outdoor338

I have hunted with a 357. Magnum, what do you use or suggest for deer or elk? I have heard of so many different caliber's, what say you?

Dr. Mike

bigbulls

Most folks will say that the 44 mag is the minimum for elk. If I were to hunt elk with a hand gun though I would rather have something like a 480 Ruger, 454 cassul, 475 Linnenbaugh, 500 S&W.

1eyedfish

Here you couldnt use a 357 or 44 mag (most loads arent even going to come close to the minimum energy,killing power(as recomemded by game& fish at 100 yds) to take deer- let alone elk.

If i could aford it id go with those recomended by bigbulls or a 45/70 or those pistols that use rifle calibers.

bigbulls

Yeah 1eyed, Sportsmans warehouse here in Denver have a few revolvers that are chambered in 45-70, 444 Marlin and 450 Marlin[] That would certainly do it huh. Just wear a wrist brace when you shoot it. How would you sight one of those in? I think I'd have to leave that to someone else. I wouldn't be able to type to you guys after taking a shot with one of those. OUCH!!!!

Nomercy

I'd trust a .44mag in a Ruger on elk for sure-handloaded up to some real barn burners...otherwise I'd take my .454Cassul...I had one of the BFR .45-70's, talk about a bad idea-yeah it's a great conversation piece, and fun to go out and shoot around, but as far as hunting goes, it was never my first choice, there are a lot of lighter, smaller, less punishing guns out there that would get the job done on elk and deer-I've never used my .44mag's on elk, but on deer and sick cattle, it's pretty potent.

The .480Ruger is great too, I loved the Super redhawk I had in it, it's every bit as powerful-if not moreso in most loadings, than the .454cassul, and the recoil is much nicer (harder, but not as sharp, so perception of it is much lighter), my only complaint with it is that there isn't a ".480spcl", with a .357mag, .44mag, .454cassul, you always get a little brother to shove in there to practice with, the .480 doesn't have that, and 90% of the shooting I did with it didn't require that much power.

1eyedfish

I agree i know im at least NOT going to be firing a 45-70,444 etc in a sixgun/revolver much either lol .

But i still might pick up a 45-70 barrel for a contender pistol sometime.

44 mag hot handloads would work fine i think your right, but when hunting how do game& fish wardens decide if its enough cartrige if most? factory ones would not meet there min requirment of 500 ft lbs of energy at 100 yards?(even if you dont plan on shooting that far of course dosnt matter lol)
I dont know what they do then - but i never ran into that situation i always have a rifle too.
guess it depends on the warden etc too. while bp hunting in nystate they had a friend fire it into the ground to see if i was using anything but round balls - i too was using a shotgun & it was checked to see if it was a rifled barrel*& mag capasity etc

Maybe they got rid of some of those laws? or gotten more[]

hardcastonly

Ive managed too kill two elk with a 44 mag revolver over the last 12 years, finding a legal elk you can get into easy pistol range of, is much harder than killing elk with a hard cast 300 grain bullet from a 10" 44 mag revolver

I used a 21 grain charge of H110 under a LEE 310 grain hard cast 44 cal. bullet seated out to the lower crimp groove
(btw 95% WW alloy and 5% pure tin)

don,t get hung up on velocity just get the most accurate load, proper shot placement is critical, elk are not bullet proof, you simply need to place the shot well, know elk anatomy and don,t shoot until your well with-in the range you can place the shot accurately from a field position for most guys thats under 75 yards.
don,t expect the elk to drop instantly, think more like archery even with great shot placement the two elk I shot ran 30-50 yards
you don,t need more power, both bullets were complete pass throughs

flags

You do realize this thread has been dead for 13 years don't you?

hardcastonly

people don't stop reading the threads simply because they are more than a couple days old , so adding useful info for anyone who might look for related info seems to be helpful to the guys researching related info

flags

Wrong. You would be better off starting a new thread. Very few of the members here will dig through info more than a decade old and many of the people that posted on that original thread have been gone for years. You are free to do whatever you want but this happens pretty often where a new member digs up a long dead thread and it immediately dies again. There is a reason they die in the first place. Stick around awhile and you'll see what I mean.

After all, how many people answered when you dug it up? Only one and that was me telling you to leave long dead threads dead.