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there's a fine line between hobby and mental illnes

Yes, the cartridge is less than optimum for elk, but given a bit of patience and good shot placement, she should have no problems filling a tag next fall with her .260.

We have taken a lot of elk with x-bullets in that weight with a .264 and I think it will do just fine.

Shoot for the vitals, regardless of whether they happen to be behind the shoulder from your particualar angle or not. It is trauma to the heart and lungs that anchors a big game animal, not damage to one of it's four legs, any three of which can take it miles away from where it was shot.

The 150 gr load in the .308 will take care of any deer sized game that the .260 will and the larger .30 caliber bullets will do the rest.

But some here "know" different. Good luck.

quote:

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Originally posted by Don Martin29:
But caliber does make up for poor shooting! A larger caliber makes a greater wound therefore is more effective.

But some here "know" different. Good luck.

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Don - Not much confidence in Jim's wife's
shooting ability! There's a few ladies out
there that I would NOT want to be within
a thousand yards of their rifle muzzle!!!

I tracked a cow one time, hit in one lung with a 300 Wby (frothy bright red blood, in case you wondered). Tracked her for 12 MILES through the foothill snow, until she stopped bleeding and mixed in with the herd.

A 243 a tiny little bit higher would've fixed that problem 11.9 miles earlier. JMO, Dutch.

Single incident stories don't really prove much and in particular where a close examination of the game was never made. Maybe your .300 Weatherby was a dud? Maybe your bullet hit the ground first and then the elk? Maybe the bullet hit a piece of grass or a twig and was tumbling?

I shot the front leg off of a running whitetail buck once and I found it a couple of hours later. Since the bullet was a 200 gr .358 Silvertip with a lot of energy left for the seventy five yards I submit that a ligher caliber like the 260 Remington would have failed. Now you see that story proves nothing just like yours.

My point is that if a animal is hit in a less than vital spot with a powerful bullet there will be far more damage and a greater chance of bagging the game. This makes sense to me.

At some point we can't have children hunting Cape Buffalo with .223's because of the recoil. If someone can't shoot an adequate bullet then they should stay home and do something else.

I believe (?) that 260 and 6,5x55 are similar, so go ahead. The recoil is extremely gentle which helps some people too.

/HerrBerg

A 300 wby hitting grass? Bouncing off the ground?

During a late season cow elk hunt, in the snow?

At the risk of repeating myself, deer are not small elk. I've shot both, and anyone thinking an elk will react to a shot the same way a whitetail does needs to go shoot a few. You can get away with all kinds of marginal shots on deer. Not with elk. They'll leave you behind, everytime. JMO, Dutch.

For as much as I dispise Jack O'Connor,he wrote the truest line ever when it comes to elk rifles-

"An elk with it's leg broken by a 243 will go just as far as if it had been broken by a 460 Weatherby".

Why don't you go post your theory over on the Big Game Forum?They'll eat you alive.

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I'm out to wrong rights,depress the opressed,and generaly make an ass of myself!

quote:

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Originally posted by Don Martin29:
Dutch,

Single incident stories don't really prove much and in particular where a close examination of the game was never made. Maybe your .300 Weatherby was a dud? Maybe your bullet hit the ground first and then the elk? Maybe the bullet hit a piece of grass or a twig and was tumbling?

I shot the front leg off of a running whitetail buck once and I found it a couple of hours later. Since the bullet was a 200 gr .358 Silvertip with a lot of energy left for the seventy five yards I submit that a ligher caliber like the 260 Remington would have failed. Now you see that story proves nothing just like yours.

My point is that if a animal is hit in a less than vital spot with a powerful bullet there will be far more damage and a greater chance of bagging the game. This makes sense to me.

At some point we can't have children hunting Cape Buffalo with .223's because of the recoil. If someone can't shoot an adequate bullet then they should stay home and do something else.

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Don -
"I shot the front leg off of a running whitetail buck once and I found it a couple of hours later." Jim is going to teach his
wife to shoot better than that.

"At some point we can't have children hunting Cape Buffalo with .223's because of the recoil." Bill Clinton couldn't have put a
better twist on the subject than that. Are
you his mentor?

"If someone can't shoot an adequate bullet then they should stay home and do something else." ---more ammunition to give soccer
moms on the subject that we are all "male
chauvinistic pigs".

quote:

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Originally posted by Don Martin29:
Dutch,
snip

My point is that if a animal is hit in a less than vital spot with a powerful bullet there will be far more damage and a greater chance of bagging the game. This makes sense to me.

snip

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My own experience of deer is that this is not so. Deer are not elk so I will stop right here - on rereading my post I find I am becoming a keyboard expert in animals I have never even seen.

[This message has been edited by 1894 (edited 05-16-2002).]

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Larry

I was in a gunshop and I was mouthing off on how good a deer getter the .358 Winchester with the 180 gr Speer is. I said that they don't get up as opposed to the effect of other smaller calibers. I said that I had bagged dozens of deer and I was sure of myself. So the clerk said "you have to talk to (the game keeper)" and a chap came down (they call males "chaps" in England I think).

The game keeper said that he used the 7mm Mauser. I said "sure, so have I and it's like the 06 and others, they die but they run" The game keeper said that it did not matter to him as if he can't find the deer then the dog can!

I really feel bad when a animal suffers plus I don't want to track them or loose the animal to another person or have it die 1n the landowners wifes flowerbed.

But to each his own. I consider the game keeper a sportsman and his caliber is just fine but I have my personal reasons.

quote:

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Originally posted by Jim the Plumber:
My wife has a chance to draw an elk tag this fall. She has a Browning in 260 Rem that she deer hunts with and I was wanting some input as to whether this caliber would be effective on elk. I reload thousands of rounds a year so working up a load won't be an issue. If she draws the tag she will be going to the range 3-4 times a week until it is all second nature. Thanks for your input.
Jim the Plumber

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