The best rifle/claiber for elk? Theone you own, the one you can shoot well, the one that you can put the bullet into the chest and shut down the essential boiler room equipment. All you realy need is to do an in/out sucking chest lung hit and the elk is yours. The only real thing other than that, is make sure that the hole is big enough. Anything thats 7mm to 338 in diameter shot at a distance that still gives a 1000 lbs of energy at the strike distance works.