I too am disappointed that a guide would tell someone they need to be able to shoot an elk from 500 yards without respect to what the hunter thought he was capable of.

Having said that, I saw something on my elk hunt in Idaho's Selway Bitteroot Wilderness last month (got home safely, not eaten by any wolves). My friend was hunting with his 7mm Rem Mag. Now he isn't an ordinary shooter. He lives for that long range stuff, goes to competitions, is really into long range antelope hunting, etc. His gun, with scope, weights about 12 lbs. I sure wouldn't have wanted to lug it across all those brushy ridges, but he did and it paid off.

He shot a big 6x6 bull on the next ridge over from where we were at a range of 786 yards, determined by a Leica range finder. Hit him right behind the ribs with a 160 grn Accubond and that elk only took a step or two before doing down (luckily he didn't slide all the way down that ridge because it was really muddy - one antler got caught on a little spruce tree and saved us from a packout job from hell).
We found his bullet and it looked like a perfect little mushroom. According to his ballistic table the bullet would have been travelling about 1900 fps on impact. Yeah, a 7mm will kill and elk cleanly from a long ways away if you can shoot it.

And don't anyone jump on me about this. I would never try such a shot, and I was really hoping he wouldn't try it at the time, but he showed me he could do it. He's killed an antelope at 1200 yds (with a custon .338 wildcat cartridge he designed) so he shrugged and said, "an elk's a big target".

BHW- I am extremely disappointed in the AR forum members who responded to your post. I read your post and understood your underlying plea- OF COURSE YOU NEED A NEW GUN. I hope you will reconsider your decision not to buy a new rifle. Sure, the practical answer is your 7MM is "fine", but wouldn't a new rifle be even more fine??? Any one can tell that you have a caliber gap from .284 to .416 that MUST be filled. I would recommend a .338 Win Mag or a .340 Weatherby. I have used both with 210 gr and 250 gr Nosler partitions on moose, elk, bear, goat, and sheep with excellent results. You need a new hunting rifle so don't deny yourself any longer. Good luck! Brian
PS. It's obvious that you must have that 45-70 co-pilot also to fill the caliber gap above the 416.

I shot an elk three time in the vitals once and it still kept on moving with my 300 win mag

TheSilverFox

What bullet were you using, where in the vitals did your shots hit, and how far had the elk gone when you ran out of bullets? Also, how far away from the elk were you when you were shooting?

I have seen an awful lot of elk in North Idaho that evidentely weren't nearly as tough as the one you are describing, and a goodly amount of them were shot, and killed quite dead, with a 270 or 30-06.

quote:

Originally posted by BHW:
My outfitter told me I need to be able to shoot out to 500 yards.

Why can't your outfitter get you closer than that?

You are supposed to be hunting, not sniping.

You need a good elk rifle?

Get a .54 caliber Hawken rifle and use patched ball over Goex ffg blackpowder.

You will need to work up a load of the Goex ffg blackpowder. Start at about 80gr and work up to 110gr and see what is most accurate.