RE: .308 underrated
It's a good little ole cartridge. Reasonably powerful and seemingly quite accurate. Not a hammer of Thor, but pretty good.
Our elk camp minimum is "30-06 power andpremium bullets." So 7mmRemMag, 308, 30-06....that is pretty good company, i.e.withpremium bullets.
The 7mmRemMag and the 30-06 have plenty of powder volume to accomodate the longer and heavier bullets whereas the 308, ah, not so much.... but it gets by.
That is the starting point; we go up from there, namely 338WinMags, 375HH, and 45-70 and from time to time.... just for s4!tz and grins, a 416 Rigby or 458 Lott. The veteran elk hunters in our group have gravitated to the heavier stuff. Overall, VERY short tracking jobs and accuracy seems to be no problem at all.... these guys can shoot and have the recoil management skills required.