Ideal Cartridge for Elk?

[WoodPecker Hunter]

This being a long range forum, most folks are shooting Low drag bullets. Partitions, Swift's, Grand Slams, etc. are awesome for their intended ranges. Which are best utilized under 500 yards. There are better choices for bullets when the distance gets stretched out.

Nosler LR Accubonds have a VERY HIGH BC - Swift Sirocco 11 S are Pretty good Too !

 

[TG-5150]

Nosler LR Accubonds have a VERY HIGH BC - Swift Sirocco 11 S are Pretty good Too !

Yes, you are correct then. From your post, I thought you were talking about AFrames and Partitions.
Deepest apologies

 

[Bravo 4]

I think this is the key.

That is a good point that a lot of people even flinch with lighter rounds. I mess with my son at the range all the time loading or unloading rounds in his 6.5cm so that he can feel the slightest flinch or brace for recoil when he pulls the trigger and there is no round in the chamber.

I think for the most part we all (almost) are in agreeance, it just gets lost in translation over written posts.

 

[Deleted member 107796]

I think for the most part we all (almost) are in agreeance, it just gets lost in translation over written posts.

Yes and no. I say that because I used to hate 30-06s because my only experience, at that point, was a friend's Browning that kicked like a mule. When I started shooting magnum rifles, I found that improving the recoil pad is THE way to show an inexperienced, young or female shooter, that recoil can be managed. All rifles will jump and even the biggest strongest man, can get that crease of blood that drips perfectly down the brow of the shooting eye, if the rifle is not held well. Hold it well, let it jump while keeping the sights on target and use a scope with 4"+ of eye relief. If a youngster or other is starting out, I understand and that's one thing, but rifles recoil and I'd rather see those that I train, try to master this than make it a limit of their shooting selection.

 

[Bravo 4]

Yes and no. I say that because I used to hate 30-06s because my only experience, at that point, was a friend's Browning that kicked like a mule. When I started shooting magnum rifles, I found that improving the recoil pad is THE way to show an inexperienced, young or female shooter, that recoil can be managed. All rifles will jump and even the biggest strongest man, can get that crease of blood that drips perfectly down the brow of the shooting eye, if the rifle is not held well. Hold it well, let it jump while keeping the sights on target and use a scope with 4"+ of eye relief. If a youngster or other is starting out, I understand and that's one thing, but rifles recoil and I'd rather see those that I train, try to master this than make it a limit of their shooting selection.

Yes Sir, that goes into the category of a shooter properly running a properly set up rifle. It can be a little trial and error for each rifle and shooter.
Another option: reduced loads pre-hunt practice. A buddy of mine has me load his .300 to '06 velocity, then turn them back up for the hunt. The repeated recoil gets to him during shooting sessions, but the 1 or 2 shots at an animal aren't even felt. And yes the zero & drops are different and are checked prior to season.

 

[FIGJAM]

Yes and no. I say that because I used to hate 30-06s because my only experience, at that point, was a friend's Browning that kicked like a mule. When I started shooting magnum rifles, I found that improving the recoil pad is THE way to show an inexperienced, young or female shooter, that recoil can be managed. All rifles will jump and even the biggest strongest man, can get that crease of blood that drips perfectly down the brow of the shooting eye, if the rifle is not held well. Hold it well, let it jump while keeping the sights on target and use a scope with 4"+ of eye relief. If a youngster or other is starting out, I understand and that's one thing, but rifles recoil and I'd rather see those that I train, try to master this than make it a limit of their shooting selection.

I think you have to distinguish between tolerating recoil on a gun and enjoying the recoil. Forcing a young or small shooter to shoot a magnum seems silly regardless of the recoil pad. They develop good habits by shooting guns with little recoil that are fun to shoot. My 11 year old can shoot my 7RM in a small group at 200 yards. He doesn't like it - he can tolerate it. If that was the gun he had to shoot when we went to the range I would be going by myself more often than not. Also, the reason he can shoot those small groups in the magnum is because he has shot thousands of rounds down his 17hmr, 223 and 6.5CM and has developed the fundamentals before he had to learn to tolerate the recoil. Also, Because he likes to shoot his 223 and 6.5 CM I always have a shooting buddy.

 

[J W Voita]

The .22 Mag (or .22 WMR) is the ideal cartridge for harvesting elk, providing it was born today and you have a good reason for harvesting a freshly born elk with spots, (I can't think of any).

Now bear in mind when an elk starts out, it only weighs about 20lbs and it isn't very mobile. You can get pretty close to a newborn elk - so a .22 Mag is all you really need. Now an Elk is going to start growing pretty fast, and you will need a larger caliber at some point.

Fast forward 2 yrs and this elk has now lost his spots and weighs over 500lbs. The .22 mag is no longer the ideal cartridge unless you are hunting him inside a small pen. At this point a free roaming elk is pretty adept at keeping some space between itself and hunters and its body has gotten massive.

A tiny .223 remington would certainly have more potential at this point, especially with good bullet choice, but its not going to really open up many shooting opportunities. The .22 bullet is just too light to penetrate 300yds of air, an inch of hair, a 1/4" hide, several inches of meat, a bone, and then a vital organ. Sure you could dump an elk at 30yds with a headshot, but that baseball size brain has a lot protecting it, and a deflection is very likely if you aren't perfect. Lets say you have access to a ranch that has elk eating off a haystack and they aren't afraid of the ranchers truck, could you double lung an elk and then watch it die within a few hundred yards? Probably, but you're getting close to not reliably having the horsepower to damage both lungs, so real world options with this tiny gun are very limited.

Enter the light rounds of .243, .257, 6mm, 6.5 creed etc. This class of guns can reliably double lung elk out to a considerable distance 3-400yds lets say. They can also take out a heart or Liver at closer distances, but one must be very careful to not hit heavy bone or take on too much angle. This is a pretty ideal cartridge for those willing to only take well presented broadside shots out to about 300yds. If you are an experienced and expert marksman, this distance could be stretched out to maybe 400yds reliably. You've also got the option of neck shots in the tight timber, where torso shots may be hard to discern. This Class of cartridge is low on recoil, therefore high on accuracy. A good hunter could feasibly get an elk every season with a rifle this size, but self discipline and experience is a must!

Stepping up to medium rounds. Enter the 270, 7mm .308, .30-06 etc. class of cartridge. This is a pretty good choice as you can typically get a bullet into the vitals at most angles and do this out to 400yds or so. A good marksman can penetrate into the vitals of a broadside elk at much greater distances with these heavier bullets. Keep in mind that Elk hunting public ground is no easy task, these are big skittish animals that don't always present ideal shooting conditions, and seasons are short. A cartridge in this class is going to afford you a few more possibilities while still keeping recoil and muzzle blast to a manageable amount. There is good reason these calibers have been so popular with elk hunters. You don't need to be a sniper or expert in anatomy to take a shot at an elk with a medium caliber gun.

The Magnums... Is bigger better? .300 win .338 Lapua .375 H&H etc. An elk hunter may spend many days and hike a hundred miles before presented with a shot at an elk on public ground. When that moment finally arrives it may be a bull elk running directly away in thick timber, or it may be 700yds across a canyon, do you have enough gun? A .338 RUM with the right bullet can do things a 30-06 can't. Should you take a Texas heart shot on an elk? That's up for debate as some would say wasting one quarter to put three quarters in the freezer is worth it. Others say to pass on a wasteful shot. I think it depends on the frequency a person is afforded shot opportunities, but we can all agree that shooting an elk up the rump with a 6.5 creedmore isn't going to work out. Extreme shot opportunities come at the cost of dreadful recoil and muzzle blast, enough to cause the toughest of men to flinch. I've seen many elk missed entirely, or hit poorly because a person used too much rifle. I've also seen many elk get harvested by magnum rifles that couldn't have been taken with lesser guns.

I've missed an elk with a Large magnum round that could have easily been headshot with a .223 remington. It was 30yds away and bedded down with its head resting on its rump facing me. It was such a "gimmie" shot with my .338 RUM that I put my crosshairs on its nose, (flinched) and pulled the trigger. I grazed the top of its skull and momentarily knocked it out. I wasn't even holding my gun when it woke up and escaped! I have no doubt that I would have taken the care to place that shot perfectly with a smaller gun. It wasn't the first time I've "jumped" on a trigger knowing my magnum could kill an elk without precise bullet placement. I've learned to shoot it better, and I would be hesitant to shoot a smaller gun, although I'm not convinced the gun I use is 'Ideal'.

What is your experience in finding the Ideal elk caliber?

I'm almost 70. Ive taken so many elk, I've lost count. Here are some things I've learned.

We all have our favorite cartridges. We fall in love with them. Sometimes we just like their name. (That has been proven by the major manufacturers on numerous occasions). In many cases it's how a cartridge looks. In some cases we favor a particular cartridge because of something we have read or heard about it. And many times that report that we heard about this favorite cartridge is not even true. I hate to disappoint any of you, but cartridges don't kill anything! Bullets do! Once a particular 6.5mm bullet leaves the gun at a given speed and kisses that muzzle goodbye, it makes absolutely no difference what cartridge it came from! That 140 gr 6.5mm bullet at 2900 fps is on it's own. We need to be giving attention to that bullet. And not just it's velocity at the muzzle, but how fast is it going at the distance at which it contacts our target. Modern bullets are greatly improved over bullets made 40 years ago. We hear a lot of talk about a bullets shape, or it's BC, but the most important improvement in hunting bullets is the bonding of the lead core to the jacket. We should also keep in mind what cartrige or velocity the particular bullet was designed for. Here is a case in point.

I have had the privilege of having several different rifles, in several different calibers available to me for elk hunting. One is a custom offering chambered in 375 RUM. Of course almost all bullets in 375 caliber were designed with the 375 H&H in mind. But my RUM that was built with an African safari in mind, shoots some bullets as much as 250fps faster than the H&H. Oh i killed those elk alright, but at close range the bullet did not exit the animal. Those bullets at that higher velocity were getting ripped apart.

My go to elk gun is a 270. I also have a 7mm LRM, if I'm taking a stand where i expect to see elk at 400 yards or more.

 

[Bravo 4]

Yes Sir,
The cartridge is the engine, the rifle is the launch pad, and the bullet does all the work from there.

 

[Deleted member 107796]

I think you have to distinguish between tolerating recoil on a gun and enjoying the recoil. Forcing a young or small shooter to shoot a magnum seems silly regardless of the recoil pad. They develop good habits by shooting guns with little recoil that are fun to shoot. My 11 year old can shoot my 7RM in a small group at 200 yards. He doesn't like it - he can tolerate it. If that was the gun he had to shoot when we went to the range I would be going by myself more often than not. Also, the reason he can shoot those small groups in the magnum is because he has shot thousands of rounds down his 17hmr, 223 and 6.5CM and has developed the fundamentals before he had to learn to tolerate the recoil. Also, Because he likes to shoot his 223 and 6.5 CM I always have a shooting buddy.

Completely agree on all counts. It is a matter of effective learning. Great to break it down.

 

[Mystras]

Good writing but you're leaving out so many variables there is no correct answer.

80lbs kid shooting at 80 yards? Probably one of the milder 6.5's and a good bonded or solid copper bullet.

250lbs man shooting the trophy of a lifetime at a thousand yards? One of the big thirties or .338's.

Overall, anything with a quality bullet and enough energy at the necessary range for that bullet to perform as desired.

All things considered the most important requirement to me would be that you take the rifle you have 100% confidence in and that you can shoot most accurately and stick within both your and the rifle's capabilities.

Don't go slinging lead at an animal that rare and precious for any reason other than perhaps the very real threat of starvation. Even then you'd probably be far better off saving your ammo and limiting yourself to a shot you have absolute confidence in making.

I agree, it really depends. "Ideal Cartridge" needs to be thought of in terms of the shooter. The goal for most hunters is to kill quickly preserving meat for consumption and is typically achieved by a single or combination of exsanguination, directly disabling the nervous system or by shockwave tissue trauma caused by the projectile that leads to relatively quick failure of vital body systems. In my opinion the characteristics of an ideal elk cartridge are, energy being around 1500 ft. lbs at impact. SD near .30 from an "expanding" modern hunting bullet and something the shooter can shoot comfortably in terms of recoil. Some newer bullet designs may challenge my opinion as they do not physically expand but the shape of the bullets cause expansion of surrounding tissue and a wound channel causing enough trauma to disrupt vital organ systems. It will be nice to see how these new bullet technologies evolve and how they will be used in determining the ideal cartridge for elk.

 

[del2les]

Kinda' like asking what is a good wine. However, I've killed a lot of game with the old 270 and 30-06 with appropriate loads and bullet selection, but once I outgrew my imposed range limits for elk with those rounds, I found myself debating between a 300 WM and the then new 300 RUM.

Given my expected ranges, winds, and wanting to drive 180 or 200 gr as fast as possible, I chose the 300 RUM. It has worked well at short to long ranges, but often, I still drag out the older n slower 30-06 or 338WM for a walk thru the timber.

As long as a cartridge has enough velocity for proper retained energy with a good bullet selection for various entry angles, good marksmanship and even better hunting ethics outweighs
many other caliber factors.

The best elk caliber is the caliber of the shooter behind the stock.

 

[Dry Heat?]

300 Mag of any ilk is the perfect Elk Cartridge. Frankly, if any recoil more than a 243 Win is too much for you, you should stick to Hunting whitetail out of a Box Blind over a Food Plot, Antelope, varmints, etc. I think the 375 is overkill (unless Hunting elk in Griz Country) the 338 Mags are great. The 7 mags work well as do the various 270s. Anything less is not enough KO Power. Of course if one is of the FootPounds of energy School of thought, the 257 Wby is ideal. I'm more of a Taylor Knock Out School guy. The 30 Mags with 200+ grain Bullets are ideal.