Elk hunting
Can I legaly hunt with a scope if i'm useing a blackpower rifle in new mexico
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Some friends are going to WY soon to archery hunt. Then they are going back later with rifles for a later hunt and also have cow tags. One has a 300 Win Mag and his brother is taking a 338 Win Mag that I already own and reload for. Any ideas on the best combo of bullet-powder for elk in 300 Win Mag and the 338 Win Mag too.I've loaded a few for this (338) Rem 700 and they had quite a thump so I loaded some reduced loads with cast bullets and IMR 4759 to play.Any advise would be appreciated. BS 0 -
well, i once(a few months ago) watched an elk hunting program on a certain outdoor channel. the person doing the hunting was using a marlin 336 stainless 30-30, steel sights, using hornady's leverevolution ammo. the elk was hit with one round in the front quarter(kill shot). no follow up shot needed. it fell over, four hooves in the air and never drew another breath. the most amazing hunt that i have ever seen. personally, i never would have thought that a 30-30 round could manage to kill an elk. like a lot of other children growing up in a hunting family, i was taught that 30-30 was a deer hunting round and that it could never kill anything bigger. that program was meant for my eyes to see. i never would have believed it otherwise. im a believer in Hornady now. just my two cents. 0 -
hello bsthedeerhntr. one question. what does your rifle shoot the best? if you hand load it's not too hard to determine what bullet and powder performs best. only takes a short while to conduct the test. example:
i drew a 300 win. mag in a raffle couple years back so i started with 180 gr speer mag tip bullets. (uniformed the primer pockets and deburred the flash holes in some winchester brass) then started with the lowest load recomended in a speer loading manual for that grain bullet. using imr 4895 made three rounds at that velocity. increased the powder charge by 1/2 grain, made three more rounds. increased the powder charge by 1/2 grain and so on and so on until i had eighteen rounds.i kept them seperated in groups of three with the powder charge recorded for what they were. off to the range. i like to draw 2" by 2" crosses with a majic marker on the back side of a regular target evenly spaced then fire three rounds (starting with lowest velocity at one cross and working my way through the rounds and crosses allowing two minutes between shots to let the barrel cool.) of course i save the paper and make notes of which velocity was shot at which cross for future reference and to see which load gives me the best group. sometimes you get lucky and hit on a good load. sometimes it takes several different powders and bullets. to make a long story short i finally found that hornady 150 gr. btsp with 71 grains of h4350 would give me a slightly less than a one inch group (three shots @ 100 yrds). this is the load i choose to use in my .300 winny. there is obviously alot more to the story concerning conographing, making a range chart, how i clean the rifle, what range i set zero at,etc. but all of this is personal preferance. i like to find out what round the rifle shoots best and go from there. hope you haven't fallen asleep.0 -
bsthedeerhunter,
I would move to H1000 for powder. With the .300 Win mag you will get best trajectory and good energy with the 180 gr. bullets. You could go with the 165's or 200's in Partition or Accubond and 165, 168 and 180 in BT. Sierra makes a 165, 180 and 200 in SBT and HP Gameking and pro hunter. Good bullets I don't care what anyone says. Hornady makes them in 165 ,180 and 200 gr. SP and BTSP and Interbond. All very good bullets. The .338 has 200-250 gr. bullets pushed around 2750 up to 2950 (heaviest to lightest) from each of the makers.
The big thing when shooting elk is to hit them in the kill zone. I've had numerous people tell me the only way to hit them is through the shoulders. I don't believe this personally, but I haven't hunted elk year in and year out.
EDIT:
quote:Originally posted by airmung
Greetings,
Garth is right. I've killed many elk with a .30-06 which I prefer as about the best all-around hunting cartridge. I have shot a few with a .300 Savage and it worked just as well. But Dad's elk gun was a 94 in .25-35 and he killed many more elk with it than I probably ever will. Indians up north kill moose with rimfires and .243's. A friend of mine with a shoulder injury uses a .257R for elk with great success.
Monster magnums are not required to kill elk, except maybe at extreme ranges. Shot placement is. No elk will go very far with a solid lung shot, no matter what the caliber (well, within some reason, anyway). I have seen one big bull go for a long ways (2 1/2 days tracking time) with a completely shattered front shoulder, however. If the shot presents itself, a lung shot is the way to go even if it a quartering away shot. Shoulder shots often stop an elk, but who wants to wreck all that meat? Good elk is better than good beef.
Right on!0 -
Why go back?Just get there elk with there bows.I have taken 7 bull elk with a recurve bow, they arn't hard to kill with good shot placement any good modern bullet over 150 gr.in a 300 win.will work,or in a 30-30 with a lung shot and some tracking skill,(not that I think the 3030 is an elk rifle) just don't shoot past your ability.The mag.hype is just writers and editors selling guns. 0 -
I will second some idea's of sandwarrior with the 300 Win Mag. He speaks with great experience. I on the other hand like the Barnes XLC, or TSX bullets, if your rifle likes them. A 150 grain or 165 grain bullet in the XLC, or TSX configuration will do the work of a a 180 grain conventional bullet. I like a good healthy dose of IMR 4350 to get the bullet in flight. It gives good loading density, accuracy, and top velocities. I also do agree, on putting it BEHIND the leg into the kill zone, using the off shoulder as your invisable target of choice. You will destroy the vitals, and break the off shoulder...not to much tracking required. If the Barnes do not shoot well in your rifle, my next choice is the Accubond by Nosler.
Best, and good luck,0 -
My experience hunting Elk is zero. So you can chalk up this advice as "idle speculation". [;)]
That said, I think historically speaking, by far the most popular Elk cartridge is the old 30'06, and that round has probably killed more North American Elk than any other. Consider also that if you're going to be hunting in the woods, you probably aren't going to be taking a shot past 100 yards.
So relax. Given the above, pretty much *ANY* magnum powered load ought to be more than adequate.
So long as you are using the appropriate quality heavy bullet, and you've loaded it to at least '30-06 level ballistics, you should be good to go.
If you want more power, that won't hurt (well. . .it won't hurt anything OTHER than your shoulder [;)]) but if you do your job properly, you probably won't need it.
As mentioned the most important thing is just knowing where to place the shot, and having the discipline not to take a shot you aren't certain you can make (ie beyond your skill level).
By the way, in my purely speculative opinion, unless you are hunting wide open spaces, it shouldn't make a lick of difference if your chosen load groups 1" at 100 yards or 3". An elk's heart (as a frame of reference) has got to be at least 5-6" in diameter, with the total heart/lung vital area at least 4x that size.0 -
I've shot alot of elk in the last 40 years with a 300 Win Mag, 180gr Nosler Partician (or Accubond), 75gr H4831SC and a Win WLRP primer. My addvice is to start at 73grs and work up, looking for presure signs. My old 300 will still shoot sub MOA at 100yds with this load, as stated, all you have to worry about is minute of elk. I've never lost an elk with this load, some have walked off, but not far. I live in the Cascade mountains of Washington State, since the spotted owl and all the tree huggers showed up, we no longer have clear cut logging. There are very few places you can see more than 200yds. I've quit using the 300 Win, and now shoot a 45-70.
For what it's worth.
W.D.0 -
Greetings,
Garth is right. I've killed many elk with a .30-06 which I prefer as about the best all-around hunting cartridge. I have shot a few with a .300 Savage and it worked just as well. But Dad's elk gun was a 94 in .25-35 and he killed many more elk with it than I probably ever will. Indians up north kill moose with rimfires and .243's. A friend of mine with a shoulder injury uses a .257R for elk with great success.
Monster magnums are not required to kill elk, except maybe at extreme ranges. Shot placement is. No elk will go very far with a solid lung shot, no matter what the caliber (well, within some reason, anyway). I have seen one big bull go for a long ways (2 1/2 days tracking time) with a completely shattered front shoulder, however. If the shot presents itself, a lung shot is the way to go even if it a quartering away shot. Shoulder shots often stop an elk, but who wants to wreck all that meat? Good elk is better than good beef.0 -
Rich,
I don't like tracking elk, they eat much better if you can drop them in thier tracks. Where I hunt, an elk walking 200yds after being hit can turn 3 hours work into 2 days work.
W.D.0 -
I think anything that weighs about 150 grains and travels about 2,700 fps will do the job. interesting to note, I read up on the most popular elk calibers about 1935 and listed were the 32 Special, 300 Savage, 35 Remington and a whole slew of calibers most folks would nowadays considered too anemic for elk hunting. 0 -
bsthedeerhunter,
Wyoming can have some pretty wild landscape to hunt on. You might encourage your friends to call the outfitter to get a clear idea of the terrain and reasonable distances to expect when hunting there. Then plug in some GPS coordinates on Google Earth (yuk) to get some aerial photographs of that area.
Pick two high quality bullets such as the Nosler Partition, AccuBond and maybe a Barnes TSX-BT to run your tests with. You need energy and shot placement repeatability (consistency). I have used both the Partition and the Barnes for elk and both work just fine. My favorite is the North Fork Technologies bullets but most folks rebel at the cost. Given the cost of these trips and the outfitters today, the cost of bullets is a minor annoyance especially when they perform exactly as advertised.
I use Accurate Arms 4350 and VihtaVuori N-550 for the 210 Barnes and Partition in the .338 WM. The .300 WM. uses the same bullets but in the 180 gr. weight. The powders tested for these are Accurate Arms 3100 and Re-22. Both the bullet companies and powder manufacturers have data on their websites which is suitable to get you started on a testing program.
Good glass on the rifles and good binoculars are necessary as would be a good rangefinder if you have a problem with judging distances accurately.
I strongly suggest practicing with a practical sight-in yardage which will allow for a good range of say 100 to 300 yards. Barnes has some excellent charts for this in their manuals. I also suggest working with shooting at angles, either uphill or downhill. You'd be surprised at how many folks misjudge a shot when it involves an angle. Since you're an outfitter I imagine you've seen this before.
Best.0
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