RE: Good Elk/Moose Gun
I honestly have to agree with bigbulls. If your friend can't handle the recoil from that 300WSM with all that recoil reducing gear on it, it would also be true that he couldn't even handle the recoil from a standard 30-06. Which I would consider as a minimum for moose. Yes, they can be taken with lesser cartridges like the 7-08, but from what I can assume, your 'friend' doesn't have the shooting/hunting experience to place one of these smaller bullets where it needs to be at the ranges you stated.
Eliminating recoil shyness and flinching can only be accomplished by a lot of practice and mental and physical control.
Also, IMO, all the game animals deserve our respect and need to be taken cleanly and dispatched quickly. This can only be done with a properly placed bullet with sufficient energy. Until your friend can do this, he better stick with shooting paper or deer with his 25WSSM.