I"ve shot two and, as others have stated, I believe the .375 is about perfect. you can get the penetration you need from any angle. I shot a huge eland in Zim a couple of years ago at about 150 yards with 300 gr TSX. The eland was quartering away severely, so my only shot was to put the bullet into his right flank and drive it into his vitals. He ran about 75 yards and dropped; when we were skinning him we found the bullet in his dewlap.

I had no doubts about taking that shot with my .375, but I don't think I would have taken it with anything less than a .338.

I have never shot an eland.

But I have spent many days following them around.

I have had either a .338 Win. Mag. or a .375 H&H Mag. in my hands while chasing them.

Maybe some day I will get to find out if one or another of those is enough gun . . .

Eland is big, but a good quality 30-06 will do the job sufficiently.

180gr is fine. Go with heavy load if you fancy.

My one eland was taken with a nearly head on shot at 125 yards. One .375 H&H round in the chest and he turned sideways and dropped his head, the second round in the left shoulder made him fall over. Very happy with the .375 and don't think I'll use anything less.

I used a .30/06 for all the plains game up to Eland. The PH requested that I use my .416 on the Eland and so I did. It worked of course.

Hello,
first post here . I shoot min with 375. but i habe no doubt that a 3006 will do the job.
But they a hugh animals and you never know, so take the bigger gun.

regards

caracal

Shot 2 elands in zim in Makashi. First one with a doble 375. needed two shoots. run 25 meters drop with the second one. Second eland fall stone dead with a 3006 bullet 220 grains remington. Shoot in the chest frontal s hot

The first time I went after Eland the PH running the outfit wasn't sure if he was going to let me use my .338 as it was too fast and not really that good a cartridge nor large enough. The PH I hunted with later said even my .30-06 was good enough. Single double lung shot at 60 yards with the .338 was more than adequate.

The same head PH didn't like me using the .338 on Sable either as it would blow the hair off the animal at the exit wound. That didn't happen either.

As a friendly gesture I left him a box of .338 at the end of the safari to add to his rather large collection of spare ammo.

My eland fell to a 40 yard quartering away running shot at last light with a 35 Whelen loaded with a 250 grain NorthFork bullet. It was a lump just under the hide forward of the opposite shoulder. I cut the bullet out and have it here somewhere. You can see where I cut the bullet out in the photo. It was my favorite hunt ever. It's the bullet on the far right.

The one large bull that I shot was with my .300 WSM using 180 gr. FailSafe bullets at 130 yards. I would say .270 Win. with heavy bullets for a bare minimum.....with .300 or .338 being more ideal.

Never really heard of someone using it, but I would think a .338-.378 Wby. Mag. with 250 gr. Barnes TSX or MRX bullets would be a great Eland gun. JMO

Welcome Caracal to the forum and thx for posting.

I did a rough count of the replies and in summary:

.30-06 9
.375 9
.30 Cal 7
9.3 2
Other 8
.338 6

A lot of the replies are based on what was used for the whole hunt and not specifically for Eland. Some replies stated a minimum but also what was used.
I took the min. recommendation in my count.

Thank you all for your input.

Mark provided a safe answer. Distance and nature of the surrounding vegetation are also vital determining factors to be considered; out in the open a well placed 7 Rem Mag will do the job as well as most any other steamy rounds - botch it and you have a problem. The 375 has enough bullet weight to create a sufficient enough wound to kill it in a shorter time frame. However, you need to know your 375 well before taking a shot over 150yds. Worthy to keep in mind that a well placed shot on the disappearing end of a trophy bull will anchor or have him stopped within a relatively short distance. Some African countries demand the .375 as the minimum calibre for DG and Eland.

Whatever your choice would be for moose is appropriate. As said, 6.5 X 55 with 160 grain bullets (140 in TSX) will do it, but I'd prefer something bigger. Took my Lord Derby Eland with a 9.3 X 62 and 250 grain Barnes solid. Next time I'll use the 250 TSX, but have no complaints about the solid.

.338 WM would be fine, and .375 H&H even better. What do you have in the safe?

I have only a single eland experience to relate (but hopefully more in my future!). I used a Ruger 77 MkII in .338 Win Mag pushing a 250 gr. TSX. The shot was a complete pass-through at around 75-80 yards, and that bull was DRT - not one step. Not much of a sample to go on, but I'd repeat the choice in a heartbeat.

I knew that eland would be the largest animal on our trip, so I selected what I felt would be suitable for eland used the same rifle and load on everything smaller as well - completely effective. In my collection, the next step up would have been a .458 Lott, and while that would have been entertaining (it's gone whitetail hunting with me), it didn't really seem necessary.

Will join a consensus for the .375 H&H to hunt eland. Following Taylor, I had earlier used my double in .350 Rigby No.2. Shot a running eland cow and dropped her on the spot many years ago. Then tried a shoulder shot on a bull and he just plain ran away from us. Believe in those early days that the issue was more bullet failure than my hold.

Subsequently took a bull in Namibia using a .375 and handloaded 285 gr. Hornady? bullets that I had loaded for plinking and fast reloading practice rather than my 300 gr Swift A-Frame The 285gr worked. As the tracker put it, "zuh heart, eet is buggered..." Would not have wanted a quartering shot, 'tho.

Regards

.300 WSM will do the trick.