jerry d

Thanks guys! Scott & Savage,yes I used to own a 30 .06 and in all honesty the recoil was managable.

txhunter58

And put a SIMS recoil pad on it and you won't notice the recoil of even the heavier bullets.

Folically Challenged

If I had a .270, I'd find a load it liked, & then I'd go shoot some elk, and I wouldn't think twice about it. If I was buying a new rifle for an elk hunt, I'd go bigger. In fact, I did - I got mea .30-'06. There are folks who will argue that I didn't go bigger, and the .270 will have more energy with such-and-such a load, and blah blah blah... The fact is that folks take elk every year with .25-06's, and .260's, and 6.5x55's, and 7mm-08's, and 7x57's, and everything else out there. If you put a non-varmint bullet into an elk's lung's, it's going to die. Heck, I've even heard-tell that one can kill them with arrows!

As we tell our students in Tae Kwon Do, "It's better to hit someone with a BB, than to miss them with a cannon."

IMO, recoil has to do more with how a rifle fits the shooter, than the cartridgefor which it's chambered. I've heard people say they had .300WM's that were easier to shoot than some .270's they owned, because of the stocks of their particular rifles. Find a rifle that fits you like a dream, with a good pad (Sims, Decelerator, Etc.), then practice with it - a lot!

FC

jerry d

Ok,let me through another one @ you guys,what do you about a .308 win for elk?

Scott Gags

Jerry I had a thought for a low recoil hard hitting round. Check out the performance of the 338 Federal.

http://www.federalpremium.com/products/rifle.aspx

The 338 Federal only has around a 45 Grain powder charge just like a 308. The lower powder charge will reduce recoil and the 338 bullet out of the 308 caseactually slightly outperforms standard factory 06 muzzle energy.
I would think the Triple Shock mentioned earlier by Stubblejumperin 338 caliber would give you a larger wound pathand lots of penetration that would be combination that is hard to beat for the amount of recoil generated. It would have a 275 yard point blank range which still decent.

stubblejumper

The triple shock expands best at higher velocities,so it may not be the optimum bullet for the 338 federal as far as creating a large wound channel is concerned.

Scott Gags

Expansion was more of a problem with the Barnes X than the Triple shock. See the comparison below with the Triple shock vs comp at only 2000 fps which is 300 yards with the 338 Federal.

http://www.barnesbullets.com/information/bullet-talk/x-citing-facts/

Scroll down and see the comparison titled: How Quickly Does Your Bullet Expand?

I am trying to keep meat damage down lately and this season I took a whitetail doe with the the 200 grain TSX in 30 caliber at approx 200 yards and the exit wounds looked normal. About the size of agolf ball.The doe only went approx 30 yards. The muzzle velocity was under 2600 FPS in this case and chest was still pretty tore up inside. If the TSX shoots accurately its terminal performanceis very hard to beat.

stubblejumper

My on game experience has been with the tsx and the mrx,not the original x.The tsx works great at high velocity,but does not expand as rapidly as impact velocities drop near 2000fps.I personally would not use the tsx at impact velocities below 2200fps or so if I wanted a large diameter wound channel.As for the comparison below,it was done on aluminum plate,not on animal tissue or any material resembling animal tissue.Since the game animals that I hunt aren't covered with aluminum plate,I am more inclined to trust my own experiences with real animals.
Below is a 180gr-.308" tsx that I recovered from an elk.It expanded to a maximum diameter of .800" with an impact velocity exceeding 2900fps.

GooseHunter Jr.

I think a .270 with a good quality bullet would be fine for elk. I take one as a back up to my .338WM. I handload the Nosler 140 grain Accubonds for the .270 and the shoot very well! It also make a difference on where you place the bullet.

Scott Gags

The comparison was of one inch of ballistic gelatin that is actually very similar to animal tissue and the aluminum wasjust .050 inches thick and was used only to record the bullet diameters for visual reference. As far as your experience with real animals it would seem to be limited to higher velocity impacts. My experience last fall was with a lower impact velocity of around 2100 fps on a thinner skinned whitetail than the elk the original poster intended to hunt. I would consider my experience much closer to the scenario at hand than yours.