Seems like a lot of the folks on this board are real worked up about shot placement versus bullets versus avoiding shoulder bones, so just as a clarification to my earlier mention of busting elk through the shoulder - I don't mean aim for the shoulder blade - just that you are going to need to get closer to it than with deer. If you study the elk shot placement charts an elk compared to a deer, the elk is cantalevered out forward over their front legs a bit and the heart and lungs follow suit and start to move in behind the shoulder a bit.

During a warm early season hunt, I came across a beautiful 6x6 bull early one morning that apparently been shot at dusk the night before with rigor mortis and bloating just getting started real good. The shot was through the ribs right behind the shoulder half way up his side, he ran far enough before he died that the hunter never got his trophy. Going lower and forward even at the risk of chewing up some "high quality" front quarter meat or tangling with some shoulder bones if necessary is a better bet in my mind. If the shot presented to you requires going through the shoulder blade/bone to hit the vitals, then the advantage goes to hunting with a heavier magnum (338mag or 375HH) with a quality bullet which lets you focus on the vital area and not worry about the bones.