Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting 7mm mag on elk vs. heavier calibers

Yeah! I'm gonna. Given the season and weather and so on there's no huge time crunch so I'm gonna be rational about it.... first is bobbing the .338 and making sure it still shoots. Chit... if not, if bobbing it kills the accuracy, then maybe the thing to do is rebarrel THAT rifle to a long-action 7mm and keep the Montana whole. But that's unlikely. It'll still shoot....

Pac Nor is usually pretty quick in the winter so as long as I get it to them in December I bet I get it back by February. My prime shooting time is March-June so that'll work.

My other .325 is a BLR so it's not really the same as a bolt gun. OTOH with a 200-TSX that's pure elk death in the timber, a lever action .325, and it's plenty accurate out to 400+ so...

I have them surrounded, as Bob put it so well the other day <g>.

It is obvious from this post tha McMurph is a highly evolved and intelligent individual..........

Well, I don't about all THAT ... grin... but he did put forth one heck of a summary/conclusion, and with my convoluted "reasoning" to draw from that's no small feat!

Gettin' the .338 bobbed next week. Moving forward. Woohoo!!

Thank gawd,jeff....you are tough!....I'm exhausted.......

Now that right there is funny I don't care who you are, that right there

Lol. Guilty as charged.

What I mean is, I'm going to bob the .338 first, shoot it, evaluate the result, then do what makes rational sense from there. If it still shoots and I like the balance ([bleep] is seriously snout-heavy now) then I move forward with rebarreling the Montana. If not, I'll keep the kimber intact as my elk primary, for which it ROCKS, and retube the .338 as a 7mm something. Which would be a whole exercise in mental masturbation in itself so let's root for the .338 still shooting <g>!

If I did end up retubing the .338 I'd just have to go
Mashburn. All the cool kids are doing it........

Going Mashburn, now you are really coming around...<g>

Come on cut that thing and get it over with. You'll be getting subliminal messages nightly till you do...grin

Dober

I do not care for a barrel heavy rifle as a general purpose/hunting rifle. I wqant a well ballanced rifle

I don't mind a little bit front-heavy but only a little.

My .338 shoots so good that I've tried like heck to love it as-is, but it just ain't working. Putting my 22" 30-06 into the .338's stock last night was a revelation. It felt much, much better.

I prefer short tubes. When I rebarreled my '06 I went 22", and chose 20" on my .358. I ended up with a 26" .338 because that's all Rem offered, and then the damn thing was so eager to please I've been scared to mess with it. But no more. That last 3" of barrel is going DOWN.

Jeff, my .338 WM is built on a Remington-made '03 action with a 23" Douglas premium barrel. It balances just right! I think that you will like the barrel minus three inches.

In the early 1960s Les Bowman decreed that the 7mm Rem Mag was about as good an elk rifle as a person could get. Thats credible as far as I'm concerned.

There are more powerful rifles available today but elk are the same and so is the 7 Rem Mag. To me elk and the 7RM go together like bacon and eggs. No need for anything bigger but if a guy wants to go bigger theres no reason not to.

I've shot them with every thing from a .270 to a .358STA and still have the opinion that it is more important where you hit them than with what you hit them. I have guided/outfitted here in CO for 32 years and have got to be in on shooting a few elk. My advice to clients has always been bring what you shoot white tails with, but I prefer a 7-08 as a minimum. A magnum is fine, if a man is accustomed to shooting one and can handle the recoil. I don't think there is any real advantage to a magnum until you start getting out past 400 yards. I've seen several elk taken with little guns, like the .243, and they worked just fine as long as the shot was broad side into the boiler room, no shoulder shots with the little ones. There is way too much macho internet BS about "needing" magnums to kill elk. That said, I am a real fan of the 7 mag as a great rounder for everything from prairie dogs to elk.

I always wonder where is the spot on the elk that the 7MM won�t work but a 338 will work?

Elk shot in the chest with the 7s die quickly and elk shot in the guts with the 338 need another shot.

I just got back from 9 days with the Milligan Brand crowd and we killed 4 elk with 5 shots from 270yds to 670yds. Hits in the vitals kill the bulls and less recoil is a good thing.

The idea of using the biggest cartridge you shoot well is a little misguided in my opinion. Use the minimum that will kill the bull with the shots you will take and you will shoot better and be way more effective.

Seems to me that if you shoot a bigger cartridge well (as opposed to not-so-well or even poorly), you gain very little if anything by dropping down to the minimum cartridge that will do the job �for the shots you take�. If things go wrong, as sometimes happens, a bigger cartridge with a heavier bullet might buy you extra penetration when it is needed.

Cheap insurance in my mind. Guess it comes down to what you mean by "shoot well" - doesn't sound like the same definition I have.

I would prefer the .325 if I were hunting where bear might be involved, or just in general on elk but that's just me. I wouldn't trust any 7mm on a big bruin, but I've known plenty of hunters who have taken a lot of elk with .270 or less powerful rifles.

I agree, put the bullet in the heart or lungs and it is a done deal.

I don't know of any cartridge that makes up for bad bullet placement

Well, you would have to shoot a lot of elk to be able to tell the difference. As for the Ballistic tables and programs. Well those are all math guesses. Till you shoot your rifle and loads at those extended ranges you will not know for sure. They are nothing more than a guide to what you might expect. Shoot what you want and build what you want. I when back to the 7mm Remington Mag some years back due to the fact it was the barrel on the Blaser I wanted. Before that my second center fire rifle I bought with my own money was a Remington 700 BDL in 1969. Shot it well and killed some good game with it then I when on a 36 year chase for the purple dragon. And well I ended up back were I pretty much started. If common sense had anything to do with this sport, I would be shooting a 30-06 and a fix 4x and that would be that. But were would the fun be in that? We mess with rifles and endless cartridges and loads because we enjoy it. Besides it would be a very boring way to go thru life.

The minimum cartridge that will do the job �for the shots you take�, or at least most of the shots I have taken on elk would be my .22-250 if it were legal in this state. Thanks, but no thanks. I much prefer my 7mm RM with 160 grains or one of my .30�s with 165-180 grain bullets. Since I shoot all of them well (or at least well enough to pop a clay pigeon at 600 with the .300 WM the last trip to the range before elk season), I see no advantage to going smaller. I�m even cautious with my .257 Roberts and 120g A-Frames.

In all the years I�ve been hunting I�ve only had one animal move as I shot, and in that instance I was very glad I had a bullet (140g North Fork) that could penetrate the length of a mule deer, as it needed to do to reach the vitals. A lighter (or more fragile) bullet might very well have resulted in a wounded and lost animal.

I am not suggesting you need a .375 RUM for elk, just that I think there is a reasonable place between the minimum that will do the job under normal circumstances and the maximums. Placement comes first, as always, but placement is not always as intended and heavier bullets can sometimes do what lighter bullets cannot when it comes to penetration.

Yea, I went up the scale to a 340 B because of Ross Seyfried and Hagel; I even had a 375 Mashburn for awhile which hit as hard as the B but wasn't quite as flat. My limited elk number--eleven--were all taken with the big "B" with the exception of one with an '06 and one with a 45-70 so my perspective is very narrow. That said, it seems Ive taken proportionately more at long range as four were over the quarter mile mark--the 340 B slams 'em there.

But my next elk jaunt, Lord-willing, will be with a 6.5 lb 284.

Don't worry Jeff O, be happy.

Coyotehunter,

I never qualified my statement �for the shots you take� with the word �most�, that was your mistake to try and make a point.

I would never choose a cartridge that was adequate for �most of the shots� and I never said as much.

I understand you have a burr under your saddle regarding me but try and stick to what I say as opposed to what you wish I said.

I can�t imagine a bad shot on an animal being fixed with more penetration. There has to be vitals at the end of the penetration to make it work.

Pick the lightest recoiling cartridge/bullet combination that will always get to the vitals with the shots you will take and you will be the most effective.

I also imagine we have a different opinion of �shoot well�. Seeing as I get down to Loveland quite often we could meet at the range and compare our definitions of �shoot well�??