For last year's elk hunt, I took a rifle (7mm Rem mag) I was 100% confident in it's capability to kill any elk I could hit mostly because I had no idea of what the conditions were going to be like. As it turned out, New Mexico antlerless elk aren't nearly as challenging with regard to cartridge choice as Montana/Wyoming/Colorado bulls. It hurt me to shoot that big boomer so this year I'm stepping WAY back from that level of recoil.
Given that bullet placement at unknown range seems the bigger issue vs raw bullet energy, I'm taking my tried and true Savage 110 in 25/06. This has been my primary deer rifle for most of a decade and has put a lot of horns on the wall and meat in the freezer.
I swapped out the old bargain basement 6 x 40 scope for a much higher quality 3-9x40 then dug through a couple of ammo cans yesterday and found my stash of ammo loaded with Nosler 115 Partitions. I'm pretty sure the Nosler "E-tip" bullets I used on deer last yeast would be OK but "pretty sure" doesn't equal "Partition sure". I'm hoping to get a shot at a bull calf or 2-3 year old cow in the 350-400# size category. Last year's female calf was around 275-300#.
My hunting partner lives in Iowa so doesn't shoot a rifle much--he has in the past, just not in the last 20 years. His choice of rifle is a .308 Howa and we have some work to do on it. NIB rifle , NIB scope, and a variety of ammo so hoping one range session will get it squared away. Lots of ammo choices for a .308. So many in fact that it's hard to find a starting point.
Given that bullet placement at unknown range seems the bigger issue vs raw bullet energy, I'm taking my tried and true Savage 110 in 25/06. This has been my primary deer rifle for most of a decade and has put a lot of horns on the wall and meat in the freezer.
I swapped out the old bargain basement 6 x 40 scope for a much higher quality 3-9x40 then dug through a couple of ammo cans yesterday and found my stash of ammo loaded with Nosler 115 Partitions. I'm pretty sure the Nosler "E-tip" bullets I used on deer last yeast would be OK but "pretty sure" doesn't equal "Partition sure". I'm hoping to get a shot at a bull calf or 2-3 year old cow in the 350-400# size category. Last year's female calf was around 275-300#.
My hunting partner lives in Iowa so doesn't shoot a rifle much--he has in the past, just not in the last 20 years. His choice of rifle is a .308 Howa and we have some work to do on it. NIB rifle , NIB scope, and a variety of ammo so hoping one range session will get it squared away. Lots of ammo choices for a .308. So many in fact that it's hard to find a starting point.