I "love" Mr Hagel's quote as I have "almost never" had "everything workout right", ha. My first experience with monos was that big 250X going 2600 from a 35 Whelen AI on Plains Game. Wow! We were both impressed! ha

I remember when most everyone used a 30-30, and a few used a 300 Savage, 30-40 Krag and a 250 Savage in our group and folks we knew..The 30-06 took over when the Govt put all those Springfields on the market to the public for $7.50 cents each, they sportized them to some degree and seemed like everyone had one..It was the best elk gun ever and still is as good as anything else.

You don't need a specific caliber on elk, they are soft skinned and are not hard to kill..A .270 with either a 130 or 150 gr. Nosler partition or Accubond is plenty of gun for elk..