Can a 30-06 carrying 1800 Ft-lbs of enrgy at 2200 FPS properly take an elk at 300 yards.

[AAM]

Can a 30-06 carrying 1800 Ft-lbs of enrgy at 2200 FPS properly take an elk at 300 yards.

[Ontario Honker Hunter]

What would that be? A 300 grain bullet? I don't believe anyone would load such a whimpy round. A useful elk hunting 30-06 round is capable of over 3,000 ft lbs at the muzzle and more than 2,700 fps. Maybe something as slow as what you propose wouldn't make it out the end of the barrel? I can't imagine it would be useful for anything at 300 yards ... when or if it finally made it that far.

[Buckshott00]

The answer is yes with a few caveots. 1) Make sure you have a bullet that will expand correctly at those lower speeds. 2) You will have to compensate your aim for for bullet drop (the rounds will drop at the same rate but will cover less distance in that time)

There are lots of rounds that will work better for elk at those ranges. You're pushing back to 30-30 territory. Yes it will work, but why risk it? You're not going to gain a sound advantage or a recoil advantage? If you're loading you're own rounds you can definitely experiment to see where your sweet spot is with your rifle round combination.

[jhjimbo]

Yes. A 30-06 180gr leaves the barrel at 2700fps. At 300 yds it is going about 2188fps with 1912 ftlbs of energy.I would say a proper shot under those conditions would take a elk.
Go to Hornady ballistics calculator and you can put in other calibers or bullet weights and velocities and see how they compare.

www.hornady.com/ballistics-resource/ballistics-calculator

[Ontario Honker Hunter]

Hmmm. I guess the question needs to clarified. Is that muzzle velocity/energy or upon arrival at 300 yards? I presumed the former.

[AAM]

To be clear I meant upon arrival at 300 yards.

[Ontario Honker Hunter]

The odds of successfully making a "proper shot" at 300 yards drop a lot further than the velocity and energy. But we have been there about shot placement before and that's not the question. My opinion is that the velocity and energy would be on the low end.

On a few occasions I have had trouble making 180 grain count at less than 100 yards. The shot placement was good but not perfect. One example comes to mind of a young bull moose shot in the neck in his bed at about 70 yards (deep snow and the only good shot that presented itself). That bullet lodged in the spinal cord but he still got up. I hit him five times before he was down for good (and still only lost about two pounds of good meat). At three hundred yards that bullet would have done much less damage. It certainly didn't do enough at one quarter the distance. Probably would have lost him. Elk and moose are tough customers. I shot a raghorn elk that had shattered its front leg above the knee the year before (my guess is he was hit by a car). It was completely healed though the leg wasn't straight. That little guy was still tough enough to keep his own harem on opening day. There's also several records of elk being shot through the lungs and surviving. Gotta give em hell to bring em down. But don't blow them to pieces either. Or take chances with hale mary shots.

[WA Mtnhunter]

OHH,
Don't take my comment the wrong way, but on several threads you have touted the virtues of the .30-06 and it being all that is needed for elk, yet it sounds like fron your most recent post above that you might could have needed a little more gun on occasion.

[Ol Krusty]

Yes, a 30-06 with a 180 gr bullet delivering 1800 lbs of energy at 300 yards is sufficient to kill an elk.

[DakotaMan]

Yes as long as you can hit it in the right spot. I am planning to use the new Barnes 175g LRX bullet with a Ballistic Coefficient of .508 in my 30-06 backup rifle. At 2750 fps muzzle velocity, that bullet will have nearly the velocity and energy you mention at 400 yards. At your velocity, that should be enough to penetrate the biggest bull lengthwise although I don't intend to shoot one that way.