Dangerous game, both long range out to 500 AND close in with heavy cover to bust through - tough combo eliminates a lot of calibers.
To do it right, you'll likely be adding a rifle to your deer gun collection - recommend 338mag or 375HH or equivalent (Weatherby's if you're flush), premium ammo - say High Energy from Federal. Bullets: go heavy and partitions at a minimum. Course someone it going to say that deer rifle you bought for little ole Bambi will do it all, just snipe their heart out - not too realistic.

Neither the 338 or 375 really kicks a much different from a HEAVY loaded 3 1/2 inch 12 gauge NON-auto, big teddy bears really. Odd that a 16 year old water fowler can handle the heavy 12 gauge, but suddenly in the case of a strong magnum rifle everyone seems to believe it takes a man of steel to deal with the recoil. My twins (19) both shoot 338mags (no muzzle breaks) for elk and weigh in at 160lbs. "Recoil? Dad, its just not a problem!" Factis most folks is just too plain cheap to add new tools to their hunting toolbox - it's much less expensive to rationalize the deer gun.

EKM

Good judgement comes from bad experience! Half of elk hunting is knowing what NOT to do!

Edited by - ELKampMaster on 11/28/2002 22:20:04