It's more than you need for deer, but Its always good to have a little reserve in the tank. try useing barnes X bullets or nosler partitions. The reason I say this is that these two bullets stay together even after hitting bone, no explodeing bullet, no meat damage. W/ a 180 out of a 300win mag my brother put a bullet from the rear end hit the hip/femur joint , took out some ribs, then broke his sternum. All the way though the body andthrough his sternum,breaking several bonesand the only meat damage was about 2-2 1/2inches around the wound chanell. The 300WSM will definately do you better than the 270 for Elk, you wont be able to get neck shot every time, and when you dont that 300WSM is going to shine for you.