"I don't own a .300 WSM because I mostly hunt elk, and they're not enough for elk."

[itsa pain]

I will admit to quite a bit of snobbery. I come by it naturally, I have about half as much as my dad does.

There are other comments that he made which I cannot repeat here due to the Family Friendly rules of the forum.

Had he been "Nice and Chatty" I'd have jumped on my scope to help him sight in immediately. It is what I have my scope in my range-kit for, after all. My concern, however, is that he got sighted in after putting around 30 rounds through it. His barrel had to be quite hot, and significantly more fouled than when he arrived on the range. I hope he realizes that for his next session out on the range.

What really got me, TBH, was that he was geared up with expensive stuff, shooting match grade factory ammo, left his brass on the ground, and commented that he didn't like the ballistic twin of the round he was shooting.

My snobberies:
I am biased in favor of American Walnut stocks with quality detailing.

I am biased in favor of high quality optics, regardless of manufacture.

I am biased in favor of accuracy.

I am biased in favor of inexpensive solutions that work as well (or better) than expensive ones.

cryo you made a great post and have made a lot of sense. the 30-06 is enough for any big game animal as far as you should be shooting at it. with Rel 22 powder you can push the 180-220 grain bullets to velocities that 35 years ago were 30 mag velocities.. no animal can stand up to a 220 nosler or barnes going 2600 fps put in the right spot. sounds like the guy had way more money then brains

 

[rondog]

I've read it stated that the .303 British round has probably taken more game around the planet than any other. I don't know if that's true, just what I've read. It's certainly an old round and quite prolific around the world, with lots of issued and surplus rifles and ammo in may countries. And .303 sure ain't in no .30 Magnum class.

I personally have no desire for anything bigger than .30-06. I have three of those, five .303's, two 7.5x55 Swiss, and two 7.62x54R. I'm not a hunter, yet, but I think I could probably knock down an elk with one of these.

 

[itsa pain]

A .300 mag would be an excellent elk round, but I've never felt under gunned with my '06 either. In fact I. Insider it overkill for deer unless I really have to reach out.

Makes me feel sorry for all of those elk Jack O'Conner killed, they must have felt pretty insulted to have been killed with a measly varmit round like a .270.

I'd prefer putting a 30-30 in his wheel house to a .338 la-POW in his ham any day.

not only O'Conner got all those elk with a 270 but he did it with horrible bullets compared to today

 

[Leanwolf]

I have a friend , now retired from hunting due to age and arthritis, who over the years has killed over 30 elk with his old Savage 99 .300 Savage. His load has always been a factory 180 grains bullet. His 'scope is an old B&L 4x and he's told me that was all he ever needed.

My cousin, now deceased, killed 22 elk over the years with his pre-'64 Lightweight Winchester 70 in .308 Win. He also used factory 180 grains ammunition. Killed an Idaho Shiras moose with the same rifle and load.

I've killed elk with my .280 Rem., .308 Win., and .30-'06, using my various handloads. Also have killed elk with my .338 W.M. Ruger 77 and handloads, but it has been retired. This Fall I'll either take the .280 Rem. or the .308 Win. Works for me.

L.W.

 

[Nanook]

I guess all of those bowhunters are just lucky. Those guys kill moose and elk all the time without any firearms at all.

Just lucky.

LOL

 

[morcey2]

They use shaped-charge explosive arrowheads. It cuts through the elk-armor and if you hit them just right, it'll clean it for you.

Matt

 

[Geno]

morcey2 is right. If it won't kill it, gut it, cut-it-up and nearly package it in a single trigger pull (you know...like in the cartoons), it isn't enough rifle.

Geno

 

[Cryogaijin]

Now if he'd said Moose. . .

 

[Art Eatman]

Back in the '60s/'70s I knew several guys who went from Texas to Colorado for elk. Their reasoning for such as the 7mm Rem Mag was the flatter trajectory for long shots. So, that becomes gun store "truth" and later-on newbies get infected by "everybody knows".

Me not being a masochist, and having meddled with the '06 for a long, long time, I figure I'll never need more gun. What the heck, I've killed almost the same number of bucks with a .243 as with my '06. Just, generally, a bit closer, is all. And that depended on how and where I was hunting as to which I chose.

 

[rondog]

Back in the '60s/'70s I knew several guys who went from Texas to Colorado for elk. Their reasoning for such as the 7mm Rem Mag was the flatter trajectory for long shots.

Heh, are those the same guys that would shoot an animal on a nearby hillside, and not realize the steep mountainsides with the river at the bottom that were between them and the animal? My dad told me about hunters like that who shot elk and then realized they couldn't get to it, let alone get it out.

 

[Cryogaijin]

In alaska, we call those "pre-tenderized"

'course bear listen for the sound of falling game. . .

 

[303tom]

I just roll my eyes & walk away.................

 

[axxxel]

Over at a Swedish gun board I often frequent there's a thread about a trip to South Africa that a member made a few years ago. Lots of pics of dead wildebeest, eland and such shot by the 6,5x55. Not even a mention of underkill, blood trails or wounded animals.

A decent hole through the lungs of most mammals leads to a rather swift death.

 

[Dr T]

As with most things, I tend to agree with Art on this one.

As a little more insight (and having been initially trained as a pure (not applied) mathematician), there is often a big gap between theoretical knowledge and empirical observation. In the real world, empirical observation ALWAYS wins.

Sounds like like the OP encountered someone who had some theoretical knowledge based on marketing hype, then acquired the means to indulge his passion based on this knowledge. It probably not the guy's own fault. He may not have ever been in a situation where he needed to feed the rest of his family and only had a box of 22 shells (which he had to make last) and a single shot rifle.

That experience can definitely color your perceptions of what you can do with a particular cartridge.

 

[Resist Evil]

I have only been hunting for fifteen years, maybe. Always modest of means, I shopped for my first (and only, thus far) rifle not knowing at what ranges I would be hunting for any or all of the three animals in which I was interested. Without advice, I researched calibers and settled on the one that seemed to shoot the flattest and had a Nosler Partition bullet. I was woefully ignorant about holdover and such, so rather than fret about it, I chose the 7mm Rem Mag.

After taking pronghorn, deer, and elk during the intervening years, added to a lot of reading and conversations, I've concluded that a smaller, lighter rifle would be quite appropriate.

It seems to me that much of the hullabaloo about hunting calibers is mostly based on ignorance and the willingness to be led by the nose by ignorant or devious salespersons in spite of living in an era of a plethora of information sources easily availed.

 

[Dr T]

Man is an experimenter. Experimentation in the quest of some goal (accuracy, hunting efficiency, or adaptation to available resources) has driven technology development for centuries. Why do we now have compound bows, rather than recursive, or longbows? And, on a practical level, what is the real difference among a 6.5 x 55, .260 Remington, and 6.5 Creedmoor?

Experimentation is fun!

However, the evaluation of such experimentation is best left to field experience, rather than to theoretical musing. If you cannot do the evaluation yourself, you are left to learn from those experiences of others. And face it, many new cartridges introductions made since the end of WWI have been done to sell more more guns, not to fill unique niches. If a 338 LM will round out your collection of Savage rifles, go for it.

But a rationalization based on a marginal difference (at best) in cartridge performance is just an excuse to buy another toy.

That said, I wonder if I need another 308, maybe with a longer barrel so it will have more velocity....

 

[jrdolall]

I have a dear friend that has killed untold elk in Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Arizona and Montana in his 50+ years of hunting and guiding. He has killed so many that he once was able to stay at a Federal facility for over a year as a "guest" of our government for violations. Of course he grew up when laws, if there were any, were absolutely not enforced and he continued that course after they began to enforce them. This was about 25 years ago. His go to weapon for Rocky Mountain Elk is a Winchester Model 70 in .243. He owns Magnums of various sizes but every time I see him or talk to him about a hunt it is using that beat up old .243 with a Leupold scope on it.
The biggest I have ever used to kill an animal is a 7mag and that was all the recoil I ever needed. I participated in a Bison hunt(as a driver not a shooter) several years back and both hunters had .243s. I live in the Southeast and mostly shoot whitetails but I have ventured out West enough times to know that elk seldom have full body armour and their lungs are no tougher than any other lungs. I could care less what anybody shoots because I don't believe in "too much" gun for game animals(other than maybe squirrels and rabbits with a 300). A whitetail that is shot through the lungs with a .243 is just as dead but no deader than one shot in the same place with a .50 cal. DRT is always my goal and I achieve it 90% of the time using a 30-06, .243 or 6.5 Swede.

 

[silicosys4]

Hmm, Elk are big, hard to kill, and find godawful places far from roads in which to die. (Pacific NW in the scrubs, not some scenic mountainside in Colorado)
The ability to take long shots in imperfect conditions are a must, as is the ability to DROP an elk even with a marginal shot, before it has a chance to head down into the nearest swamp/canyon to die.
I'm moving up a caliber from .300 winmag, not down. There are people here who hunt with .458's and 416's, and that's perfectly understandable here.
Hope you all can forgive my snobbery, but in my PERSONAL EXPERIENCE I have found the 30-06 to be merely marginal for hunting Pacific NW elk.
You say "shot placement" and I'll show you my fathers last elk that has a 30-06 hole in its ear and out its forehead, that still managed to run(stagger) 75-80 yards before it dropped. My last elk took a 30-06 round to the backbone right above the shoulders, blew a vertebra to pulp and paralyzed her back half, and I had to run out and finish her off before she dragged herself into heavier cover with her front legs...
Shot placement only goes so far before you are crossing ethical boundaries, and counting on luck as much as skill.

 

[Dr T]

You have to follow your own field experience. For example, I have killed more deer (30+) with a 6 mm Remington before I started handloading. I moved up, first to a 30-40 Krag, then a 270 Win (then a 30-06, then 7 mm 08, then a 300 Weatherby Mag, then a 308), because the factory 100 gr Remington bullets kept breaking up badly.

Now that there are vastly better bullets available, I may drop back to a 243 next year.

I will admit that it helps to know your terrain well, have the opportunities to choose your shots, and hunt in a 5 deer county in West Texas.

If it were a once-in-a-lifetime hunt or an area where you may only get one shot a season, I would tend to use more gun to cut down on the margin of error.

 

[Bio-Chem]

Those are pretty cool stories, and i'm being very serious with that, not trying to be a punk at all. I just wonder, if you blow an elks brains out with a 30-06, and it still runs off would a 300 win mag done any different? personally i'd be happy with 70 yards with an elk.

 

[morcey2]

Hmm, Elk are big, hard to kill, and find godawful places far from roads in which to die. (Pacific NW in the scrubs, not some scenic mountainside in Colorado)
The ability to take long shots in imperfect conditions are a must, as is the ability to DROP an elk even with a marginal shot, before it has a chance to head down into the nearest swamp/canyon to die.
I'm moving up a caliber from .300 winmag, not down. There are people here who hunt with .458's and 416's, and that's perfectly understandable here.
Hope you all can forgive my snobbery, but in my PERSONAL EXPERIENCE I have found the 30-06 to be merely marginal for hunting Pacific NW elk.
You say "shot placement" and I'll show you my fathers last elk that has a 30-06 hole in its ear and out its forehead, that still managed to run(stagger) 75-80 yards before it dropped. My last elk took a 30-06 round to the backbone right above the shoulders, blew a vertebra to pulp and paralyzed her back half, and I had to run out and finish her off before she dragged herself into heavier cover with her front legs...
Shot placement only goes so far before you are crossing ethical boundaries, and counting on luck as much as skill.

Everything you just described is absolutely lousy shot placement.

 

[silicosys4]

Everything you just described is absolutely lousy shot placement.

First time I've heard dead center CNS shots as "absolutely lousy"

No, I Hit right where I aimed and so did my father. Did exactly what they were supposed to, drop with minimum of tracking/running. Running 70 yards after a head shot was surprising, to say the least. My point, and my opinion, when you hit an animal in the head or spine with a round in the way those animals were hit, it should kill or immobilize it, or you aren't using enough gun.
Thanks for your silly, nonsensical, non-contributions to this thread.

 

[morcey2]

Dude, what you are smoking? Dead center head and spine are "absolutely lousy shot placement"? First time I've heard of perfect Central Nervous System hits being described as "absolutely lousy". I Hit right where I aimed and so did my father. Did exactly what they were supposed to, drop with minimum of tracking/running. Running 70 yards after a head shot was surprising, to say the least. My point, and my opinion, when you hit an animal in the head or spine with a round in the way those animals were hit, it should kill or immobilize it, or you aren't using enough gun.
Thanks for your silly, nonsensical, non-contributions to this thread.

I don't consider any headshot or spinal cord shot to be ethical, especially a spinal cord shot. They are too small of targets. I've seen too many deer with their jaws blown off. Just because you hit where you were aiming doesn't make it good shot placement. A severed spinal cord will not kill any animal where they're standing, but will make the animal a suffer significantly before you can get to it to actually kill the poor thing. It's no different than having to put down one that was hit by a car and broke it's back. Been there, done that.

I've also seen too many deer with their bottom jaws blown off or part of their snout missing. They end up starving to death. If you're within 50 yards, the animal isn't moving and there's no wind, maybe a head shot. But if you're that close, poke it through both lungs and probably the heart. If it does run, it won't run far. Just be sure to use a bullet that won't explode once it hits a bone.

The only deer that my dad shot, he shot it in the head. Why? Because no one taught him any better. BTW. If you did hit "dead center head" with a 30-06 on an elk, most of the head would be gone. Doesn't sound too "dead center" to me.

Heart & lungs. That way you're shooting something the size of a basketball (at least) instead of shooting at a softball attached to a garden hose and hoping for something.

Matt

 

[silicosys4]

delete: repost

 

[silicosys4]

delete: repost