Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Smallish bore rifles on elk?

29 yrs back in Montana, I hit a big 6pt bull "Park" bull through the shoulders once and lungs 2x with the 180 NP from my 30-06 at 100 yds. He never even twitched. I thought I was missing him. He finally got rubbery legs when the 4th shot raked up through his left flank and stopped under the right brisket hide.

Alan

That's nice shooting buffybr but i think that you're more of the "exception" rather than the the "rule". I've been at the range so many times where i see people struggling with a 300WM then pick-up their 308 and get nice groups.

When I first started tripping out west to hunt it was before I had killed any elk....but on the ranch where I stayed the rancher and friends (locals) all had elk licenses,so I saw quite a few shot with a range of stuff.

I was stunned into silence by the ranchers "elk" rifle...a Savage 99 takedown in 250-3000 with not a vestige of finish on wood or metal,no scope,and a piece of tire screwed onto the butt as a recoil pad....I kept my mouth shut,which was smart.It was a lesson in many things,and I had been "invited",so best to be quiet and watch what happened.

As the years rolled by I would grab a beer after dinner, go to the game barn and trace wound channels through elk carcasses...I don't recall how many 100 gr Silvertips,and Hornady's we dug out of elk carcasses but it was quite a few,along with a bunch of other bullets of different calibers,but many were 24 and 25 from the 250 and 257, 243 and 25/06,and those that got inside and expanded killed elk pretty well.

I did notice that heavy for caliber bullets did a better job by penetrating farther;and that bullets of larger diameter generally did more damage.That I was digging through an elk carcass was an indication that enugh damage was done to kill.

I think we are hard wired to expect something to happen immediately when we pull the trigger, but elk are phlegmatic animals and I have seen big bulls take shots through the ribs from stuff like 300 and 338 magnums and never flinch;shots landing on bone are a bit different.Others reacted by simply collapsing.Reaction is all over the map.

This lack of reaction leads some to start a progressive climb up the caliber ladder for elk with no end in sight,and seems to top out at 375 caliber for some,and in some areas even bigger;but unless you spend the range time that guys like BuffyBear puts in, going over a certain recoil threshhold gets counter productive as accuracy deteriorates,as John Burns indicates.This doesn't stop some people who cling to the delusions about powerful rifles.

That Wyoming rancher? In exchange for being such a great guy and letting me hunt there, I built him a couple of 270's years ago ;after his 250 Savage he thought a 270 Winchester with a 4X Leupold was a magic wand,and the outfit has killed so many elk and big mule deer, both he and I have lost count; among the many reasons I chortle on here when I read some peasant bad mouthing the 270 and with a straight face expecting me to believe it....


Last month he emailed me a picture of a 360 class bull he had killed with the 270 and some handloaded 130 Bitterroots I left at the ranch.

BobinNH, you're right on there.

Lighter bullets loose their energy and momentum faster than similar heavier bullets with the same Ballistic Coefficent, so, on equal shots, they will not penetrate as deep as the heavier bullets.

IMO a 600 yd shot at a bull elk with a .243 Win is too far away, regardless of the rifle or scope. The energy and momentum just isn't there to reliably make a clean kill on an animal the size of an elk. I respect the animals too much to try stunt shots like that.

Several years ago, a friend and I had our .22-250s at our local gun range, and for fun we were shooting at the 450 yd Ram silouette steel targets. We could hear our .22 cal bullets ring the steel, but none of the targets would fall over. When we switched to our .270 and .30 cal rifles, the Rams fell with every hit.

I've been lucky enough to have lived most of my life in elk country. It costs me little more than the price of a resident, geezer elk tag to kill an elk. I also have up to a 4 1/2 month rifle hunting season for elk. Any year that I don't kill and elk is basically because I choose not to shoot one (like this year). This is a lot different than the non-resident hunter that only has a week or so to hunt elk and will pay from several thousand to over $25,000 to hunt elk.

At those prices, you want to kill your elk quickly, and not waste your hunting days trying to find a wounded animal. This is where the heavier bullets and larger calibers are beneficial. Although I have killed elk with smaller calibers (and even a sharp stick!), I feel that a good .30 caliber bullet at 3000 or more fps will hunanely kill an elk for any shot that I want to take.

And Bob, I don't know how you came up with "BuffyBear" in your previous post, but here's a pic of me and Buffy Bear, my best friend for 14 1/2 years, and a bull that I shot (with my .30 Gibbs and a 180 gr Partition) on the hill behind my home a few years ago.

BobinNH, you're right on there.

Lighter bullets loose their energy and momentum faster than similar heavier bullets with the same Ballistic Coefficent, so, on equal shots, they will not penetrate as deep as the heavier bullets.

IMO a 600 yd shot at a bull elk with a .243 Win is too far away, regardless of the rifle or scope. The energy and momentum just isn't there to reliably make a clean kill on an animal the size of an elk. I respect the animals too much to try stunt shots like that.

Several years ago, a friend and I had our .22-250s at our local gun range, and for fun we were shooting at the 450 yd Ram silouette steel targets. We could hear our .22 cal bullets ring the steel, but none of the targets would fall over. When we switched to our .270 and .30 cal rifles, the Rams fell with every hit.

I've been lucky enough to have lived most of my life in elk country. It costs me little more than the price of a resident, geezer elk tag to kill an elk. I also have up to a 4 1/2 month rifle hunting season for elk. Any year that I don't kill and elk is basically because I choose not to shoot one (like this year). This is a lot different than the non-resident hunter that only has a week or so to hunt elk and will pay from several thousand to over $25,000 to hunt elk.

At those prices, you want to kill your elk quickly, and not waste your hunting days trying to find a wounded animal. This is where the heavier bullets and larger calibers are beneficial. Although I have killed elk with smaller calibers (and even a sharp stick!), I feel that a good .30 caliber bullet at 3000 or more fps will hunanely kill an elk for any shot that I want to take.

And Bob, I don't know how you came up with "BuffyBear" in your previous post, but here's a pic of me and Buffy Bear, my best friend for 14 1/2 years, and a bull that I shot (with my .30 Gibbs and a 180 gr Partition) on the hill behind my home a few years ago.