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

I like pretty much any 7.Also have a healthy respect for the 300 Win mag.

I have many rifle and cartridge combos good for elk.
If I win I'm ready to go. My Stainless Super Grade 300WSM and 180NAB are always ready to hunt and could be the best.

If I had the cash and time before this amazing dream hunt I would love to develop a hot rod 375RUM on a Winchester action with a 25" #6 Schneider, Jewell trigger, FFP Mark 4, McMillan A3, and of course a Limbsaver.

300 win mag and any heavily constructed 180 grain bullet

Great combo 99!

Once upon a time in the little country of Blogistan there was a lot of folks that liked to hunt everything from varmints to giant cave bears.

The law in Blogistan only allowed persons to own rifles in one whole increment of a millimeter. So the only cartridges available was a 5mm, 6mm, a 7mm, a 8mm, a 9mm and a 10 mm for the largest of the cave bears.

It was sufficient for everyone and everyone got along fine.....until one day some mean little bloggistanner discovered how to make his own barrels and dies.

He had heard the banter and ribbing that went around the campfire every year around mammoth camp between the 8mm folks and the 9mm folks and he went to work making a 8.5mm stanner.

Well all billy hell broke out when the word got around that Mr. Chinwester was showing up in mammoth camp this year with his 8.5mm stanner. It obviously had the flat trajectory of an 8mm and the smashing power of the 9mm and everyone immediately wanted one.....(having never tried one)

Chinwester was selling barrels left and right and became famous and very wealthy. He hired people to work in his factory who then learned how to make barrels and went on their own because they too wanted to be wealthy and famous.....as a result there was soon an 8.25mm and a 8.75mm and even an 8.25mm CI....(chinwester improved).....
As time went on, the proliferation of cartridges was so complete that there was a cartridge in every increment of .1mm and variants of length as some stanners now wanted a short block and a long block cartridge. (bolt actions hadn't been invented yet)

Sure enough, as time evolved, there was now three hundred different cartridges to choose from.......and guess what.....things didn't change one IOTA.....they still went to mammoth camp and argued and bantered between their 8.015 Stanner and their 8.016 stanner! Some even suggested that it would be great if they could get a 8.0155 stanner....the best of both worlds.....

As it turned out....they argued and bantered and conjoled so long that they forgot to go hunting for mannoths and went the winter without meat.....and all the blogistans starved to death.

And now the moral of the story..... sooner or later we just grab a gun and go hunting and quit picking the fly [bleep] out of the pepper!

What I find entertaining about the elk cartridge discussions is that we seem inclined to ignore the evidence that is right in front of our eyes.....we can see an elk killed very dead (or shoot it ourselves) with a 270,7/08,7RM,or 30/06 etc.,watch it die,and do this year after year,and lie awake nights pondering whether a 300 or 338 (or something bigger) would have killed it "better"...

So we go get something bigger,kill some more elk (which continue to die pretty much the same way),and if the elk take a few more steps when killed with the bigger stuff, we think nothing of it,smug in our view(notion) that the bigger rifle is "better"....passing off the reports of the guy who floored several with a 7x57 or 7 mag as "flukes".....

Another thing I've noticed we do is ignore all empirical data and information from the past,like it doesn't exist; the New Dawn of ballistic revelation and terminal effectivness resides with us! ...

We set aside from our minds the fact that things like the 30/06 and 270 have been killing elk sized critters for about 80-100 years,ignoring the experience of tens of thousands who came before us and killed elk by the truckloads......I suppose this is typical human arrogance that says ..."if it ain't invented here, it doesn't exist..."

You would think,over 100 years into the smokeless powder era, we'd have gotten over this stuff by now.

I doubt it's possible for anyone on here to kill enough elk in their lifetime with (say) a 300 mag, 338 win mag,and a 7RM (just as examples)to say for a certainty that one is significantly more lethal than another,given equally good bullets and proper placement.And I'm not talking 30,40-50 elk...I'm talking thousands).

I've seen elk hit around the fringes with all three and the only conclusion I came to was that the magical qualities of the larger cartridges in providing "insurance"(which I assume means the bigger cartridges help you recover the elk better with marginal hits).....was absent.

I have noticed that all three provide very fast kills from chest/shoulder hits.

But I'm not surprised by any of this.....because people have been doing exactly the same things with these cartridges(and others that are similar) for generations.

If I were a young,aspiring elk hunter today, I would worry little about the cartridges and worry more about getting to go elk hunting.....

I would imagine that during the past 100 years more Elk have been killed with the 30-06 than all other cartridges combined.

Problem is that the 30-06 is a 'boring cartridge', and there really isn't anything new for gun rags to say about it that hasn't already been said.

It's much more exciting to talk about the latest release of short magnums, long magnums, or whatever cartridges.

Even so, the old 30-06 will take it's place quietly in the background and continue to do any excellent job of taking any and all big game in North America, just like it always has.

When Daughter #2 got married I gave my new son-in-law a .30-06 for a wedding present. He hunted elk with it for two years with no success.

His Dad told him the .30-06 wasn't enough gun, so last year, 2010, he hunted with a customized '03-A3 in .300 Win Mag that had been passed down from his grandfather. On day one of his hunt he took his first elk, dropping it straight down on the shot. (363 lasered yards with a 180g Winchester white-box Power Point)

Now Bob - how can you argue with empriical evidence like that - two years and no success with the .30-06, but one day with the .300 Win Mag and he had an elk on the ground. Clearly the .300 WM is a better choice for elk!

CH: Well yeah! Tha seems to me as good a rationale for elk rifle selection as anything else out there.. The 300 has KARMA!

Fixt it for ya!

Ingwe: Thanks!.........that would be correct

I am enjoying the 325 WSM. It's a very well balanced cartridge with a nice blend of bullet weight, velocity and recoil. Lots of great 8mm bullets and enough different to be interesting too. Usable in a light rifle, unlike some higher capacity rounds.

That was hilarious!

10,0000 views. And some of you thougt this was a dumb post.

That's cause some elk don't always die,as fast as some like.....so they constantly wonder.....what kills them right now.....right here..... always :

Answer? nuthin...

The 8.015 Stanner is hard to beat!

Best Elk Cartridge in the World??

The one you used to shoot your last elk.

I talked to Cooper yesterday. They have introduced their Model 56 at the shot show, available this summer. Now you can get what ever magnum version of the Best Elk Cartridge in the World you like in the Best Factory Rifle in the World. I have already spoken with a dealer to get the Absolute Best Elk Cartridge in the World, the 7mm Rem. Mag. in an Excalibur. Let the fun begin...

Love the 7mm Rem Mag but not so hot on the Cooper. I do suspect you will kill many big bulls with it though.

Good Luck.