I am posting this in the Big Game form because this topic is about elk huting with the proper tool.
My father is 65-years old. He has killed a bunch of elk over the years. He took me elk & deer hunting at a young age. We are still hunting partners today. He has always elk hunted with his 30-06 or 30-30. He started me out hunting with a Winchester model-94 30-30. After a few years he bought me a "do all gun" a 270-winchester.
Soon after I got my first job I bought a Ruger M-77 300-Win mag. I topped it with a Leupold Vari X-II 3x9x40mm scope. His reaction, "what are going to kill with that cannon, Elephants".
Well after many years of elk hunting with him, He told me if he were going to buy a "elk hunting rifle he would buy a 338-win mag."
He went on to say that over the years he has had to let several elk walk because the shot was not right for the rifle he was packing. He said in real life elk just don't stand there & give you that perfect "outdoor channel pose." We talked for hours about matching the caliber & bullet to the game you hunt. He feels a .338-caliber is the best choice for elk hunting. He said he would still use his 30-06, but he would only use it for deer hunting. I asked him why he had changed his mind after all of these years? I asked him if he wounded an elk & never found it? He told me he has never wounded an elk he could not find. He did tell me he has wounded two deer he could not find. One was wounded with the 30-30 (about 20-years ago) & one was wounded with the 30-06 (about 5-years ago). He said with all of the choices on the market today it is easy to have the right tool for the job.
I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks.

Wolfkiller,

A lot of hunters today let sentimentality (or reloading book "blurbs") get in the way of picking superior tools for the job. Obviously your dad has no such constraints and is indeed "young at heart (and mind)." No doubt watching you "bust 'em" with that 338WinMag all these years might have had something to do with it. Thanks. Gotta love it.


EKM

Can't say that I would have used the 30-30 but I don't see anything wrong with useing the 30-06. IMO the 30-06 is the correct tool for the job of elk hunting.

I highly doubt that the bullet failed to perform just as it should have when he wounded the two deer. I suspect that a bullet ended up going where it should not have and I doubt that a .338 gut shot deer would have died any faster. Not saying that your father can't shoot just that i have never seen an animal that was hit in the lungs and/ or heart simply walk away.

The fact of the matter is that a 30-06 is way way more gun than is needed to hunt deer and if the 338 WM is what is needed for elk then we may as well not even use the well proven 30-06 any more. Or the 280, 308, .270, 6.5 Sweed, 300 savage, 7mm mauser, 7mm-08, 8mm mauser, etc...

I sure do feel bad for the guys that elk hunted back in the 1950's and earlier before they started coming out with all of these super magnums. Poor guys shouldn't have even been in the elk woods being that they were so inadequately prepared to knock them off their feet.

Maybe back then they actually did more hunting than shooting.

If a person wounds animals with light kicking guns like the 30-06 and such what makes a 338 or larger any better? You just wound them with a bigger bullet. Wounding is wounding no matter what bullet is used.

I always here that big magnums are what is needed to kill an elk yet every year my hunting group as well as other elk hunters we know consistantly do it with regular old cartridges the largest of which is a 7mm Rem mag.

I also always hear about elk not giving good shot oportunites and you need a big bullet go get through stuff like guts to get to the boiler room. Well if you aint got a good shot you aint got a good shot. I don't see how it makes it any more ethical to shoot an elk with a 338 that is offering a bad shot than it is with a 30-06. The logic just isn't there.

We rehash this thing over and over every year, and I agree heartily with Bigbulls. Calibers from .270 and up are wonderful elk rounds.

bb,

That is a very passionate diatribe you just delivered.[]

7mmRemMag is the biggest in camp, eh? [Good round BTW]

Then, speaking of logic, it sounds like that means you and your hunting mates haven't had the chance to witness (thru the years and in a mixed crowd for a multi-datapoint comparison) the handiwork of these more powerful cartridges. Wolfkiller's dad on the other hand has seen the two schools of hunting operate next to each other for some time and reached a conclusion from that. We instituted a 30-06 minimum for elk camp, BUT that was after we tolerated the "mixed bag" of cartridges (large and small) over the years and THEN it was from that which we drew our conclusions.

Would your group be a kinda of a "closed society" in regard to this issue? I believe that would likely mean you are formulating your opinion in somewhat of a vacuum without any/much reasonable amount of first hand or close, close second hand experience (as in you were standing RIGHT THERE when the other guy shot) regarding the very cartridges you are condemning.

Just trying to figure it out.
Last year I kinda felt like the "lone stranger" on this topic.
Not so this year. It seems like I'm getting more and more company.

EKM

Wolf killer I wish I had your luck with my dad. He has kill a lot of deer and some elk with a 7 mag and a 06, but he always buys the cheapest ammo he can find. I told him I would reload for him, and he wanted to know what were the cheapest bullets were in price. I told him that in the money he would save in reloading he could afford to shoot a premium bullet such as a nosler partition. But does he listen to me, heck no,[:@] instead he goes out and tries to find remington corelocks to reload with. Luckily for me he couldn't find any to reload and instead bought the cheapest hornaday. Anyway I agree with the caliber decision, I know that a lot of elk have been killed by the 30-30 and the 30-06 combined, but like your father a person needs to wait for the right angle/perfect shot. A hunter also needs to be willing to pass on a shot opprotunity if all is not just right, and thats not easy to do in the heat of the moment with a trophy animal such as elk. If I am going to do that I will just use my bow. With the few times that I do rifle hunt I want someting that will reach out and clobber them off their feet. But I do not judge or have no problems if someone wants to use a lesser caliber, after all my favorite wepon of all is nothing but a stick and a string in its primitive form.

Amen idahoelkinstructor. You hit the nail on the head. nothing beats the penetration of a well tipped broadhead.

Well I guess my logic is why would I feel the need to use a 53 foot tractor trailer when a 15 foot flat bed will do the job just as well.
Absolutely not. We welcome people of all "calibers" in our camp so long as they can hunt and shoot. We would not exclude someone because of their choice of cartridge but we will exclude someone for being an idiot and an irresponsible hunter regardless of how much gun they are carrying.

It seems that every year more and more people are going to these super magnums and what do they gain? Recoil, muzzle blast, more expensive and harder to find ammo, etc... Yet they are not hunting anything bigger than they did in years past with "lesser" cartridges with perfectly good results.

A buddy down here just reamed out his 7mm Rem mag to 7mm STW. For what? Because someone else he knew has one and he had to have one too. Yet he does not shoot past a few hundred yards and he only hunts whitetails.

I am not saying that a 338 WM is not an excelent choice for elk cause it certainly is but IMO so is the 30-06. I am also not against useing any of these magnums and super magnums. I built myself one last year, 300 WSM, though I don't consider it a super magnum, just new. But to say that the 30-06 is not adequate or should be a minimum for elk in todays world of ultra magnums when it has such a proven track record with everything from rabbits to elephants is absurd.

It seems that everyone is wanting to "reach out there and clobber them off their feet" instead of hunting the animals and making a good shot. More and more people are relying on ultra speed and bigger bullets to make up for their own short comings in the field when what they should be doing is spending time at the range and in the field shooting.

I guess I would rather hunt the animal then shoot them a mile away. It seems though. I am becoming a rare breed.


A sharp broadhead does make the best bullet, I whole heartedly agree.

BigBulls,

Sometimes more power helps, like this year on my moose hunt. On the sixth day in the bush, we were actually waiting for some maurading grizzly bears that had managed to take most of our caribou. We were determined to end our bear problems right there that evening. Well, I am watching down river, and calling for moose just to pass the time. Out walks a nice 48 -inch bull. My buddy was right beside me as we were actually hunting bear that evening. We decided we take the bull, so I went ahead and shot him. I shoot a .338 RUM mostly because moose are big but grizzlies are big and have the habit of occaisonally chewing on hunters. Anyway, I hit that moose solid in the lungs. He just stood there. Moose are very phlegmatic creatures, and not too prone to panicking. The old timers also say it don't matter if you shoot them with once or five times, it takes two minutes to bleed them out. Anway, old bullwinkle is headin for the river cause momma always taught him in danger that is where to be. I had no real desire to handle a 1200 Yukon moose in the water, and neither did my buddy Scott. Shoot him again NOW! he tells me. So I put one in his neck at about 220 yards. Down like a ton of ...well, like a ton of moose he goes. He lays down and expires his nose about six inches in the water. You can see the pic I poster here to verify.


Upon butchering, I found out I never hit a bone. I am a biologist and have done more than my share of necropsies. There was no bone that broke, no severe blood vessel damange. Still, the shock from that 250 Swift A frame moving at 3000 fps had put the moose DOWN! That was good, because if he had not, it would have been dangerous to butcher in the river and I probably would have lost some if not most of the meat. As it stands, I just had a nice, delicious, tender moose roast for dinner.

The big calibers have their place and their usage, but you certianly do not NEED one to kill an animal, but if you can handle them well, and can afford to shoot them, why not?

Bigbulls,
I don't think you are a rare breed. I myself want to hunt them, (ELK) instead of shooting them a mile away. But that is why I mostly bowhunt. My last 3 bowkills have all been under 20 yards, the closest being 3 yards away. Very cool, very exciting!!! A lot, if not all of the bow hunters think along the same lines. So why have a rifle hunt? And why have a rifle that can reach out and clobber them. Well there are times that I or others don't have the time to bowhunt. This year I only had 3 Days to elk hunt for myself. I did hunt with my wife on her hunt for 12 days, but that was her hunt, not mine. On my hunt I was invited by my in-laws on their general bull hunt. Lots of hunters and new country for me. It all added up to not good odds for me. Now if a bull elk were to step out at 500 or 600 yards away and was broadside, I wanted a gun that could get the job done. That is why I bought a 300 RUM this year. And it is my only big game rifle because I haven't had the need for one for a lot of years. As it turned out the bulls were still talking opening day, Oct. 15, and I called my bull into me at 70 or so yards. Yes a 30-06 or even a 30-30 could have worked just fine. But I liked having the bigger gun just in case, things were not right. And it was nice that the bull dropped like a rock at the shot. Not trying to start a war and definately not wanting to offend you, just trying to explain my reasons for owning and using the rifle that I have now. Thanks, Idahoelkinstructor