Coastie,

I apologize for not responding to your post before your last one. Got busy and didn' t round up the time to respond -- would have said you are pretty articulate, level headed, and given your hunting local, and related game and experience, and family responsibilities that you are a stand up guy. I didn' t, the thread moved on, I responded or jumped in on the tail of ratherbehunting' s post and it appears it came off personal.

With that said, I' ll stand by that, " what works for deer don' t necessarily work well for elk" and the choice of a " generically enough" cartridge is relevant. And by " generically enough" I mean a cartridge that will work for the experienced and the non-experienced, will work near and will work " far" , will work with the perfect bench rest sniper/heart/lung short and will work with the bust' em right through the shoulder shot, something that can kill them " clean" and kill them " dirty" through obstacles (hide, ribs, shoulders, and imperfect angles). That kind of flexibility requires leaning to the " strong side" where PENETRATION is available.

Now for your questions:
-- " Just what rifle and round do you each individually use??"
I like the 338 Win Mag, for elk, I have used a 375 HH since my two boys now use my 2 338WinMags (they moved up from a 270 and a 30-06 and weight 165 lbs).

-- " What is your average shot distance?"
About 100 yards.

-- " What is the longest shot you would normally attempt?" , I like them close, under a 100 yards is wonderful and exciting; last year at 210 yards were my longest elk shots, I could get tempted up to 300 yards with a good rest and a stable target.

-- " With all of the 300 plus yard shots I keep reading about from these guys hunting Elk out there, just how much difference is there actually?"
As far as I am concerned your apparent tranlating of big calibers into long range shots is in error -- I DON' T go for that stuff; however, for my elk hunting " toolbox" I DO want all the absolute knock down power needed out to 300 yards just for flexiblity AND I want penetration for any angle come any situation. Myself and every elk hunter in my camp would rather have a close shot than a far one and that is what we build our primary hunting strategies around. I can' t speak for others you appear to be " quoting" .

-- " You don' t read about shots at 100 yds or less by these people, they are always shooting halfway across the state."
I don' t know who " they" is or " what/where" you are reading, but I would recommend a different source of journalism.

-- " A bad hit with a cannon wounds just as bad at those distances as poorly placed shots at closer ranges with lighter rifles."
No, make no mistake, a large magnum wounds worse -- even at the same velocity the Taylor KO index is higher (heavier, wider bullet) for the magnum. Nonetheless, it is not what you want and the elk could still get away but make no mistake -- the wound is worse.

-- " So how do you judge distance and angle any differently than the rest of us neophytes?"
I am an ambush hunter myself. I check my set up with a range finder, and for the most part all my avenues of opportunity are 200 yards or less so I can shoot straight on at anything with in the " kill circle" . For those avenues that are beyond 200 yards, I range find them, translate to bullet drop and burn that one in my mind as a possible but not preferrable alternative. Besides if he is that far away then someone else in our " picket line" will likely pick him up for a closer shot. That makes it easy to pass on it and it still ends up being " meat in camp" -- it don' t really matter much who shoots it, we all share equally in our take.

-- I like " thumper" rifles AND I like to do my killing in close -- don' t always happen that way, but that' s how I like it. Some folks have a hard time putting those two elements (magnums and close) together, I don' t.

BTW, I used the football analogy because there are many, many more people in this forum who are familiar with football than are familiar with elk hunting. Rather knew exactly what I was talking about.

Never Go Undergunned, Always Check The Sight In, Perform At Showtime,
EKM