New Elk Rifle

[Bucks_N_Yotes]

I am trying to decide what to get, a 7mm or a 300WSM or maybe even something else. Any Ideas? I aready have a .30.06 which can do the job, but I am tired of that one and ready to try something new.

 

What cal. do you prefer and why?

[ronaldo]

GET YOU A 300 WIN MAG!! They sure beat those oddball calibers and you can get bullets at circle k when you run out in the middle of an out of town hunt.

TRy that with a 300 short mag or a 7mm RUM.LOL

Ron

[azhuntnut]

Ben, Look over these ballistic charts to get a better idea of what you might want. The 270wsm we talked about on the phone is on there also. David

http://www.gunsandammomag.com/ballistics/?...mp;x=13&y=3

[scoutm]

I don’t know anyone that has one but the round that intrigues me as a primary elk gun is the 325 WSM. It compares very favorably to both the 300 Win Mag and 338 Win Mag. I would imagine the cost of factory loads wouldn’t allow you to shoot it too often but if you hand load I believe it would make an awesome Elk Gun. One problem is there aren’t too many manufacturers that chamber the 325 WSM – Kimber, Browning and Winchester for the most part.

 

All the others calibers mentioned are great as well.

 

I have a 300 WSM. I’m excited to see how it shoots the Federal 130 grain Barnes TSX bullets – 3500 ft/sec at muzzle. If it shoots those well, it’s going to make a great WT load.

 

[firstcoueswas80]

Yep. That 325 wsm is one interesting round. Personally, I like to put big holes into elk.. My elk rifle is a 30-06 with either 168/180 TSX or 180 Accubonds.

[AzHunt]

Go out and buy a Kimber 8400 Montana in the 300 WSM. This rifle was actually designed around the WSM family of cartridges. The Montana in 300 WSM weighs in at just over 6 pounds without a scope. Recoil is manageable. I look at a light rifle this way, when I have shooting at an elk, I will never feel the recoil, however, when I am hiking into an area, I will feel every pound of rifle all day long. Out of the box accuracy is amazing on these rifles as well.

[Hooked_on_Coues]

338 Winchester Magnum.

 

Inherently accurate, proven and all around good caliber for elk and other big things....

[Bucks_N_Yotes]

Thanks for all the ideas, I knew that there would be some great imput!

[skyhawkbowhunter]

300 ultra mag

[.270]

ok, listen up ya buncha amateurs. i'm gonna expound real wisdom and 'sperience on ya. if you're only 2 choices are the 7mm and .300 short mag, then go with the .300. it will shoot a bigger bullet faster. anytime you have the same case with different diameter bullets, the bigger bore will outshoot the smaller bore. simple physics. you have a .284 diameter bullet with say a 154 gr bullet and .308 diameter with a 150. the .308 cal bullet is shorter and fatter, has less bullet length in the lands, has a bigger bore for gas expansion, builds up less pressure and you can put more powder in it before you reach unsafe pressure and it will shoot faster. same reason a '06 with 150's will shoot faster than a .270 with 150's. same case, the fatter bullet shoots faster. now that we got that settled, why do you want to limit yourself to a short mag? these little fat cases sorta took over a couple years ago and i 'spearminted with em a little. never bought one, but did some reloading and shooting with em. the .270 short is real interesting because it is a lot hotter than the .270 win, that i love so much. not quite as hot as a weatherby, but weatherbys are for wierdos (see: bullwidgeon) and i refuse to be in that catagory. but the 7mm and the .300 short mags ain't as hot as either a 7mm rem mag or the .300 winchester. they shoot a little less powder and are maybe a little more efficient if you figure grains of powder to fps, and the non belted case has a little more theoritical inherent accuracy because it headspaces on the shoulder instead of the belt. but you can get a couple hundred more fps outta the regular old boys than you can out of the napoleon complex ammo. then they took the same little fat case and stuffed .32 cal, .257 cal, etc. in em and had a whole buncha stuff going on and folks went nuts for it, for awhile. looks like the .300 and the .270 have a chance to make it. i don't see any of the rest of em hangin' on for a real long time, because they just don't quite do what others will. if i was gonna get me a new elk gun, (remember i'm smarter than any o' you jokers) and didn't already have one, i'd get a .300 winchester in a real good gun. if i already had one, i'd get a .300 ultra mag. real impressive performer. 'spensive, but impressive. my oldest son bought a christensen carbon barrel and put a swarovski with all the crosshairs in it on top. we tinkered with bullets and decided to sit on the 180 gr nosler accubond. it's a pretty amazing combination. o' course i did the loadin', so whattaya 'spect? he killed a nice 6 by bull with it last year at 804 yards. real impressive. but again, i taught him how to shoot. so i guess it ain't that amazin'. the short mags are interesting and really were when they first came out. the .300 is a little hotter than an '06, but several hundred fps less than a win mag. the 7mm is a little hotter than a .280, but not as swift as the 7mm rem mag. they boast about less recoil. well duh, they shoot less powder. e=mc2 dudes. if you want to make a big bullet go fast, you hafta put a lotta powder behind it. the short mags are ok. but so is just about any centerfire, but don't get caught up in all the short mag rhetoric. and remember about how sensitive some calibers are to barrel twist. from what i've seen most of the .300 short mags have a fairly slow twist that might not stabilize a 180 very well. back around the turn of the last century a guy named newton realized that short fat cases were a good thing. he developed some really amazing cartridges, but they never took off for whatever reasons. folks have known for at least 100 years that short and fat can have some real good attributes. but when it all comes down to it, more powder=more speed. Lark.

[Red Rabbit]

Sunset,

 

Do you reload, or will you be limited to factory ammo?

What is you recoil tolerance? What have you shot that is comfortable or unpleasant?

What terrain and cover will you be hunting the elk in?

[Kilimanjaro]

that .325 is a sweet round.. my buddy took this badboy in Jan on our buff hunt up in Montana with his.. 3 shots pretty much touching right in the boiler room did the trick on this brute. I thought, and still do think that the round was on the light side for a fully mature bison bull, but it did the trick just as well as my 45-70.

 

If it'll put one of these bad boys down, it'll put a bull elk down in a heartbeat.

 

[KGAINES]

I shoot the 45-70 in the marlin lever guns and it is now my favorite round, Scottyboy I will be getting one of the Sharp's eventually. If you reload it has a lot of options and there are some really good factaory loads too, the new hornady leverevolution bullet works extremely well. My brother took his Coues with it last year with the .325 gr. leverevolution bullet, and like Scottyboy said he took a Buffalo with one and I think his was loaded with a blackpowder cartridge, you can correct me if I'm wrong. It is definately different than the 30-06, but it isn't a flat shooter.

[Bucks_N_Yotes]

Sunset,

 

Do you reload, or will you be limited to factory ammo?

What is you recoil tolerance? What have you shot that is comfortable or unpleasant?

What terrain and cover will you be hunting the elk in?

 

 

I reload as time permits, depends on the time of year. I can handle quite a kick, people say that i am built like a tank and I am a farmer. As far as the terrain, it differs from cross canyons about 400 to 600 yds across to heavy cover with open shooting lanes. It really depends on how my scouting goes down the road. I am comfortable taking shots around 500 to 800 yds, I have had alot of practice on yotes.

 

Does that help?

[AzHunt]

What about going with a .243 and getting closer to the elk?