Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting 30-06 didn't impress me.

Quote by a friend once that has hunted elk frequently. His go to rifle is a 7 mag. He's not a long range guy, so he's not shooting the 7 mag for 700 yard shots. Not sure what his hunting partner was using in 30-06 that didn't impress him, but got me to wondering what frequent elk hunters think about a 30-06 and what would "impress" you?

$hitty shot placement, even $hittier bullets or likely, a combo of both. Same ol' same ol' repeated day in and day out here on the fire.

It's no secret around here that any mid-sized round, the -06 being king of, is perfectly adequate for elk.

Not impressed? Maybe 30mm HEDP from an Apache is more his style...

No matter what cartridge you mention you can find some counter leaner who claims to have had a bad experience with it.

Case in point. Several years ago I was in one of the popular gun stores in the area and some guy was berating the 375 H&H as a moose rifle. Apparently his son had allegedly shot one in the neck at 20 yards and the moose got away. "Give me a 338, that 375 H&H ain't no good for moose", was his statement.

I couldn't leave it alone. I asked if we could look at this objectively. He seemed perplexed. I related that the 375 H&H had been used quite successfully all over the globe to take every big game animal known to man. To which he replied, "that don't mean its any good for moose." Hard to argue with logic like that.

I went on to say that if the 375 failed it really could only be one of two things, either bullet failure or shooter failure and since modern bullets in a 375 H&H are as close to fool proof as one can get, I would guess the latter rather than the former. The guy stuck to his belief. His parting statement was, "None of that don't change nothin. The 375 H&H ain't worth a s**t for moose." Once again, it's hard to argue with that kind of logic.

I know my story is about the 375 H&H but I've heard guys tell their failure stories with a dozen different rounds.

The 30-06 has been impressing elk and elk hunters for over a hundred years.

It certainly has. I'm one of those elk hunters and a bunch of elk have found my 30:06 deadly impressive. Today, there are many excellent cartridges/bullets that work great in elk hunting, but don't quite see how any knoweldgeable elk hunter would deem the 30:06 as deficient.

I hope my 30-06 impresses me in Montana in late Oct.

I have shot only one Elk a Cow with the 06 using the Nosler 165 gr Partition and it went right down. Magnum wouldn't have performed any better

You could shoot a thousand elk and I doubt you will see any great difference between a 7 Rem Mag and a 30/06 in terms of how they kill.

Amen and hallelujah!!!!

Thanks. I'm considering a 30-06 and was thinking something a little heavier than 165 gr. I know it will work. I think I've seen pics of an elephant Craig Boddington took with 220 gr solids in a 30-06.

24 elk have fallen to my 06 in the last 32 years. I've never lost one.

165 gr?

I agree.....the 30-06 isn't impressive

But to quote an old friend up north....

Headstones do kill.....bullets do

150's at just under 3k and 180's at just under 2800

Yep.....unimpressed

But they work quite well

A 30-06 with a 180gr Partition would impress a lot of elk, both large and small.
Sometimes people need to bad mouth a cartridge in order to prove their selection is better.

Remember standing at a gun counter several years ago and this guy was bad mouthing the 7mmRem to the sales man. Wanted a 7STW for his wife because she had shot an elk with the 7mm and it had just walked away. His wife probably weighed about 100 lbs soaking wet. She just stood there silently with a doe in the headlights look. I almost said a 7-08 would be better but just held my tongue.

One guy who used to post on the Campfire said he'd taken "almost 10 elk," whatever that means, but switched from the .30-06 to the .300 Winchester Magnum because ALL the elk he shot with the .30-06 went over 100 yards before falling. The elk he'd taken with the .300 (almost 5?) went less than 50. I said that was odd, because I'd used the .30-06 on more elk than any other cartridge, and none of them had traveled more than 50 yards--including my largest bull in both body and antlers.

165, 180, and 200gr. partition impress elk very well. The old speer grandslams also work very well. Friends use the 165gr. grandslam for years in the 06, and they work flawlessly.

Sure glad we ate those elk shot with the 270 and 7-08 before they got out of the freezer.

Your friend hasn't seen a .30-06 in the right hands used very much....


and an awful lot of folks who have " hunted elk frequently" haven't....