I was recently asked by one of the guys at the range why I was sighting in three desperate rifles if I was going elk hunting,
well I generally bring a second rifle because if your 2300 miles from home , and out hunting and the UN-expected happens
(which you can 100% depend on!
IF YOU DON,T EXPECT PROBLEMS LET ME ASSURE YOU,
MURPHY'S OUT THERE!, things will, occasionally,fail, and with 3 or more guys on a out of state elk hunting trip for 10 days its nearly certain. )
that your primary rifle or scope, or a buddies will be damaged, during a hunt
Ive usually brought my 340 weatherby synthetic stock rifle, a SAKO 375 H&H carbine and my slide action 35 whelen , but we almost always bring a common,camp back-up rifle, that gets an amazing amount of use!
Its been my experience that most of the 25 caliber and larger rifles work, but having a 35-45 caliber throwing at least 200 grains of bullet at at least 2500 fps or 250 grains to at least 2300 fps does a very effective job at the under 250 yard ranges I'm used to hunting at much of the time
youll also occasionally find a situation where a guy may want to try elk hunting but his personally owned rifles are really not ideal, this is unlikely because your generally not going to invite guys on a 2 week out of state hunt , that are not going to want to do the research into a decent rifle and buy or borrow the correct rifle, but I have had it happen that one guy I hunted with for deer over several years only owned a 243 win and chose not to buy a new rifle until he was sure he liked elk hunting.
we tried to convince him that proper shot placement, and a premium bullet, over the fairly short ranges we hunt at would allow him to use the rifle he was familiar with, and if he just limited taking shots to reasonable angles and ranges that 243 win would work, but he wanted to try a bit more rifle in any case.
that year we brought a 45/70 marlin as the camp back-up rifle,
(btw yes he got an elk and bought a similar 45/70 marlin he still uses on hunts years later)
now most years theres 3-5 guys making the drive and we spend 10 days in the field, plus 2 days driving both ways, or 4 days in transit.
more than a few times at least one member of the group screwed up a rifle or scope by slipping or falling or dropping a rifle, so having a spare to fall back on thats dependable helps,
you need something that effectively hammers elk!, but you generally don,t want to leave a really expensive rifle locked in the trucks at camp in case the trucks get broken into, nor do you want some cheap in-effective rifle because YOU may very well be the person using it, so a compromise was decided among most of the regular members who long ago realized shots over 200 yard were very rare!
and while a marlin lever gun might not seem to be the best choice its easy to carry, accurate and damn effective.
I still use my 35 whelen 7600 pump action,and 450 marlin blr
for about 30 years, of the 45 years or so Ive hunted, our elk hunt group generally kept a marlin lever action 45/70 with a weaver 4x scope on it that was sighted dead on at 200 yards as the camp back-up elk rifle, standard load was a hard cast 350 grain bullet over a stiff load of 50 grains of IMR 4198 over a 215 federal primer . that rifle eventually was responsible for killing more elk than most of the hunter primary arms and resulting several guys buying similar marlin 45/70s over the years. and yes a hard cast 350 grain 45 caliber projectile launched at near 1800fps even out at 200 yards does amazingly effective damage to an elk if placed correctly.
now all the guys that swear you need a flat shooting 7mm or 300 mag may be a bit disappointed, but in over 40 years of hunting elk I can easily count all the elk shot at over 300 yards by ANYONE in out group on one hand!
http://www.handloads.com/loaddata/defau ... der&Source
http://www.neihandtools.com/catalog/index.html
458-355-GC
cast from 95% WW alloy and 5% pure tin
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well I generally bring a second rifle because if your 2300 miles from home , and out hunting and the UN-expected happens
(which you can 100% depend on!
IF YOU DON,T EXPECT PROBLEMS LET ME ASSURE YOU,
MURPHY'S OUT THERE!, things will, occasionally,fail, and with 3 or more guys on a out of state elk hunting trip for 10 days its nearly certain. )
that your primary rifle or scope, or a buddies will be damaged, during a hunt
Ive usually brought my 340 weatherby synthetic stock rifle, a SAKO 375 H&H carbine and my slide action 35 whelen , but we almost always bring a common,camp back-up rifle, that gets an amazing amount of use!
Its been my experience that most of the 25 caliber and larger rifles work, but having a 35-45 caliber throwing at least 200 grains of bullet at at least 2500 fps or 250 grains to at least 2300 fps does a very effective job at the under 250 yard ranges I'm used to hunting at much of the time
youll also occasionally find a situation where a guy may want to try elk hunting but his personally owned rifles are really not ideal, this is unlikely because your generally not going to invite guys on a 2 week out of state hunt , that are not going to want to do the research into a decent rifle and buy or borrow the correct rifle, but I have had it happen that one guy I hunted with for deer over several years only owned a 243 win and chose not to buy a new rifle until he was sure he liked elk hunting.
we tried to convince him that proper shot placement, and a premium bullet, over the fairly short ranges we hunt at would allow him to use the rifle he was familiar with, and if he just limited taking shots to reasonable angles and ranges that 243 win would work, but he wanted to try a bit more rifle in any case.
that year we brought a 45/70 marlin as the camp back-up rifle,
(btw yes he got an elk and bought a similar 45/70 marlin he still uses on hunts years later)
now most years theres 3-5 guys making the drive and we spend 10 days in the field, plus 2 days driving both ways, or 4 days in transit.
more than a few times at least one member of the group screwed up a rifle or scope by slipping or falling or dropping a rifle, so having a spare to fall back on thats dependable helps,
you need something that effectively hammers elk!, but you generally don,t want to leave a really expensive rifle locked in the trucks at camp in case the trucks get broken into, nor do you want some cheap in-effective rifle because YOU may very well be the person using it, so a compromise was decided among most of the regular members who long ago realized shots over 200 yard were very rare!
and while a marlin lever gun might not seem to be the best choice its easy to carry, accurate and damn effective.
I still use my 35 whelen 7600 pump action,and 450 marlin blr
for about 30 years, of the 45 years or so Ive hunted, our elk hunt group generally kept a marlin lever action 45/70 with a weaver 4x scope on it that was sighted dead on at 200 yards as the camp back-up elk rifle, standard load was a hard cast 350 grain bullet over a stiff load of 50 grains of IMR 4198 over a 215 federal primer . that rifle eventually was responsible for killing more elk than most of the hunter primary arms and resulting several guys buying similar marlin 45/70s over the years. and yes a hard cast 350 grain 45 caliber projectile launched at near 1800fps even out at 200 yards does amazingly effective damage to an elk if placed correctly.
now all the guys that swear you need a flat shooting 7mm or 300 mag may be a bit disappointed, but in over 40 years of hunting elk I can easily count all the elk shot at over 300 yards by ANYONE in out group on one hand!
http://www.handloads.com/loaddata/defau ... der&Source
http://www.neihandtools.com/catalog/index.html
458-355-GC
cast from 95% WW alloy and 5% pure tin
RELATED
viewtopic.php?f=97&t=1095
viewtopic.php?f=92&t=1275
viewtopic.php?f=92&t=4672
http://garage.grumpysperformance.co...nt-perspective-on-ideal-hunting-rifles.11928/
viewtopic.php?f=96&t=10059&p=39193&hilit=7600#p39193
viewtopic.php?f=92&t=2846
viewtopic.php?f=97&t=9487
viewtopic.php?f=97&t=7661
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