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

JB: From what I have seen, I agree with you....I have noticed that they get like truck tires when you hit them wrong,and the adrenalin is up....ask me how I know...

Hit properly, they have never given me a problem of any kind

But isn't that true of a lot of animals?

sling shot

Ai'd...

Dober

Quite a few years ago I was guiding a guy and we rode up a draw to find elk scattered across the hill side above us, 100 yards away. They didn't even look up, so we got off the horses. I told him to wait, but the guy shot when I turned to tie up the horses. I looked back and saw a nice bull hit the ground and roll to a stop. He was out, or so it appeared. I turned back and had the horses tied in just a few seconds. When I looked again the elk was gone. Crap. I say "where's the elk?" Hunter says "he got up and walked into the timber" I says "What!!! why didn't you shoot again, didn't I tell you before to shoot until they quit moving!!!" Hunter says "oh he's hit hard, he's not going anywhere" I tracked him the rest of the day in the snow. Blood trail got smaller and smaller until it was gone. Late in the afternoon his tracks fell in with those of another small band and we followed them until, towards dark, they crossed a ridge and disappeared into another drainage far from where we started. Was he just under gunned? No, he was shooting a 7 mag. It was just a "marginal shot". (I can hear "he WAS undergunned, he was shooting a 7 mag" already ) Just goes to show even the Best Elk Cartridge In The World, the 7 mm mag, is only as good as the shooter.

My grandson shot one with a BB gun once.He was sitting in the brush with great-grandad looking for turkeys when a spike walked right in front of him. He raised his gun and popped that bull in the ribs. I guess the elk really tore out of there. They never did find that bull though. Guess he should have been shooting a magnum BB gun.

Around THIS Campfire, elk aren't tenacious or tough.

In the actual elk camps and around actual campfires talking to crusty old pharts who've been hunting and killing them a long time, I hear otherwise. And I know two very close to first-hand tales of elk tenacity.

Some critters are reputed to give up rather... resignedly. Caribou and moose come to mind. Elk appear (to me) to have a tendancy to really go the other way, and at least sometimes do some pretty superhuman <grin> things when hit pretty hard.

My two elk were both well-hit and went down quickly. Then again I had a whole millimeter on the wimpy 7mm guys!

I'll buy that about anything will kill an elk, but I won't buy that they are not, sometimes, a notably tenacious animal. And elk habitat being what it is, at least IME, a quarter-mile death dash can be veddy veddy bad.

So- hit 'em right, that's key. Hit 'em hard also seems desirable to me.

.338 Win Mag is the best Elk Cartridge in the World!

(lol)

Jeff: For every crusty old phart you can dig up, I can dig up just as many who will disagree......many with 40-50 elk under their belt.....

I've even seen little old buck mule deer and whitetails act "tough",hit badly with 300's....And I mean....we never found one of the damn things after a chase over hill and dale............so, I believe "toughness" results from sloppy shooting....with anything.....

Mostly this "toughness" reputation comes from the type of boneheaded behaviour demonstrated by Cobrad's hunter;sloppy first shot,and "admiring results" after the fact.....a whitetail doe will get away under those circumstances.

Yeah there easy to kill especially with a .338...

The bull stepped into view at maybe 25 yards, quartering up the ridge, and I shot him carefully on the point of the on shoulder. The bullet smashed that shoulder, passed through the top of the heart and exited behind the off shoulder. Despite this terrible blow, there was no visible sign of a hit; the bull whirled and dashed out of sight. He died in the creek at the bottom of the ridge.

Jayco

Sharp rock..........and a leather jockstrap for styling points..........




Casey

Jeff, as I've been saying for years, if you hit an elk in the wrong place...or with a "weak" bullet...they can take a gruesome amount of punishment.

I don't find muleys particularly tough. I've witnessed a few that were not even close to being mortally wounded but act like they were.

I've killed a few moose, and witnessed a couple more, but they were all hit right with tough bullets and they died. Same for caribou.

And I've never had a pronghorn chase.......



Casey

Jayco: I see nothin unusual there.... seen similar stuff with everything from the 340 Weatherby on down...then, the next one will go buns up from a 270 and a chest hit..who can tell? That is just the nature of elk....

I don't fall into the camp, every Elk reacts the same to the same hit.Some Elk go down easy and others don't with the same hit..Like a man on Meth, compared to an Elk in Rut,not grazing or just lolly gagging around.

So I don't think there easy to kill,every time, with a good hit.Sometimes Yes and sometimes No.

Jayco

We're saying the same thing...

Have killed elk with a 270 and a 35 Whelen. Best elk cartridges I have ever used!

Hemi

Lil Logcutter ,

I have to disagree on this point. I have never seen a bull pack a good first hit very far. This assumes a relatively fast expanding bullet that was ,in my opinion, properly placed and the bull was not previously wounded.

Hit one wrong with the first one and they can become very hard to crunch.

I will say that a steep hillside can darn sure help them cover some ground going downhill and makes it seem like they traveled further.

Even when they're rolling downhill....

John,

I see you survived SCI. Nice talking with you and Eileen.

Funny how when the bull is rolling down the hill it is never in the right drainage and the trail is never at the bottom of that hill.

First elk I ever killed, dad told my brother and I "What ever you do, don't go down in the hole below camp. Stay high." We left camp in the dark and went just far enough dad couldn't see us, then down we went. He had only congratulations when I shot a spike... until we wrestled that elk waaaay up a steep hill to camp. He made it clear DON'T DO THAT AGAIN! But by then we didn't want to shoot anything below us anyway. The next one we got was miles further away, but at least it was up, way up, a steep mountain. Easiest one, and also the biggest, I shot off my deck in my underwear... but that is a story for another thread.

John,

We just barely survived, but managed! Good talking to you too.

I once raghorn bull across a small canyon in Colorado once that rolled quite a ways--and the canyon had a foot or more of fresh snow. Luckily, it was on a private ranch and we had chains for all four tires, as well as a winch. We needed them all before we got out of there, four hours later--but it was still a lot easier than the "normal" way....

That mirrors my experience. Although I would say a deep penetrating bullet shot into the front half has never resulted in a elk race for me.

And yes, elk go downhill very well............



Casey