It's not the weight of the bullet that is the most important thing to consider. I look at bullet construction and let that decide which bullet weight I am going to use.

If the bullet is constructed so that it retains 100% of its initial weight then you can use light for caliber bullets to kill very large animals. There are two bullets that come to mind and they are the Barnes and failsafe. Either of these two bullets will be just fine for elk in 150 grain weights.

Some lead bullets such as the Trophy bonded bear claw and Swift A-frame are designed to shed very little weight when traveling through an animal so they penetrate as well or better than bullets of heavier weight but of lighter construction, such as your power points. In this case a 165 grain bullet in either of these will do well on elk.

With more conventional bullets such a power point, game king, nosler partition, core lokt, etc... Or even the new bonded core bullets like the accubond and interbond. I would choose to use a 180 grain bullet because they will shed a good ammount of their weight when traveling through bone and muscle. I add the partition to this list because the front core looses most or all of its weight leaving only the rear core to penetrate to the other side of the animal. I also added the accubond and interbond bullets here because while they retain a large ammount of their original weight they also are designed to expand into very large diameters which hinders penetration.

With todays bullets there is absolutely no reason at all to use a bullet weighing more than 180 grains in any 30 caliber rifle. If a 180 grain bullet won't get the job done then you need a .338.


I hope this helps you out some. And to answer your question dorectly i would not choose to use a 150 grain power point on elk out of a 30-06.