best big game round

[nickaballison]

i personally think 7mm Rem Mag is hard to beat. I used to hunt with .30-06 but the drop comparison was amazin. 7mag is much flatter to much longer distances. But all in all accuracy is the key. I have heard of people using 30-30 for elk and loving it.

[spencerhenry]

bullet drop with a properly sighted rifle is only minimally different between most hunting calibers. no appreciable difference is found until at least 350 or 400 yards or more. sure a 30-30 or something of the like is a rainbow trajectory, but between 270, '06, 300 magnums, 7mm magnums and the like, it is nearly irrelevant on an elk size target at 400 yards or less.

[PSS]

I hunt with a .308. Load data for my handloads put a 175 gr bullet at 2690 with Varget. 30-06 data says 2694 fps for the same bullet.

[William]

14.9 SOP

But seriously, the best round that you can use is the round that complements your hunting style and the terrain that you are hunting in. It does you no good to have a rig that will drop a moose from 800 yards if you are hunting in wooded terrain or where there is a lot of oak brush and you only have 1-200 yards of visibility. (Turns out that elk like that type of terrain in my experience) Scout out the ground that you are going to hunt and decide on the max range that you are spotting animals. If you are 0-400 yards, .308 or 30-06 are perfect. If you are thinking that you need to shoot further than that you are better off with a magnum, but in all honesty you should be able to close to within 300 yards if you are doing it right.

Most importantly pick something that you shoot accurately. My little brother is a "big man" so he bought a rem 700 in 338 RUM. The gun kicks your ass so bad every time you shoot it that I would take a .243 before I took his gun because I could thread the bullet where I wanted it instead of praying to God that I would have use of my right arm after I took the shot.

Pick the gun based on how much hiking you want to do with it, and pick the caliber and chamber based on how far you need to shoot to take the animal. An elk with a .280 diameter hole through his heart is just as dead as one .338 magnum puncture.

I agree with this logic. Use what you are comfortable with. I am not comfortable with high recoil. Sometimes you need to take a second shot (it happens). I use a .308 Win for deer and will for Elk. I like to practice and with 308 I can get reasonable ammo to practice with.

[rgvt4]

30 cal and up in my book. 270 and 7mm will work as well

[T-Jet]

338-06 go look it up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.338-06

[jreifsch80]

8x57mm 200grain is a thumper, 9.3x64mm brenneke and 8x68mm Schüler will drop anything on the planet

[ferrum]

bullet drop with a properly sighted rifle is only minimally different between most hunting calibers. no appreciable difference is found until at least 350 or 400 yards or more. sure a 30-30 or something of the like is a rainbow trajectory, but between 270, '06, 300 magnums, 7mm magnums and the like, it is nearly irrelevant on an elk size target at 400 yards or less.

Agreed. Most of my game has been taken under 200yds. Any of the modern 270, 7mm, 308s, etc are more than capable if the shooter is capable. I only see issues when marginal calibers are used. Such as a .243 at extended ranges or on large animals. Some of the lower end calibers just don't produce the recommend 1000 - 1500 foot lbs of energy suggested for elk, once you get out past a couple hundred yards.

[a98kdoc]

The 35 Weylin it's a nice step up from the 3006 esp with heavy bullets.
I don't like the small magnums like the 300 and such.
If you going to burn a lot of powder and suffer a lot of recoil you might as well throw a heavy bullet. So I like the 338 Win mag or 375/416 mags.

And magnums are more then you need for elk to moose if you know how to hunt.

[jgang]

i personally think 7mm Rem Mag is hard to beat. I used to hunt with .30-06 but the drop comparison was amazin. 7mag is much flatter to much longer distances.

This.

I, too, went to the 7Mag from the .30-06. Nothing wrong with the latter, but the 7Mag has it beat in most competetive categories I consider important. Unless I'm going after Yukon moose or big bears, there's no reason to use anything else. I'll step up to the venerable .375 Holland & Holland for the bullwinkles and bears, just for good measure. Good excuse to pull the pre-64 Winny out of the safe anyway. Of course, variety being the spice of life, I killed my elk in 2011 using a short-barreled, open-sighted Marlin .45-70. Hell of a big-game stopper there! The "Hammer of Thor" would be an understatement.