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I cant say I have had the possibility to be in the predicament but you do make a good point.

Bow...come on....Elk have a kill zone the size of a toilet bowl...how hard could that be to hit at 80yds???[]

Well for me, I wouldn' t have hesitated with a 60 yard open shot on a bull elk, once the rangefinder said so....the difference for me is a whitetail has roughly a 6" kill zone, a bull elk has one almost the size of a garbage can lid....I was 12 ringing a McKenzie out to 75 yards but stopped with a 60 yard pin on my bow when I went out. I was shooting around 80ftlbs of KE with fixed blade Muzzy' s....that wouldn' t have been a problem....this is one' s man opinion and with all the practice, shooting, 3Ding...etc....I was 100% confident in the shot....that makes all the difference in the world....the bow was ready, the shooter was ready and I took my bull at 33 yards.

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I' ve always been a firm believer that if you can keep ALL of your arrows in a pie plate, no matter what the range, that was your effective range you could shoot at. I do however, believe there is a point that is beyond logic to shoot at. Like you, I believe that is 40 yards. Beyond that, there' s just too many variables. Like the animal moving, or, having enough energy left in the arrow to completely pass thru. It does no good to be able to hit a 2" circle at 80 yards, if it' s going to only penetrate an inch or so due to loss of energy.

I think you raise a good point about the effective penetration at 80 yards. For now I only deer hunt and 30 yards is about as far as I want to shoot. I think before I started shooting an elk at 80 yards I would want to know how much energy I am losing at that range. I think I would set up fresh 3D or foam target and compare the difference in penetration at 20 / 40 / 80 yards. Not too sure if it is any harder to penetrate an elk versus a deer given it is in the boiler room?

Lets be realistic here. Shooting at targets and a live animal is two completely different things. I know Rob is a sure shot at long range, but just how many archers REALLY can consistently hit a pie plate at 80 yards?

I' ve never actually been in the situation, but here' s how i' d approach it. Given a capable setup with enough KE, and if my ability to consistently hit a kill zone on elk was there, I' d probably shoot out to 50 yds, under the right field conditions. My understanding is that you don' t always get real close to an elk, just by the nature of the terrain etc, out west so its more acceptable to take longer shots as long as the shooter has the skills to do it.

Dealing with whitetails, I currently will shoot out to 25 yds with my current set up. Next year may hold a new bow in my future, but even if I can hit at further ranges, my personal limit will only go to 30 yds. 95% of the places I hunt I' m lucky to get a shot barely over 20, so mostly its a moot point.

I went to bowjackson.com and figured this out....

Yardage : K.E.
10 : 72
20 : 70
30 : 68
40 : 66
50 : 64
60 : 62
70 : 60
80 : 58
90 : 57
100 : 55

I' m shooting a Mathews FX @ 70# 29" draw 28" arrow. 100gr points. I read in another post that Gold Tip states 40 ft-lbs is required for a pass thru on deer and 50 ft-lbs for elk. If that hold true then I should theoretically be capable of passing thru and elk at 100 yards.....I do' t condone shooting anything with a bow that far out, but based on the nubmers it' s possible. Just some food for thought.