Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting 300 Savage for elk

I love that round, I have 2 model 99`s 1 Remington model 81 1 Remington 700 ( I say I have it my girlfriend has taken it over for bear hunting !) and a new Savage Weather Warrior in 300 Savage. I`m taking the new one bear hunting this year and leaving the Whelen at home. I have been having this idea in my head that I want to kill a bear, whitetail, mule deer, elk, moose and pronghorn all with one of my 300`s ! LOL Now if I can get Savage to sponsor me to help pay for all the hunts ! LOL I think I am going to load some 165 or 180gr partitions up since that seems to be what everyone is reccomending here.

I have 7 elk with the 300sav 150gr fed.

I just shot a .300 Savage for the 1st time today, in a 99. Boy, what a sweetheart of a cartridge!

180's in a .30 caliber aren't going to be easily stopped, by an elk, or darn near any critter. No, it's not a 500 yard cartridge, but as the posts so far have shown, it certainly holds its own.

FC

When I was just getting interested in shooting and hunting, back in the long lost days of yore, all of the old experienced hunters thought a .30/30 was the perfect deer rifle and that the .300 Savage, .30/40 and .303 British were where real elk and moose rifles started. Quite a few of them also thought the .35 Remington, with its awesome power, was a great elk and moose rifle.

Hunting elk with a .300 Savage would be great fun, for everybody except the elk.

I hunt the same area and that's not my conclusion.

Hope you score with your 300 though.

MW406....that is one sweet picture.

I'd like to take a Moose someday with a 300 Savage and a factory 180.

Brad,

I suppose your right, "pointless" is a little too strong a characterization. I'll change that to "somewhat discouraging" especially compared to what it used to be. But I'll keep packing the 300 savage just in case I find a nice bull.

MW, the "pointless" adjective was the one that got me confused (grin). For sure the area's elk hunting has changed but there are bulls to be had.

Fellow I work with's Dad guided on elk back in the early 50's... he often killed the clients bulls as they were too hung over or too worn out to keep hunting. He shot a pile with the 25-35, then later switched to a "big gun"... 300 Savage M99. Shot another pile with it.

Funny how time has changed our perspective as to what is "big"...

Isn`t that the truth !! I am really surprised at how many people on here still hunt with the 300 !

Kinser, my "big" rifle is a 308 Win... sort of a 300 Savage +P... (grin).

I hear you there ! LOL It`s funny to have someone ask you what caliber you are hunting with and you say 300 Savage. They always say oh a 300 Win mag huh ? Of course I always take the time to educate them about the 300 and how it was the father of the 308 !

What started me elk hunting with the .300 Savage is the fact that I've never fired a shot at a bull or cow that was more than about 200 yards away. Nothing intentional, it's just never happened. The last bull I took was a pretty nice 6 X 6. My shot was 40 yards and I was using a .300 WSM. So why not use the "little" .300? It can certainly do everything a larger cartridge can do within a range of 200 yards.

I hunted elk in B. C. a couple of years ago. I took my .300 Savage Model 1899 G. When the outfitter asked what gun I would be bringing, I said a 300. He let me know that was a good choice and never asked another question. It took him a few days to figure out that it was not a .300 WM, WSM or Roy. He was fine with it, but it surprised him a little that someone would spend money on a hunt then bring a gun such as that. As it happened, I didn't find a bull worth taking on that hunt, but I sure enjoyed the opportunity to carry the old gun.

When Savage and Rocky Mountain Elk Federation got together to build the 60 commemorative engraved Model 99 rifles, guess what caliber they chose for the gun? Uh-huh, that's right, Savage 300. At least thats the caliber mine is in and I've not heard of another in anything but Savage 300. Also, don't know of anybody who has actually hunted with their RMEF gun.

When we are hunting I always know where my brother is when he starts shooting. It is not hard to pick out that crisp *crack* a 300 Savage makes.

It must have been at least 20-25 years ago I loaded some 300 Savage ammo for a friend of mine to use Elk hunting. This guy is very wealthy and could buy any rifle he wanted, but had always Deer hunted with his 99, 300 and wanted to use it. The guy he was hunting with had killed a few bulls by that time with his 30-06, but was skeptical about the old 300. I told him, what the hell, it's 90% of what you're using. I loaded 150 gr Noslers, and to make a long story short, he killed a dandy 6x6, and shot completely thru it broadside. Shoot them where they live, and they will die.

The 300 Sav is a great round. I like to call it a "refined hunter's" round. The reason I say that is you need to be ethical enough to pass on shots that aren't within range, and you need to know where your rifle hits at different ranges, and you need to know how to estimate distances. It's more than capable of harvesting large animals within its limits. If the animal is beyond those limits, don't shoot and get closer. I would bet that fewer animals have been lost when hit with a 300 Sav than with the larger cannons that people are over confident of their abilities.

I killed my first 8 elk with a .243 before moving up to a "Big" rifle chambered in 300Sav. Killed one elk with it before moving on, not because of the cartridge, but because I wanted a rifle with a decent stock and scope. Love that round almost as much as my .308

My Dad used a 99F in 300 Savage for years back in the PA deer woods. It was his brother's rifle. Dad died 5 years ago----the 99 went back to his brother. Uncle Paul passed over this pass summer. Talked to my cousins----I'm going to get the 99 out of the estate. Plan on taking it out for elk next year. I'm going to use 180 grain bullets. It has a 4X Bushnell Scopechief on it. That thing is as brite as my Leupold. CB

If I had one I would use it just as I've hunted elk with my .30-30 and .44 Mag.

That said, I wouldn't buy one just to hunt elk with - too many other choices that suit my tastes better.

My dad bought one right after WW II. He hunted moose in Canada and Newfoundland. Elk and mule deer in Montana and Wyoming as well as whitetail and black bear in Northern Vermont where I grew up. I still have that rifle with it's Alaska lyman scope and several boxes of original 180 WW Silvertips and Remington Corelockts. From the many black and white photos we have it apparently worked pretty good.

Lefty C