its been easily 25 years ago that Ive got a decent bull ELK with my favorite stopping rifle, It may be proof of occasional mental lapses or of insanity, but Ive occasionally just wanted to try something a bit different. I got a really good deal on a Remington 700 custom 458 win mag rifle after the previous owner decided almost instantly after firing a few times off the bench rest that it was just a great deal more dangerous to his shoulder, to own the rifle than it would be to his checking account balance if he sold it at a significant price reduction.
now Im not a huge fan of being beat senseless either so I added a really thick quality recoil pad, I use a good sling and I use a vest with a sewn in shoulder pad, but the rifle usually gets loaded with less than max loads.
the reduced loads make the rifle far more useful in my opinion, because we seem to have very few really dangerous game requiring 500 grain solids in the areas Ive hunted
its seen far more 400 grain hard cast gas check bullets over a load of 60 grains of IMR 3031 that produces about 1900fps in my rifle.
its accounted for several deer and hogs with zero problems and its darn accurate, groups of near an inch at 100 yards are common off the bench, I size mine at .459 cast from 5% tin and 95% wheel weights and cast hot enough to look slightly frosted
http://www.midsouthshooterssupply.com/i ... 0004482053
I'd been rather successfully hunting ELK for a dozen or more years, with my 340 wby and 30/06 Remington slide action, before I ever purchased my 458 Winchester,but once I owned one I kept wanting to use it during a hunt!
yes every last one of my friends thought I was crazy and every last one mentioned Id be at a huge disadvantage if I saw a decent ELK out at 400 yards
but most of the guys kept kidding me about the total insanity of using a 458 win for hunting, so... I decided to try it out as my back-up rifle, on an ELK HUNT,as I usually hunt with my 375 H&H , 30/06 or 340wby, or occasionally my 35 whelen or 358 BLR for ELK, Id started out hunting ELK with a slide action Remington 30/06 760 like many of the older ELK hunters carried in our hunting camp, as they swore it was the ideal compromise between killing power and light weight .and I'm forced to admit it was 100% dependable and accurate.
the first two ELK I shot with mine, died, from a single shot , but gave little immediate indication they were hit ,so being young, and sure I knew more than the old geezers that had been hunting for many years,who were my elk hunting mentors, I decided I wanted a larger rifle caliber.
Ive always liked to carry and hunt with the larger caliber rifles and most years, Ive used my 340 wby fibermark or my sako 375 H&H manlicher carbine, on most of my ELK hunts, but back then, I usually brought two rifles on out of state elk hunts and mostly just to see what the results would be if I did so, and to find out what the results would be, I purchased a Remington 700 in caliber 458 win.
I mounted a 2.5x scope on it to use in the thick timber, while I still hunted ELK.
we had been hunting for about 4 days on this particular ELK hunt , and we had seen very few ELK, and I had a bit of altitude sickness,(something I seem prone too) and it was fairly cool out, about 40F, and didn,t feel like covering much ground, because of a rather bad head ache, so while the rest of the guys got up before dawn and scouted out the herd location, I decided to slowly walk over to a area I knew of where a slight ridge covered in conifers stuck out into a huge meadow,so I could sit and rest and hopefully get over the effects of altitude sickness, the area was mostly low grass and sage brush on about a 10-20 degree grade and the area was covered with short weathered stumps and busted limbs from what was obviously a logging area several years ago, that had removed about 95% of all the trees, several years before, but this finger of rocky ridge was untouched, that stuck out into the upper edge and I figured I could use my Gillie suit and sit there under a conifer in the shade, with my 458 win and pass the day, totally unseen, while my altitude sickness slowly passed.
As my body adjusted slowly to the altitude without my spending much physical effort, I got too the ridge at about 7am, and slowly still hunted out to the end, then I unpacked my Gillie suit, put it on and settled in for ,basically a nap under the over hang of conifer tree limbs while I sat in the shade watching a couple dozen acres of grass and sage , with a few young trees ,in the mixed low field cover on the slope below me.
I really didn,t expect too see much, and I really didn,t care either, due to the head ache but I was obviously far more likely to see game while sitting here than sitting in the tent at camp that was about 1000-1500 yards away, and when you wait all year to go elk hunting you don,t want a little altitude sickness, to rob you of even a few days hunting even if you do feel like crap, ....I sat there for several hours and watched chip monks and birds and saw little else except patches of melting snow under the few shaded areas.
It never occurred to me at the time that if I fired that 458 mag it was unlikely to help my head ache either.
but along about 2pm, I heard short bits of conversations in the far distance, faint voices occasionally, coming from far down the slope and soon spotted a group of cow elk trotting up the slope, they stopped every few dozen yards to look down slope and check on the progress of the hunters, below that I could not see, but only occasionally hear, and that I doubt even knew the ELK were there,on the slope well above them.
As the ELK occasionally glanced back down slope, the lead cow seemed to be in no hurry, she just wanted to put distance between her and the source of the voices, and the other elk seemed content to have followed,her up slope.
they cut diagonally across the area below me at about 100-120 yards ,at a slow trot and walk, stop and stare down slope pace, I eventually notice a lone bull that was barely legal, but still a nice small 4 point bull, trotting along roughly parallel to the course the cows had taken, but a bit further up slope, his course brought him slowly up to within about 80 yards of my location, as long as he was moving closer, I never moved except to very slowly move the rifle into my hands as he occasionally stopped and looked down slope, so I was in a sitting position with the cross hairs on the scope , placed on his shoulder as he advanced.
when he stopped at 70 yards or so, too look back down slope, he was almost directly facing me with his chest as he turned his head to look down slope, I squeezed off a shot, the recoil was very noticeable, especially with my head ache, but about like my 375 H&H, because the hand loads I used were not loaded to full potential,the 458 was loaded with a 405 Remington soft point over 58 grains of imr 3031, in my rifle thats about an 1850fps load.
now some ones bound to ask why not load a 500 grain like most 458 loads use?, well previous tests on white tail deer , with both jacketed and hard cast 500 grain bullets had showed ZERO expansion and complete pass thru,s and because I was not wanting to track any elk I shot It ,made the use of a faster expanding bullet a better option, in my opinion, and any small reduction in recoil would be a plus. now deer are a good deal more fragile than an ELK and a 45 caliber hole drilled thru a deer will usually result in a quickly dead deer, but an elk can go a good deal further once his Adrenalins pumping so an expanding bullet of decent weight and caliber helps anchor a bull you hit well..
that load at least in my 458 win produced 1"-1.5" 100 yard groups off a bench rest and although the velocity was low for a 458 rifle and the 405 grain bullet fairly light weight,making the rifle effectively a hot loaded 45/70 clone, it was very accurate, so I knew Id be fine using it.
As long as I held the cross hairs of the scope on the correct part of the elks anatomy and kept ranges to under 200 yards or less.
thats a mild load, for a 458 and I knew it would do the job just fine! , its rather pointless to load a 458 win to its full potential to hunt elk, all your doing is subjecting the shooter to more recoil, and it won,t kill any better,.at any reasonable range you'll use a 458 Winchester at, (under 250 yards or so)...at the bullets impact the ELK folded like a limp bundle of wet rags and slid down the slope for a few dozen yards, part sliding partly tumbling and after a few kicks he lay still ,where he had tumbled,slid,and slammed up against a stump.
dressing out the ELK was a P.I.T.A. as I was used to using a block and tackle,and a large aspen tree to hang ELK during that process, and this ELK was dressed out on the ground, where he was on a slope and I had to tie him off to a stump above him too keep him from sliding further down the 20 degree slope, turning him over was a real P.I.T.A. until I got help from my friends.
the 405 Remington bullet had destroyed the heart and most of the lungs , it had hit about center chest vertically but because I was up slope its trajectory was a bit downward thru the chest cavity,and gut, I lost it in the guts , were I stopped even looking for it,)
( TRUST ME WHEN I TELL ,you, ...you don,t drag a bull ELK in one piece very far, by yourself or even with a few friends ) but the distance back to camp was reasonably short and was not very steep and mostly down hill (THATS RARE) and we packed most of the meat out in gallon zip loc-bags after letting the meat cool in the few snow drifts left under the shade of the conifers
http://www.gunsandammo.com/content/the- ... ter-magnum
http://www.loaddata.com/members/search_ ... ing%20Data
read this also
viewtopic.php?f=92&t=3088&p=8208#p8208
have any of you gentlemen ever hunted ELK, and got any experiences to relate?
257 wby --120 grain speer
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/778546 ... box-of-100
270 win--150 grain speer hot core
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/232123 ... box-of-100
30/06-- 200 grain speer
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/572391 ... -box-of-50
44 mag--- 310 grain lee cast gas check
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/511417 ... -gas-check
450 marlin-- 405grain remington
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/160121 ... soft-point
now Im not a huge fan of being beat senseless either so I added a really thick quality recoil pad, I use a good sling and I use a vest with a sewn in shoulder pad, but the rifle usually gets loaded with less than max loads.
the reduced loads make the rifle far more useful in my opinion, because we seem to have very few really dangerous game requiring 500 grain solids in the areas Ive hunted
its seen far more 400 grain hard cast gas check bullets over a load of 60 grains of IMR 3031 that produces about 1900fps in my rifle.
its accounted for several deer and hogs with zero problems and its darn accurate, groups of near an inch at 100 yards are common off the bench, I size mine at .459 cast from 5% tin and 95% wheel weights and cast hot enough to look slightly frosted
http://www.midsouthshooterssupply.com/i ... 0004482053
I'd been rather successfully hunting ELK for a dozen or more years, with my 340 wby and 30/06 Remington slide action, before I ever purchased my 458 Winchester,but once I owned one I kept wanting to use it during a hunt!
yes every last one of my friends thought I was crazy and every last one mentioned Id be at a huge disadvantage if I saw a decent ELK out at 400 yards
but most of the guys kept kidding me about the total insanity of using a 458 win for hunting, so... I decided to try it out as my back-up rifle, on an ELK HUNT,as I usually hunt with my 375 H&H , 30/06 or 340wby, or occasionally my 35 whelen or 358 BLR for ELK, Id started out hunting ELK with a slide action Remington 30/06 760 like many of the older ELK hunters carried in our hunting camp, as they swore it was the ideal compromise between killing power and light weight .and I'm forced to admit it was 100% dependable and accurate.
the first two ELK I shot with mine, died, from a single shot , but gave little immediate indication they were hit ,so being young, and sure I knew more than the old geezers that had been hunting for many years,who were my elk hunting mentors, I decided I wanted a larger rifle caliber.
Ive always liked to carry and hunt with the larger caliber rifles and most years, Ive used my 340 wby fibermark or my sako 375 H&H manlicher carbine, on most of my ELK hunts, but back then, I usually brought two rifles on out of state elk hunts and mostly just to see what the results would be if I did so, and to find out what the results would be, I purchased a Remington 700 in caliber 458 win.
I mounted a 2.5x scope on it to use in the thick timber, while I still hunted ELK.
we had been hunting for about 4 days on this particular ELK hunt , and we had seen very few ELK, and I had a bit of altitude sickness,(something I seem prone too) and it was fairly cool out, about 40F, and didn,t feel like covering much ground, because of a rather bad head ache, so while the rest of the guys got up before dawn and scouted out the herd location, I decided to slowly walk over to a area I knew of where a slight ridge covered in conifers stuck out into a huge meadow,so I could sit and rest and hopefully get over the effects of altitude sickness, the area was mostly low grass and sage brush on about a 10-20 degree grade and the area was covered with short weathered stumps and busted limbs from what was obviously a logging area several years ago, that had removed about 95% of all the trees, several years before, but this finger of rocky ridge was untouched, that stuck out into the upper edge and I figured I could use my Gillie suit and sit there under a conifer in the shade, with my 458 win and pass the day, totally unseen, while my altitude sickness slowly passed.
As my body adjusted slowly to the altitude without my spending much physical effort, I got too the ridge at about 7am, and slowly still hunted out to the end, then I unpacked my Gillie suit, put it on and settled in for ,basically a nap under the over hang of conifer tree limbs while I sat in the shade watching a couple dozen acres of grass and sage , with a few young trees ,in the mixed low field cover on the slope below me.
I really didn,t expect too see much, and I really didn,t care either, due to the head ache but I was obviously far more likely to see game while sitting here than sitting in the tent at camp that was about 1000-1500 yards away, and when you wait all year to go elk hunting you don,t want a little altitude sickness, to rob you of even a few days hunting even if you do feel like crap, ....I sat there for several hours and watched chip monks and birds and saw little else except patches of melting snow under the few shaded areas.
It never occurred to me at the time that if I fired that 458 mag it was unlikely to help my head ache either.
but along about 2pm, I heard short bits of conversations in the far distance, faint voices occasionally, coming from far down the slope and soon spotted a group of cow elk trotting up the slope, they stopped every few dozen yards to look down slope and check on the progress of the hunters, below that I could not see, but only occasionally hear, and that I doubt even knew the ELK were there,on the slope well above them.
As the ELK occasionally glanced back down slope, the lead cow seemed to be in no hurry, she just wanted to put distance between her and the source of the voices, and the other elk seemed content to have followed,her up slope.
they cut diagonally across the area below me at about 100-120 yards ,at a slow trot and walk, stop and stare down slope pace, I eventually notice a lone bull that was barely legal, but still a nice small 4 point bull, trotting along roughly parallel to the course the cows had taken, but a bit further up slope, his course brought him slowly up to within about 80 yards of my location, as long as he was moving closer, I never moved except to very slowly move the rifle into my hands as he occasionally stopped and looked down slope, so I was in a sitting position with the cross hairs on the scope , placed on his shoulder as he advanced.
when he stopped at 70 yards or so, too look back down slope, he was almost directly facing me with his chest as he turned his head to look down slope, I squeezed off a shot, the recoil was very noticeable, especially with my head ache, but about like my 375 H&H, because the hand loads I used were not loaded to full potential,the 458 was loaded with a 405 Remington soft point over 58 grains of imr 3031, in my rifle thats about an 1850fps load.
now some ones bound to ask why not load a 500 grain like most 458 loads use?, well previous tests on white tail deer , with both jacketed and hard cast 500 grain bullets had showed ZERO expansion and complete pass thru,s and because I was not wanting to track any elk I shot It ,made the use of a faster expanding bullet a better option, in my opinion, and any small reduction in recoil would be a plus. now deer are a good deal more fragile than an ELK and a 45 caliber hole drilled thru a deer will usually result in a quickly dead deer, but an elk can go a good deal further once his Adrenalins pumping so an expanding bullet of decent weight and caliber helps anchor a bull you hit well..
that load at least in my 458 win produced 1"-1.5" 100 yard groups off a bench rest and although the velocity was low for a 458 rifle and the 405 grain bullet fairly light weight,making the rifle effectively a hot loaded 45/70 clone, it was very accurate, so I knew Id be fine using it.
As long as I held the cross hairs of the scope on the correct part of the elks anatomy and kept ranges to under 200 yards or less.
thats a mild load, for a 458 and I knew it would do the job just fine! , its rather pointless to load a 458 win to its full potential to hunt elk, all your doing is subjecting the shooter to more recoil, and it won,t kill any better,.at any reasonable range you'll use a 458 Winchester at, (under 250 yards or so)...at the bullets impact the ELK folded like a limp bundle of wet rags and slid down the slope for a few dozen yards, part sliding partly tumbling and after a few kicks he lay still ,where he had tumbled,slid,and slammed up against a stump.
dressing out the ELK was a P.I.T.A. as I was used to using a block and tackle,and a large aspen tree to hang ELK during that process, and this ELK was dressed out on the ground, where he was on a slope and I had to tie him off to a stump above him too keep him from sliding further down the 20 degree slope, turning him over was a real P.I.T.A. until I got help from my friends.
the 405 Remington bullet had destroyed the heart and most of the lungs , it had hit about center chest vertically but because I was up slope its trajectory was a bit downward thru the chest cavity,and gut, I lost it in the guts , were I stopped even looking for it,)
( TRUST ME WHEN I TELL ,you, ...you don,t drag a bull ELK in one piece very far, by yourself or even with a few friends ) but the distance back to camp was reasonably short and was not very steep and mostly down hill (THATS RARE) and we packed most of the meat out in gallon zip loc-bags after letting the meat cool in the few snow drifts left under the shade of the conifers
http://www.gunsandammo.com/content/the- ... ter-magnum
http://www.loaddata.com/members/search_ ... ing%20Data
read this also
viewtopic.php?f=92&t=3088&p=8208#p8208
have any of you gentlemen ever hunted ELK, and got any experiences to relate?
257 wby --120 grain speer
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/778546 ... box-of-100
270 win--150 grain speer hot core
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/232123 ... box-of-100
30/06-- 200 grain speer
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/572391 ... -box-of-50
44 mag--- 310 grain lee cast gas check
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/511417 ... -gas-check
450 marlin-- 405grain remington
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/160121 ... soft-point