Where in Sask. you hunting elk because my experience is north of North Battleford and the bush was so thick you never got a long shot most of the time any ways so a 308 would be plenty of gun. Elk don't kill any harder then anything else if you hit them right. I wouldn't hesitate to use a 308 for moose or elk. Seen a moose full of holes once run for a long way as not one hit was in the middle of it all were at one end or the other.
Too small for elk?
- Thread starter gobigorgohome
- Start date
And that Savage is a fine gun
sir_springer
Regular
- Location
- East Kootenays
308 Win. is lots of gun for elk! My cousin shot all his moose for many years with a Savage 99 308.
308 Win is just a hair shy of a 30.06, certainly no elk will know the difference!
However, use premium ammo, preferably bonded...like Fusion, Hornady Interbond, Nosler Accubond, etc....or monolithic, such as Barnes TTSX, Hornady GMX, or Federal Trophy Copper. For all the time and money invested in trying to put an elk or moose in the freezer, going cheap on ammo is, frankly, just silliness.
Also, no real need for heavy for caliber ammo, given the afore mentioned quality of bullets now available. You could tame that .300 Win Mag somewhat by dropping down to 150 gr. feed. And a Limbsaver will definitely help, too.
I wouldn't recommend a 25.06 for elk, but lots of hunters use 'em, quite successfully. If a 120 gr. bullet from a 25.06 will plant an elk, why should it take 180 gr. from a .300 WM??? The magnum, end of the day, still is no substitute for poor shot placement.
Lastly, I've read numerous times now that most guides will state that about 30% of their hunters who show up equipped with a .300 Magnum or bigger, can actually shoot 'em with reasonable accuracy. Point being, the other 70% are scared of their own rifle, which in turn leads to blown opportunities due to missed shots, or worse, wounded critters that have to be tracked for miles on end...if even found.
Use a rifle in appropriate caliber with which you are comfortable. Don't get caught up in Magnum Madness!
308 Win is just a hair shy of a 30.06, certainly no elk will know the difference!
However, use premium ammo, preferably bonded...like Fusion, Hornady Interbond, Nosler Accubond, etc....or monolithic, such as Barnes TTSX, Hornady GMX, or Federal Trophy Copper. For all the time and money invested in trying to put an elk or moose in the freezer, going cheap on ammo is, frankly, just silliness.
Also, no real need for heavy for caliber ammo, given the afore mentioned quality of bullets now available. You could tame that .300 Win Mag somewhat by dropping down to 150 gr. feed. And a Limbsaver will definitely help, too.
I wouldn't recommend a 25.06 for elk, but lots of hunters use 'em, quite successfully. If a 120 gr. bullet from a 25.06 will plant an elk, why should it take 180 gr. from a .300 WM??? The magnum, end of the day, still is no substitute for poor shot placement.
Lastly, I've read numerous times now that most guides will state that about 30% of their hunters who show up equipped with a .300 Magnum or bigger, can actually shoot 'em with reasonable accuracy. Point being, the other 70% are scared of their own rifle, which in turn leads to blown opportunities due to missed shots, or worse, wounded critters that have to be tracked for miles on end...if even found.
Use a rifle in appropriate caliber with which you are comfortable. Don't get caught up in Magnum Madness!
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- Location
- Saskatchewan
It's 33A2 also known as moose mountain provincial park and farm land. I don't want to hunt in the park so that could have potentially long shots in the farm land. I'll for sure be bringing my 308 and 300 with me. And I have easily taimed that 308. Although the tad I world class scope looks appropriate, the 2" eye relief made sure I felt it a time or two before I learned it well
sir_springer
Regular
- Location
- East Kootenays
I don't think there's a scope made these days with only 2" eye relief. More likely you're crowding it. Move up to the scope until you have a full sight picture and stop there, which should leave 3.5" to 4" of relief...and save you from what we used to call, "dope ring"! We've all experienced it at least once!
(Be careful shooting prone, this is where it happens the most!)
- Location
- Somewhere on the Hudson Bay Coast
Minimalist cartridges, regardless of the game being hunted, are best reserved for the expert sport hunter, someone unexpectedly forced into a survival situation, or the individual who lives a subsistence life style. Despite advances in bullet design and construction, I've seen no reason to change my opinion, which is that general purpose big game cartridges begin with the moderate capacity 6.5s. These have long proven adequate for non-dangerous big game up to a half ton in weight, taken at ranges from contact close, out to a quarter mile. Where the limit of cartridges which might be classified as general purpose big game cartridges ends, is when trajectory prevents a talented marksman from easily hitting a quarter mile target, under reasonable shooting conditions of light, wind, and target visibility, or when recoil prevents the individual rifleman from shooting from any supported field position.
The .243 falls short of the ideal of cartridges which are suitable for big game up to a half ton. With attributes of a flat trajectory, a reputation for wonderful accuracy, and pleasant manners, the .243 remains an excellent wolf, caribou, antelope, deer cartridge. Whether or not a big case cartridge in the .300 magnum class, or the .416 Weatherby class, is suitable, depends not on cartridge performance, but upon the recoil limitations of the rifleman who considers it. While its relatively easy to avoid choosing too little gun, deciding where your upper limits lie might be tougher, particularly if you're impressed with velocity figueres which begin with a 3, and bullet weight approaching or exceeding numbers starting with a 2. If you are in good physical condition, you can probably master a hard kicker, but you must want to. If you don't think you want to make the effort to master a .300, its probably not for you, in which case a .270, .280, a 7 magnum, or a .308 is a better choice.
The .243 falls short of the ideal of cartridges which are suitable for big game up to a half ton. With attributes of a flat trajectory, a reputation for wonderful accuracy, and pleasant manners, the .243 remains an excellent wolf, caribou, antelope, deer cartridge. Whether or not a big case cartridge in the .300 magnum class, or the .416 Weatherby class, is suitable, depends not on cartridge performance, but upon the recoil limitations of the rifleman who considers it. While its relatively easy to avoid choosing too little gun, deciding where your upper limits lie might be tougher, particularly if you're impressed with velocity figueres which begin with a 3, and bullet weight approaching or exceeding numbers starting with a 2. If you are in good physical condition, you can probably master a hard kicker, but you must want to. If you don't think you want to make the effort to master a .300, its probably not for you, in which case a .270, .280, a 7 magnum, or a .308 is a better choice.
- Location
- Saskatchewan
I don't think there's a scope made these days with only 2" eye relief. More likely you're crowding it. Move up to the scope until you have a full sight picture and stop there, which should leave 3.5" to 4" of relief...and save you from what we used to call, "dope ring"! We've all experienced it at least once!
I should show you the scope. It seriously has next to NO eye relief and that's for everyone. Me, my brother, my dad, my friends, my girlfriend, everyone. That being said, it's a very nice scope and a 3-12x50
No love for the Model 94 30-30 here? I have taken many a moose and Elk with my trusty model 94. Heck,..My first big game hunt with my dad when I was 14 landed me a decent size moose with minimal skills compared to what I have learned over the years I have in now.
Unless Moose and Elk have somehow magically gotten much bigger, much strong and grown thicker hide as a self preservation method to the hunters of days gone by,..I wouldn't hesitate for a second to harvest one with a 30-30. 10 of thousands of moose, tens of thousands of Elk and probably hundreds of thousands of Bison have been taken with a 30-30 and WAY less complicated ammo than what we all currently use.
Not all game needs a 300 win mag or a 338 Lapua to die. Having said that, I own both a 338lm and 300wm. Neither have taken big game.
Unless Moose and Elk have somehow magically gotten much bigger, much strong and grown thicker hide as a self preservation method to the hunters of days gone by,..I wouldn't hesitate for a second to harvest one with a 30-30. 10 of thousands of moose, tens of thousands of Elk and probably hundreds of thousands of Bison have been taken with a 30-30 and WAY less complicated ammo than what we all currently use.
Not all game needs a 300 win mag or a 338 Lapua to die. Having said that, I own both a 338lm and 300wm. Neither have taken big game.
sir_springer
Regular
- Location
- East Kootenays
Really? Now I'm curious as to what make it is? One of the standard selling features of scopes these days is eye relief, and usually is listed in the manufacturer's specs on each model.
???
- Location
- Saskatchewan
It was from either the 70s or 80s and retailed new for about 500-800$ back then (if I remember correctly). Even the cheap new scopes work amazing
sir_springer
Regular
- Location
- East Kootenays
Hairy...
You're right! Probably more elk and moose taken with either a 30.30 or .303 Brit over the last century than any other caliber. In Scandinavia, the most popular caliber for moose reportedly is the 6.5x55 Swede.
That said, modern bullets definitely improve one's odds of avoiding a wounded, and potentially lost, animal. Where deer sized game is concerned, not so much of an issue. But a bullet, such as a cup & core or even an interlock, hitting a shoulder bone on an elk or moose sending the jacket one way, the core another, and the critter over the hill into the next county, is another matter entirely. More times than I care to remember, I've found Sierra Gamekings from my 25.06 on deer pretty much pulverized beyond recognition...but still makes the kill. On a deer, which generally ain't all that tough in the big bone dept.
Read a story some time ago in a rifle magazine that it was an incident in which just such a thing happened on a huge bull moose, with an appropriate caliber, and things got somewhat dicey very quickly. The fellow it happened to got a tad POed, and set about to invent a better constructed bullet. This is how the Nosler Partition came into being circa 1946 or so.
The short version here on Wikipedia...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosler
You're right! Probably more elk and moose taken with either a 30.30 or .303 Brit over the last century than any other caliber. In Scandinavia, the most popular caliber for moose reportedly is the 6.5x55 Swede.
That said, modern bullets definitely improve one's odds of avoiding a wounded, and potentially lost, animal. Where deer sized game is concerned, not so much of an issue. But a bullet, such as a cup & core or even an interlock, hitting a shoulder bone on an elk or moose sending the jacket one way, the core another, and the critter over the hill into the next county, is another matter entirely. More times than I care to remember, I've found Sierra Gamekings from my 25.06 on deer pretty much pulverized beyond recognition...but still makes the kill. On a deer, which generally ain't all that tough in the big bone dept.
Read a story some time ago in a rifle magazine that it was an incident in which just such a thing happened on a huge bull moose, with an appropriate caliber, and things got somewhat dicey very quickly. The fellow it happened to got a tad POed, and set about to invent a better constructed bullet. This is how the Nosler Partition came into being circa 1946 or so.
The short version here on Wikipedia...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosler
Pretty cool read Sir! I am old and thanks to you I learned something today! Lol
sir_springer
Regular
- Location
- East Kootenays
Ah, that makes more sense. Scopes have come a long, long way since those days, both in construction and quality of glass.
Cheap scopes use cheap glass, and may work okay...right up until they don't, which can be a little inconvenient during a hunt, especially a long way from home! The old adage, you get what you pay for, certainly applies to optics. That said, there's a lot of decent scopes available in the $250 to $600 range that certainly will do the trick quite reasonably and reliably. I personally am a fan of the Bushnell Elite series, particularly their latest edition 3500 and 4500 models. The 4500's glass is, IMHO, about as good as any out there, including many scopes for twice the money or more. And they've always stood good for their warranty for me, the couple times I've used it over the last 30 years, albeit they're somewhat slow about it.
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The 30-30 is a great rifle. A legend, even. And you're right, Elk haven't changed... But rifles and ammunition have. There are better tools for the job. And I'm not talking about the ultra mags, but the light weight .308s, 30.06s, 7mms etc.
I love grand dad's antique tools, but I reach for the lithiums when I open my tool box.
sir_springer
Regular
- Location
- East Kootenays
If you use the same model rifle, the bit of extra weight due to long action will probably soak up the bit of extra recoil the '06 generates. But really, I can't see the '06 or 308 recoil being an issue for any but the smallest of shooters. They're both very low recoil rifles. And if the OP already has a 300 WM, here are the ballistics for the Rem Managed Recoil 300 WM, which pushes a 150 gr. bullet:
300 Win Mag RL300W1 Core-Lokt Pointed Soft Point 2650 fps
This puts it right in the 308 class, IIRC. Cheaper than a new gun, and lets you work up to full house loads. Unless you're very small, or super sensitive to recoil, I can't see why a healthy shooter of smallish build or more wouldn't be able to handle 300WM over time. Start by firing from a standing position, with proper hearing protection (I've found that the noise, as much as the recoil, is what makes a lot of people flinch). Another option, which is much cheaper than a new gun, if you have doubts about the capabilities of the non magnum 30's is to get your WM ported. But as most have said, the '08 will git'er done just fine. Another consideration if you're looking at a new toy (a great idea, BTW) might be the 7mm-08.
say bugger it and shoot the 308....i bought a Tikka T3 lite 300WM on a friends recommendations and had a really tough time overcoming the flinch that i developed from it, don't think i would buy another 300. the 308 should be plenty inside say 300 yards or so which is about as far as i would be comfortable shooting at an animal anyways.
