Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Best Elk Cartridge in the World??

Bob, no doubt mags work well for those who know how to shoot them.

I should have simplified by saying that folks like your rancher friend abound in Elk country and hunt Elk as regular as we hunt deer. The main difference being they know how effective standard cartridges can be on Elk because they have taken dozens....

I'm like you when I hear that the .270 and alike are marginal especially with today's bullet options.

In my last elk camp out of six hunters, everyone of which except me, born and raised in Montana, all had hunted and killed many elk over the years, there were five 7mm Rem Mags and one .338 Win Mag. Someone must have written a good article on the 7mm RM back when these guys were young and ready to buy their first hunting rifle. You never had to worry about running out of of forgetting your ammo in that camp.

The more elk I am fortunate to bring home the less I think a magnum is needed. A 270/280/30-06 class rifle is perfectly adequate with quality bullets and good placement.

I read an article years ago by Craig Boddington in wich he made the case for the 8mm Remmington Magnum... I've never shot an Elk with one, but he made some good points.

was that b4 or after the article he wrote about nuking the elk a bit over 400 yds at the Wittington Center with a 270 and a 150 Nozler...

Dober

Seems like Craig also stated that he had never seen a big bull elk hit the ground so fast as with that NM 270 shot bull?
??

Yepper, I was gonna add that and forgot

One thing I always giggle about is the folks that diss the .270 for elk and then if they get some experience with it they begin to change their tune..

And, I'd add that the people who diss the .270 for elk tend to live a fair ways away from where the elk do and they generally have lil or no experience when it comes to taking elk with the round. Go figure...

(by the way this isn't a Bertuzzi on CB at all)

Dober

+1 on Dober...all the 270 does with the 130 NP or 150 NP is kill Elk...nothing fancy just does the job...

Dober, my theory is for every 500 mi from the front range an inexperienced person lives, the foot-lbs of muzzle energy of the cartridge carried by the gonna-be elk slayer generally goes up by 1000 ft-lbs over that of the standards-- say just under 3k ft- lbs.--due to bigger cases and/or calibers. It was true of me when I started and I've observed it numerous times since that time in 1987. Of course there are exceptions in every direction one looks but it was true often enough that I took notice.

As Seinfeld would say, "not that there is anything wrong with that", but I've also witnessed enough times the accompanying ineptitude in shooting those rifles so- chambered. Even saw a guy who couldn't keep three shots with a plain vanilla 7 mm Rem Mag on a paper plate at 100 yds.

If I have a word of advice for the new elk hunter, no matter where he is from, is use you deer rifle if it is of the 30-06, or 308 family of cartridges minus the 6mm and 257 variants, use a premium bullet, and practice as much as you can to as far as you can...

And fill up the Ark (not original with me )

i'd take a ruger 77 mkII rs (with the boat oar stock) in the old .35 whelen and the 225gr tbbc. do your part and its good to 300yds, far enough for me anyway.

I think part of that effect (far away= big guns) is that guys who live in 'em are playing a different game than out of state hunters.

Put another way.... take that front-range, 270-totin' guy and have him obsess over a hunt in [somewhere far away, expensive, and cool] for [some big animal he's never killed] and I bet our front-range guy gets a little geeky about choosing a rifle, too.

If/when I get to hunt elk in Montana, it won't be with a rifle I think isn't "best" for the job. Not "adequate", not "plenty good".

Best.

300 RUM shooting 200 Grain Nosler accubonds at 3000 FPS. Or go with the Nosler 180 E-tip at 3150. Either of those have great ballistics for long range and they will put a thump on any bull

I used to shoot a .300 Jarrett that pushed those 200 gr Accubonds at 3028 fps. Yep, it put a thump on any bull, and anyone who shot it as well. Recoil, according to a recoil calculator, was not too far off a .458 Win. mag, and yes, I had one of those too. My Jarrett was about 8 lbs scoped. I shot it with a brake to tame that recoil. It killed elk just fine. It was also way more gun than necessary to kill elk. To quote CLB;

"When I read about or talk with people who hunt and kill big Elk on a regular basis, the talk of "magnums" rarely if at all enters the conversation."

That pretty well sums up my life-long experience here in western Colorado, the elk hunting capitol of the world. (IMO) There's more guys here than when I was a kid that shoot magnums, but most of them are from somewhere else My son-in-law shoots a .300, and has for years. He still can't hit a thing with it! But it's a manly gun and he prefers to miss than to admit he can't shoot it. Poor guy, he really caught hell when my daughter shot one when he couldn't hit it. Any way, all this is fun, but when you come here to hunt elk, do yourself a favor and bring the gun you can already shoot with. It's a huge disappointment to get here, work for a shot, then miss or shoot poorly because you can't shoot that roaring magnum well. Don't go home saying I wish I had brought ol' faithful that I've shot a thousand deer with.

Elk are not mythical or armor plated. Any rifle chambered in a cartridge between .264 and .338 is fine if you shoot it well. That even includes .308 based cartridges. Honestly, a decent sporter-weight 30-06 makes a great elk rifle from the timber to open meadows and canyons. 400 yards is a long way for most hunters to shoot at any game and the 30-06 with a good bullet will handle that easily.

I know its not a sexy choice, but its the truth.

Elk aren't "big"'not really anyway;a bull will weigh (what?) 650-750 pounds(never weighed one).....oh they can be "long",but even through the chest I doubt it takes more than 18"-20" inches of penetration from broadside to get most all the vital plumbing.....even through shoulders a 150-160 gr 270/7mm bullet will handle that with ease if construction is good..

But sometimes they can take a solid hit and not react to it....this throws people off base....makes them think elk are tough...they are soft-skinned game,nothing more.


But as animals get larger, I have found you have to be even more precise in placement,because you simply won't overwhelm large animals with power from indifferently (sloppily)placed bullets from powerful cartridges.

And that is the rub......if you can shoot a powerful cartridge,fine.....use it....IME there are those who "can",and those who "think" they can.....like Cobrads SIL....they are legion.......and I have never seen a 300/338 mag shooter who was worth shidt behind the rifle unless he was a handloader and burned 1000-3000,4000 rounds of CF ammo a year...the rest are clueless as to pulling full advantage from a magnum capacity rifle.

The answer lies in what type of hunting you do, and what type of hunting you do often depends on what terrian you hunt.

Spot

Oh Bob, You caught me out of town in Speer country only packing a smart phone with a dumb guy at the controls.

I know several people who can shoot the .300 WM every bit as good as a .270 or ' 06.Recoil does not effect everyone the same way.

Jayco off the DX

Jayco. True....I never said it did....I know guys who can shoot 300's too! I know a lot who can't as well....

I miss read your post as you was mentioning Cobrads comment not yours.My appologies as my fingers are to fat to quote off this small screen.

Jayco

+1...I know a fella in Oklahoma who can shoot his 300 Win Mag as well as I can my 270..but he handloads and spends many range hours every year...I have a 300 Wby which I handload for and shoot quite a bit...but for Elk I prefer my 30'06 or 270...
On a Moose/Elk combo back in 1982 on the Toad River of BC a fella showed up with a 300 Weatherby that he had bore sighted before the trip...this guy was afraid of his rifle and would have been better served by a good old '06...I think he missed something like 8 shots..before he finally gut shot a Moose which was never found..
moral to this story is the hunter not the caliber...