back when I was rifle hunting them, I shot 12 elk with a .270 with hand loaded ammo. topped with the 150 Nosler partitions. Recovered every bullet. Longest shot was 250 yards, but only two required a 2nd shot.
I tried the 140 gr. Fail Safes one year, and it was the only bullet that went complete pass through on a cow at only about 35 yards.
I got ribbed a lot when I was the newbie in camp because I was the only one not using a .30 cal of some sort. Everyone would joke about "how many times do you pump that thing", But after a few years of killing elk, the ribbing went away.