After two years without getting an elk, I put in for a cow tag and hunted on a ranch a few miles south of Livinston. I shot the lead cow at about 75 yards as she was running, quartering toward me. I shot again as she went by broadside at about 10 yards. She then started up a steep bank, couldn't make it and turned around and started back down the hill. At my third shot she nosed into the snow and slid to about where she was at my first shot. I was using my .30-06 with 165gr Spear Grand Slams. Both entrance holes and one exit hole are within an inch of each other, center chest. On the other side an entrance and exit are within an inch of each other. The first exit hole is 8 inches back. The first shot was fatal, just neither one of us knew it.

When I was glassing a huge canyon in the Missouri River Breaks north of Jordan for mule deer, I saw a guy crawling through the sage brush from 400 yards to my right. I glassed for several minutes before I saw a herd of cow elk bedded about 200 yards in front of me in the bottom of the canyon. That area is bulls only so I kept glassing until I located a huge bull bedded 100 yards from the cows. I watched the guy crawl in the mud until he was less than 30 yards from that bull. Then he waited. It was over an hour before that bull stood up. As soon as he did I saw a huge smoke cloud out of his gun and the bull dropped in his tracks. He shot quartering away with a 500gr .45-70 in an original Springfield. It took of the top of the heart and broke the off shoulder.

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Ignorance is curable but stupidity is terminal.

I shot a good bull with my 358 Norma and 250 Speer GS. First shot was buhind the shoulder and left a four inch exit wound and destroyed the lungs. He swaped ends and headed down hill. second shot exited the shoulder and put him down for keeps. No major bones were hit with the first shot, but the second split the scapula from top to bottom. The first shot passed thru so fast that He never knew what hit him 2800 + fps impact velocity. the second hit and destroyed major bone and droped him in his tracks at a full run. As for the 45-70 I have a Springfield carbine that I load paper patched pure lead bullets for and would not hesitate to shoot Elk with.Bullet diameter and weight do matter.