are some limits or trade offs. The lighter the rifle, the tougher it is to shoot well if you are excited and/or out of breath. Too heavy and it is slow to get into action. I've tried everything from the 10.5 lb. plus setups to the light 6 lb. stuff. 7 1/4-71/2 lbs. is where I've drawn the line. And that's after many years of hunting the way I find it works best for me. E

I don't carry 9#+ elk rifles--never did. My first rifle was a .270 Rem 700. Had it bored out to 338-06 in 1982, and then put a Brown Precision stock on it. All up weight was about 7 1/2#, and it was like 20 years ahead of the curve.

I could carry a heavy gun. I could have ill-fitting boots or cheap binos. I could carry cans of beer. But I can't see why I would want to.

Hell,just crawl on a good horse or mule and you can hunt longer,harder ,etc than worry about the 1 lb differnce in a rifle and having to get a custom one built or buying specialized clothing.
I guarantee that I feel a lot better at the end of the day when I have ridden 20 miles, walked 5 and carried a 10 lb rifle wearing blue jeans,wool short and a parka.

I'll second (or third, or whatever) the notion that you can hunt with a 9 or 10 lb rifle and be just fine. That said, this year I went to a 6.5 lb rifle, and found that while it didn't make a difference on the first 4 hours of a mountain hunt, I sure appreciated it on the last 4 hours. Like others, I also could be in better shape but also made an effort to trim down on what else I was carrying, and found the walking more pleasant. And since what I do mostly is walk, that is good.

Besides, you always need another rifle . . .

I certainly enjoy carrying a lighter rifle, and usually hunt with one, but the past couple of years I've been hunting with a .264 that weighs 9.2 pounds scoped. It's kinda heavy, but not obnoxiously so. I don't consider it ideal, but I like the gun, and built her for antelope and open country deer.

I'm not sure I'd want a 300WM any lighter. I only carry a rifle so I can shoot it, and in some field positions the recoil of a light 300WM would be more than I'd care to deal with. Yes, I know that a muzzle brake helps, but I hate the things. What little hearing I have left I'd like to keep.

A rifle is always lighter when someone else,or something else,is carrying it.When I have been horseback for elk or mule deer,I never cared what a rifle weighed.But at some time you gotta get off the horse......I never saw the point in lugging more than was needed.

OTOH, you have to shoot the thing,too.Over the years I learned I was happier when I balanced carry-weight with my recoil tolerance,and for a 300 Win or Weatherby magnum the best "balance" came at around 8.5 pounds.I built a couple of 300's that weighed a good deal less,and they were not so hot...nice to carry but kicked like a mule....(why a light 300Winchester or Weatherby is unpleasant,but an 8 pound 375 seems well-behaved confuses me, but it is what it is.....

A 300 WSM,because it is a mild-mannered 300 mag,seems like a really good idea in an 8 pound rifle...I like the new SC M70 FW in that chambering...a good balance between manageable recoil and tolerable carry weight.

In a 7 Mag,you can drop some weight and not get kicked into next week;about 7.5,scoped seems good to me;and that is what I used at just under 10,000 feet on my last elk hunt.It was comfy to carry,and recoil with a 160 gr bullet at 3100fps is easy to take.

For 270/280 class of cartridges,I can go 6.5-7 pounds or so with a 22" barrel and this suits me fine.My old favorite 270 weighs 6-14 with a 4X Leupold,and is easy to shoot.That's as light as I need to go with anything.

I carried 9+ pound rifles for years. Then several years ago I rigged up a 30 06 that goes a tick over 7 lb scoped and ready to go. I do a lot of walking when I hunt in mostly hilly terrain. I gotta tell you it makes a difference. If I carreid my rifle 300 yards to my stand and stood all day, no big deal. But if your goin over hill and dale, it matters. I have been working over my guns so they all now go about 7 to 7 1/2 pounds ready to rock. Even the 338. No muzzle breaks either, to me the sound is worse than the kick. Only gun that I hunt with any more over 9 lb is the 416.

Now I am over 50 so my outlook may be different than someone who is 25. Put some years on and you will see the light.

I didn't start elk hunting until age 37 and now am 60 and have been on some 18 hunts or thereabouts if memory serves. I find it very difficult to believe that any experienced elk hunter who hunts on foot in the high country (not a flat land, MV, or ATV hunt but up one drainage and down the next on foot) would choose to carry an 8.5-10 lb rifle all up rather than one 1-2 lbs lighter. It makes a huge difference to my mind. I know other factors are involved too but a 1-2.5 lbs in rifle weight over the shoulder over a week's time imitating a mule is "huge".

I have run all my life or at least I did regularly until about two years ago, have been in good shape for all my hunts, yet my go-to 8.5 lb rifle became a burden to me even though I had superb confidence in it.

If I have any more of those hunts in my future (heaven help me) the rifle I have that weighs 6.25 lbs all up will be with me. At this point in my life, cartridge selection is a secondary consideration; the first is the platform.

I'm headed toward my 64th birthday, and knock on wood, the joints, stomach, and back are all still flawless. When elk hunting, my goal is to bring about 300 to 350 lbs of elk out of the woods. A 9 lb rifle is small potatoes and will not slow me down in the least. It's my fat a$$ed body that's the problem. I'm toying with using a 15lb Sharps next season if I can get the intricacies of shooting it at 3 or 400 yds worked out.

Yes.

Then again, I've seen a lot of guys packing enough emergency gear in their "daypacks" to mount a rescue effort on Everest.....so an extra 2 lbs of rifle may not be noticable........

The only rifles I carry that weigh in at 9 lbs are my old timey rifles when I'm just messin' around.

I beleive lighter equipment and clothing has made a difference in not only the enjoyment, but in my effectiveness.


Casey

Yeah, but you're a puzzy Case...

Well, time to start believing. This year I shot my 16th consecutive Montana bull (6X6 or better), all non-pu$$y hunts with room to spare -- sh1t that don't matter is an extra pound or two of rifle. Here's some photos of boat anchor killed bulls in places that most would rather not hunt, must less look at 300lbs of dead meat and antlers to pack out.

I'd gladly upgrade my scope to a S&B that weighs another pound. It ain't the weight, it's the denero that keeps me from doing it.

I'm kind of partial to this photo, first elk photo (cell phone) taken with my new rifle built by Randy Melvin of Bull Mtn Rifle Co in billings, MT. 8lb 13 ounces empty. It's 9+ in the field. I told him what I wanted and he wouldn't make it any lighter without a brake, which I didn't want.

my rifle is right on ten pounds. i love it. i hold it all season long and i dont really feel it.

Greenhorn, based on my perception, not many spend more time on the hoof than you. Could you elaborate on why you prefer a 9 lb rifle to a 7 lb rifle? I would assume the only reasons would be reducted recoil or your ability to hold a heavier rifle more steady.

pretty much both

neither