I agree with the others, 30 yards seems to be the average. That's about all the farther I will shoot at live game. When I first started in archery not that long a go, I thought killing a deer at 40 or 45 yards would be easy. I had no problem grouping arrows at that distance. And as long as I new the distance my bow would hit right were I aimed it. But when I actually started setting my bow up to hunt with I noticed there are some major differences between hunting situations and target practice. Then When I actually started hunting I decided 30 yards would actually be pushing it for me.

Like the others said, there are so many variables that enter into it that it is different for every person. If you have a slower bow with heavier arrows you have to take that into consideration vrs a bow with much better speed. Longer distance shots with a slower bow would be much riskier. Not that it couldn't be done, but it would be at a risk. Your down range energy would drop off quickly and you would have little room for error in yardarge estemation. I use a laser ranger, but realistically you don't have time to range every shot and the deer move around on you making you have to change you point of aim before actually shooting. I like to range objects around my stand as a reference point when I am shooting. This works well up close. Get much beyond 40 yards though and things start to change. With my bow beyond 40 yards a mistake of 3 or 4 yards in estimation could cause some bad results. Having a faster bow would help a little, but not that much, especially if it was louder and harder to shoot or hold at full draw.

You will find that most like to shoot at 30 yards and in on white tails in the north and midwest and east. I think when you get out west things are a bit more open and it might be harder to get them that close, I don't know I live in Michigan. You will also notice that while most limit themselves to around 30 yards, most of the game taken is at 20 yards or closer. Especially with more experienced hunters. I think half the fun is seeing how close you can get the deer before you shoot it. That's what makes bowhunting so much fun and rewarding. It takes a great amount of skill to get deer that close and still be calm enough to take it with an arrow.

I don't know about elk, don't have any here so I never worried much about it.

Paul