Good Info
New to the forum, but this one really sparked my interest. Have had a ruger 77 ultra light in 243 for my daughter and wife to use on deer here in Mt for a long time, extremely effective on both white tails and mule deer. Have always just used factory 100 gr winchester power points with no complaints, never had a deer go more than 25 yards, most just hit the ground.
That said, my wife decided to get into the elk ring with me last year. I had a 7mm rem mag, 300 win mag, 338 win mag, and 375 H&H in the vault, all of which I killed elk with no issue. Tried out the 7mm on her, seemed ok at the range shooting off sticks, so off we went for elk. 30 head, 200 yards out, beautiful setup, wife sits down, takes aim, boom, "my eye, my eye". Didnt take into account her having possible bad form from a sitting position and creeping up on the stock......
That leads me to the 25-06. Spent the better part of this year researching and trying to find something that would kill an elk reliably, but not cost me thousands in plastic surgeons... The 257 roberts, 260 rem, 25-06, 270, and 280 were all my final contenders. I had a 257 roberts a long time ago, and provided you reload its a great round. not having much time for reloading the last few years, i axed that one. Let her shoot a friends 270, that was still rocking her pretty hard (5'8", 125 lbs, so not alot to hold things back). Couldn't find anyone with a 260 to try out, but managed to get my hands on a 25-06 for her to try. Seemed to be acceptable all the way around from the shootability perspective.
So i bought a rem 700 stainless synthetic for her, topped it with a leopold 3x9 ultralight glass. I think i am in love with the gun at least, sum MOA groups with 120 gr remington corelokts. Will see if it is truely a viable elk gun or not here in 3 weeks, elk opens Oct 26 here in Mt, and i have a surplus cowtag to test it on first. Will report back here on how that goes soon hopefully!
Checking all the energy details out, seems to me a 120 at 3100 has about 1850 ftlbs of energy still at 200 yards, and i always figured a ton of energy was sufficient with a decent bullet on an elk, so wil see if that logic prevails.....
One final note for teh 243 fans, they can and will kill an elk, i shot mine with it last year with the same 100 gr winchester power points to see if i should turn the wife loose with it on elk. 50 yards, slight quartering shot, it liquified the lungs, but the bullet hung against the off side shoulder blade. dead in 10 steps, but placement is obviously everything, dont think i would recomend it to anyone except a very experienced shooter/hunter.
Can't wait to post some elk results!