I have a rifle elk hunt booked for next September and I am trying to choose a caliber. Dont tell me about gun, I have already decided on a Tikka because of the out of the box performance and sucess I have had with my other two.

Tell me why I should choose one of the following calibers or make a difference choice. Regardless it will have a muzzle brake put on it.

300WSM
300 Win Mag
7mm Rem Mag

Thanks

Any of those will work just fine. Pot full of Elk have been killed with 30.06 and .270 and the new rage is .338......How far you planning on shooting and how much recoil can you stand?

I would be most comfortable with the 300WSM. Took both of my New Mexico bulls with a 270WSM and 130 grain TSX.

I vote 7mag

Since you want a dedicated elk rifle and you're mounting a brake anyway, I'd say go with the .300 Winchester.

I have taken elk with both the 300 WSM and the 300 Win Mag. Since you are putting a brake on it might as well go with the Win Mag since ammo is a bit easier to find. IF you reload then it really doesn't matter. Both are good rounds.

I went 300 Win Mag.

any of those will be more than enough. Will be hard to make a big argument for one over the other.

I just like the sound of 300 win mag

Get Barnes SSTX and almost any caliber, 270 cal and up, will do.

Brake? Me no need a Brake? Me "big" boy!

Mass produced barreled action (not a custom barrel) and have to live with a mass produced twist rate the 300 Win Mag is my choice.

The Tikka 7 Rem Mag will stabilize 168 gr. but not 180 gr bullets. The short mag can be a pain to find brass for and a pain to make shoot according to our resident living hand load encyclopedia Chad. The 300 Win Mag Tikka with a 1:10" twist will stabilize 210 gr bullets as well as down to 180 gr. Look at the thread I have on the Tikka 300 Win Mag. A good friend of mine asked me to pick out a brand new elk rifle for him and my experience and research landed me on that rifle in that chambering. It is doing very well. We did put a brake on it prior to any shooting. It stanilizes the 210 gr Bergers like a champ and even though it is a 24" barrel it makes 2780 fps on the best powder charge range. That yeilds 2000 ft/lbs at 500 yards

30-30

300 win mag

How much does the Tikka weigh?

Under 7 pounds I believe. Their website has it listed. They are very light!

.300 Win Mag

I wouldn't own a .300 Win Mag in a sub-seven-pounds rifle. Save that caliber for the 7 1/4 - 7 1/2 pound rifle.

Oh wait, you're putting a brake on it, right? Then never mind.

300wm, load you up some 180gr ABs and have fun.

300 win mag

300 Weatherby 180gr Barnes triple shock (no lead) bullets

.338 Win.

Professional hunters and guides detest a muzzle brake. I do too.

190 accubond lrs if you can find them

And people that shoot more than ten rounds a year love them. Any guide that would try to dictate if I could have a brake on my rifle would be fired before he was hired.

Moving on...

'Respect your experience and training skills. I shoot way more than ten rounds a year and I still hate 'em. Of course, there are people on here that think if there's anyone else with you when you pull the trigger, you're not really hunting.

I understand not liking the noise increase. But if I was a guide I would rather have a confident shooter with a brake than a non confident shooter without one


a brake is one of the easiest things to add to a stock rifle to make it more easier to shoot.

My argument has been and still is this: If you're not shooting suppressed you should have on hearing protection anyway. The argument there is never time is lost on me. I keep plugs around my neck and put them in more times that not, making a shot on an animal. Might as well do it with half the recoil.