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

Lol, thanks JC.

I'm not a "real" elk hunter and likely never will be. I'll be lucky to get into double-digits as far as kills on them...

If or when the day comes I can't shoot my magnums well, I'll step down to... well, whatever it is I can shoot well! Shooting well is the #1 criteria. I think we all agree on that.

Funny how stuff works. A guy in my camp was on a real roll the first few years I hunted with this crew and killed 4 in 5 years or something like that. This was when we still hunted Tower Mountain, before the elk up and left... anyway he killed his first 4-5 elk with a 30-06 and was generally not pleased; he shot a couple more than once, and even lost one that was reasonably well-hit (found it a few days later).

So early on, I heard a lot of bitching about 30-06. Meanwhile, same camp, my pard Jerry flat poleaxed two bulls with his .338 at around 300 yds each. I mean DRT!

So in my formative years, these were the people and elk kills I was around.

Meanwhile, I bought a .338 and put a chitload of rounds through it and found, lo and behold, I could shoot it! Great! A lot! In fact for a while there it was my single most reliable "hitter of things" out to 600 yards. Love that rifle.

So... .....

There is dead right now or dead down the 75 degree canyon 100 yards away.

Both are dead but one is adrenaline'd up and not quite as tasty!.

Jayco

I agree.... what's the BEST cartridge for killing em sooner rather than later?

You want to be a successful elk hunter, you need to hunt the same area, over and over and over, and learn the terrain and learn the elk.
Also take into account what one of those old guys said to me along time ago "son if you want to kill elk, you need to be where they are and shoot the first legal one that you see"

The best one I have found for killing them sooner than later has been the ones I used to make a high shoulder shot with and dropped them in their tracks. I watched a bunch of cows come crawling out of a draw filled with blow down aspen. I knew I was not going to get a horse in there. So when one stopped on a little knoll, right at the edge of the draw, I put a 168 gr. TSX high in the near shoulder. At 292 yards the bullet took out both shoulders and the spine and dropped her in her tracks. I rode my horses right up to her. This was a moderate velocity load, 2800 fps, from a .300 WSM, similar to an '06 in velocity. By contrast I put a 250 gr. slug from a .358 STA through an average size bull right at 200 yards and he ran far enough I thought another elk that came running out of the draw was him. I tracked that bull for a good way and thought I had missed clean. I disbelief I started back and from an opposite hill side I could see the bull I had shot had run across the hill about 75 yards and crashed in a small depression. Which worked better? The CNS shot. I don't recall ever shooting an elk through the boiler room that didn't run at least close to 50 yards before falling.

I used to think that until this little 5-PT that took a double lung from my .300 Win Mag and a 180 Nosler..Froze right there and never took another step,and I wanted and needed him too.

So much for all Elk act the same way with the same shot!!!

Jayco

The last two bulls I shot:
The first one took one 180-gr. NP from an '06 through both lungs, turned to go the other way and I gave him another one in the same spot,but from the opposite side. He dropped right there, not 3 feet from where I first hit him.

The second one took one 165-gr. Interbond through both lungs from an '06, staggered for about 15 or 20 yards, and dropped.

Good post.....true.Unless bone is taken along the line there is a pretty good chance he is gonna move....and IME it matters little on pure lung/chest shots if the bullet is over or under 30 caliber.

If a 7mm,30 cal, or 338 bullet all expand to .65-70 caliber,wrecking vitals...which one is "better"?

The same could be said about the 375 H&H but it is the legal minimum for Africa.Why is that?Something about energy.

Just a quick google showed this for highest FPE in factory ammo...All from Shooting Times data.

7 Rem Mag roughly 3264 fpe.
300 Win Mag roughly 3890 fps
338 win mag roughly 4350 fpe
375 H&H mag roughly 4937 fpe

Each one a step up from the other...

Would you use the 7MM(roughly 3200 fpe) on Cape Buff over your 375 H&H(roughly 46-5000 fpe)?


Jayco

Jayco: Well of course!

I just wonder where in the equation the poor elk has had "enough";and whether having "more" really helps....

To answer the question,of course the 375,but not because of energy, but because the heavier construction of the 375 bullets are designed to break the great big bones and penetrate the big muscles to reach the vitals of the buff.....he is for sure one of the few animals against which I would rather have the 375H&H.

For obvious reasons....and yet,we both know that the 300 and various 7mm's have killed a slew of buffalo,which tells us other things...even though I wouldn't go there myself....

My favorite broad head is a 100 grain Slick Trick.It will shoot clear through most Elk on a good shot cutting a better swath than most rifles, yet it kills slower...Why?

Shot at 310 fps it has only 21 fpe off a bullet energy calculator.

Could energy really have an effect on game or is it the nonsense we sometimes read..I think it must or the 375 Winchester would be equal to the 375 H&H.

Gotta go snowmobiling if the snows good on top.Later...

Jayco

Consider that a shooter is not shooting the "elk". Rather the bullet needs to impair the vitals enough to cause death. The heart/lung of an 800 lb elk does not need four times the destructive capacity of that needed on an 200 lb deer. An arrow thru either will quickly incapacitate the critter.

As far as any "rules" about how far an elk will go after being lung-shot with X diameter-and-weight bullet, and Z amount of energy, the biggest bull I've ever killed took one 180-grain bullet from a .30-06 (range 250 yards) and just stood there for a couple of seconds, then tried to walk off and keeled over dead. The total distance the bull traveled after being hit was maybe 20 feet, if you included how far he slid and rolled after hitting the ground.

Once upon a time somebody posted on the Campfire that the elk he shot with a .30-06 always traveled more than 100 yards further than the elk he shot with a .300 Winchester Magnum. This same guy also claimed he'd killed "almost 10 elk"--which could be anything from 6 to 9 elk, I guess.

The truth is you'd have to killed hundreds of elk, with a wide variety of cartridges and bullets, to come to any meaningful conclusions. Even then the statitsics would have to be separated by shot placement, bullet, impact velocity and any number of other factors.

And once you got done with all that, there would still be exceptions.

I would say best for me would be my Dan Toelke Long Bow, Easton A/C/C with a 100gr Razor Trick. There is nothing more exciting then hunting elk up close and personal that is hunting to me. If you can't get close you don't know how to hunt, all you can say is you know how to shoot.

MCH, I can only imagine! Having a gobbler come in about makes my chest explode with excitement <g>. Think I'd crap my pants to call a 800-lb horned up bull within 10 yards....

It is much harder to find the "best elk". Now there is a topic worthy of discussion. Help me find him and I can get the job done with many different rifle and cartridge combinations.

Oh I love that feeling of a big ole goobler coming into the call. But the best was my first elk I harvested. It was my last day to hunt before I had to head back home. I was trying to call a 6X7 that was about two hundred yards out infront of me. Nothing but open grass between him and me. Suddenly I hear a bugle right behind me. I slowly turn to see a 5X4 standing broadside to me @ 35 yards. So the 6X7 just wasn't meant to be. But I did stick the 5X4 and will never forget that hunt.

I'm having a 338-06 build with a Montana action.
This will be my new Elk rifle.

I think that cartridge is about perfect for most elk hunting!

No doubt, it will be a fine one. I've looked at that round myself. I like how it looks on paper. I'm debating a 375 H&H for AK. It would see double duty on elk, along with my .270. Serious overkill, like the .358 STA I used for while, but it will kill 'em.