308 bolt gun for Elk

[Hibs]

I appreciate the offer.
Guess I have to wait on the 18th to see how the draw goes.
If I draw, I would like to meet up and shoot it,, as I have little experience with center fire bolt.
What state were you in?

Colorado

 

[lazarus]

My days of hunting without ear protection end ~10 years ago.
Once the cheap elec muffs came out I went that route,, I wear them 100% of the time while on stand. helps that 100% of my deer hunting is stand hunting.

What type of ear protection for a western hike/hunt has been on my mind,, I was thinking of the 3M I use in the shop, If I keep them on my neck it would take 2 seconds to slip them in,, and offer "some" reduction.
View attachment 412365

I'd been using Walker Rope. Not fantastic. The low hiss is annoying in the quiet woods and it will NOT pickup the quietest of sounds. But a step up from the quietest of sounds, it will pickup and you can make it louder. Which is kind of nice. Basically if you are listening real careful, you aren't going to hair the faintest crunching of deer hooves in the leaves a long distance...but it'll make you more likely to pick it up when it is a little louder, when maybe you still wouldn't have noticed. Like, reading a book in the stand and glancing up every page and looking around every few pages. Not that I've have ever done anything like that of course.

The option you have there would probably work real well. The only issues I've found with ear pro around my neck, is sometimes you just can't use it. Now, eastern woodlands and I still hunt or portable ground blind hunt a lot when not on my own property or Patuxent (the former permanent tree stand and crossbow, the latter, ML and climber). When a you bump a deer at 30 yds and it stops and looks at you 20-30yds further away, the time and movement to put in ear protection may mean its gone by the time you've gone to aim your rifle/ML at it (in my few experiences with that). Or even in a ground blind, you have one walk across the path 20-40yds away, that extra movement might just reveal yourself if your ear pro wasn't already in.

Largely why I moved to a can when not ML hunting (I do wear ear pro around my neck when ML hunting. Sometimes I get to use it, sometimes I don't).

Out west, damnedifIknow. All my experience there, other than hiking and camping, is watching hunting shows and youtube. Seems like plenty of times there is the time to pop it in, if you remember, sometimes there isn't or even if there would be time you can't, because you are looking at an Elk at 80yds while it stares at you trying to figure out what the heck you are.

I'd still go a longer barrel .308 for the velocity, and if it means less hearing damage if I didn't or wasn't able to put in ear pro first, that's a big bonus. Unless you go heavy barrel, a standard medium contour (#4) .308 barrel only adds something like 1.1oz an inch or something like that. So the difference between just a 16" and 20" barrel is not even 5oz. You can save that much weight by choosing a lighter scope and scope rings than something overbuilt. Or leave a third of a small bottle of water out of your pack. Between a 16" and 22", that's about half a pound. It ain't nothing, but it isn't all that much extra weight, to get ~150+FPS more velocity and less blast.

Is that extra weight too much? I can't speak to that. It isn't for me. But I'd also for sure be choosing a standard medium contour for a hunting rifle in a longer barrel length that I'd be carrying around a bunch. My go to for deer is that Howa mini 1500 in 6.5 Grendel, with a heavy 20" barrel. But the whole thing without a can on, weighs only a little over 7lbs and just over 8 with a silencer on it. I use it for a lot of bench shooting also. If it was a longer, and heavier, short action, I'd probably go medium instead. Anyway, for me, about 8lbs is a sweet spot. Pushing 9 is heavy to carry around all day. 8 isn't bad. 7 something feels like a feather, and I'd rather trade off more performance or something else, like suppressing my shoots and push the weight up above 8lbs to get there.

One other though there, now if you don't have one, that adds a lot of time and expense, but a silencer can help out a lot too. Ignoring less/no hearing damage and not needing to worry about ear pro. The vast majority of rifles shoot more accurately with a silencer on. Sometimes tightening up groups 20-30%. Additionally, at longer distances, the suppressed shot is significantly less likely to spook game. Miss under/over/in front/behind an Elk at 200 or 300yds and it might only glance around at what that was. Unsuppressed a lot less likely that's how the Elk is going to react.

 

[Slackdaddy]

Did not get draw,, so putting off 308 purchase

 

[4g64loser]

Did not get draw,, so putting off 308 purchase

Sorry to hear that. Hopefully you will get preference points for next year.

 

[hobiecat590]

When you hunt Elk out west, you need something in the 300 Win Mag class. You can't think about distance as it is here. Out there the shot distances are 3 -4 times more than "back East."

300 win mag would be my choice, but I've been lusting for a 338 wm in case large brown bears are on the menu using the same gun. Elk are pretty thin skinned so 7MM mag might also work well for those long shots.

 

[4g64loser]

300 win mag would be my choice, but I've been lusting for a 338 wm in case large brown bears are on the menu using the same gun. Elk are pretty thin skinned so 7MM mag might also work well for those long shots.

Any of the three, with the correct bullet, will work on anything in the upper end of the north american 29 but you should probably talk with some PHs if big bears are on the list as they tend to have specific minimum standards. The outfitter my friend worked for in colorado, I believe mandated a 300wm as the minimum for his bear clients.

I have no interest in hunting alaska but more than one guy who has been there has told me that PHs there want to see bigger calibers for bear.

 

[Biggfoot44]

I was also warned about being to light,, what is the ideal "compromise" between light enough to hike with and heavy enough to shoot accurate with ?

I won't attempt * Ideal * , too subjective.

I will observe what was considered * Standard Weight Sporter * for several generations : 8 - 8.5 lb , rifle , scope , sling .

 

[trickg]

.308 is a killer


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But 9mm blows the lungs clear out of the body.

 

[Inigoes]

After perusing a walmart in PA, last night.

The CVA cascade line is a competitively priced rifle in big game calibers. We are talking hundreds of dollars, not thousands.

CVA Home

cva.com

 

[Inigoes]

After being about to peruse various gun shops in PA, there are plenty of new big game calibered rifles at $500 price point.

Used llong guns are going more cheaply, a 300 win mag mossberg patriot rifle with walnut stock and scope sold for $385. Fortunately, someone beat me to it.

Now is the time to visit gunshops and see their prices in the off season, the draws are going to be starting soon.