I agree, if your outfitter/guide can't get you within 300 yards... Find another.

My outfitter told me the same thing. Im not sure about the 7mm as I bought a 300 win mag for my hunt. I found that 165 gr hornady superformance shot very nicely in my gun. I sighted in at 350 yds and went to handloads.com and printed out ballistic info. It told me I would be 26" low at 550 yds. (6" high at 200) When i shot at 550 it turned out to be about 24 1/2" low. My shot came at 437 yds which meant i needed to hold high up on the body but not over. It was a one shot kill with the elk running less than 50 yds leaving an easy blood trail.

+ ..............48


BTW - I use a 139gr. Hornady SST

for what its worth i ended up shooting my elk at 250. he was spooked and running from other hunters. one shot went right thru both lungs and was lodged in the ribs on the opposite side. i was not impressed with the amount of damage done. it did require a followup shot as he got up from his bed but went down shortly in heavy cover where i finished him. i am sure he would have died in the first spot he laid down if i hadn't followed so soon. i have a 338WM coming as i do not want to have this happen again. i believe the problem was the relatively small bullets and lack of tissue damage. i know the 7 mag is a great caliber but i do think a little heavier won't hurt a thing. i guess that's what keeps us buying guns and ammo.

The cheap winchester super x 175 grainers work great for moose never shot an elk with a 7mm.

Congrats on the elk

In the sagebrush 300 to 600 yd shots are the norm not the exception!! It depends on where he is going to hunt, and to throw out a blanket statment to just find a differrent outfitter is not the answer! All elk are not found in the high timber, where a shot over 200 yds would be a long one, here in the desert it's kinda like huntin antlope no place to hide, and if ya crawl it's through a bunch of catus! I don't care what you say no guides gonns get you in real close on flat ground with no cover!!!!!

I shot my bull at about 70 yards with a handloaded 150gr nosler partition. Double lung, complete pass through, wobbled for about 15 seconds and tipped over!! If i was going to shoot that long of range though i would shoot a some sort of ballistic tip, and probably a heavier one at that.