This years primary elk rifle!

[taylorce1]

Here is the rifle I hope to take my elk with this year.  I will be carrying my .30-06 as back up but I'll be hunting a lot in dark timber and this little rifle is just begging to be used. 





I will be adding this Rice peep sight to the bolt and I do have a new safety on order.  This rifle was missing the safety when I purchased it.  I've got the load that will hold 2" at 100 for three rounds, hoping this sight will get them a little tighter. 



.30-40 Krag loaded with 180 Grain Hornady RN, just the RX for Elk!

[mauser98us]

Gitrdun I am going to carry both my Swede 9.3 x57 and my sporter Krag for elk this year. Both open sighted.

[Coyote Hunter]

Looks like fun to me.  Should work great.

I have a box of factory .30-40 that was given to me, but no rifle.  Maybe someday...

[BBF]

                      RN's  !!

[Tonk]

Taylorforce1......My very first exposer to a military rifle when I was a very young boy, was the .30-40 Krag service rifle. It is one of my favorites to this day, has plenty of power for most big game in the USA using 220 grain bullets. It was never a winner at the velocity polls but one doesn't need all that velocity to kill elk in the dark timber. Cheer's! 

[Coyote Hunter]

My primary elk rifle this year is a Ruger M77 MKII with the semi-skeltonized "canoe paddle" synthetic stock.  A Burris FullField II w/ Ballistic Plex reticle in mounted on top.  It drives 180g Barnes MRX's around 3000fps and the hash marks under the centerline are (serendipitously) dead on at 500 and 600 yards respectively.

My backup and deer rifle is a Rem M700 .30-06 pushing 168g Barnes TTSX at around 2900fps.  Same scope, and 500 yards is a piece of cake.

[patrickjames]

Here is the rifle I hope to take my elk with this year.  I will be carrying my .30-06 as back up but I'll be hunting a lot in dark timber and this little rifle is just begging to be used. 





I will be adding this Rice peep sight to the bolt and I do have a new safety on order.  This rifle was missing the safety when I purchased it.  I've got the load that will hold 2" at 100 for three rounds, hoping this sight will get them a little tighter. 



.30-40 Krag loaded with 180 Grain Hornady RN, just the RX for Elk!

Excellent!!! I love your Krag.  A classic American hunting rifle if there ever was one.

[WyoStillhunter]

Congratulations on a beautiful rifle in a classic cartridge.

Francis E. Sell wrote in Advanced Hunting on Deer and Elk Trails, (Stackpole, 1954):

"Take the old .30/40 as an example.  Not much in the way of velocity here -- a 220 grain bullet pushed at 2200 feet per second.  Yet I have seen a dozen one shot kills made on elk with this caliber in the model 95 Winchester and Krag sporter. ...There are many .300 Magnum riflemen in the brush, and they are deadly with this caliber.  Unfortunately there are a lot of .30/40 hunters armed with .300 Magnums, and they are finding it a wounder without knowing why." (p. 127)

The point of this section of the chapter is that there is a "right" rifle/cartridge combo for each of us.  When we find that combo we can be very effective on game.  Old Francis knew that the Krag would do the job on elk.

Good luck with your hunting.

[WyoStillhunter]

taylorce1, we are waiting with baited breath for the hunt story. 

[billy_56081]

If I remember correctly, the Elk that held the world record at least for a very long time, if not still was shot with a 30-40. I'm truly envious of you and that rifle. Best of luck a,d can't wait to hear the results.

[taylorce1]

taylorce1, we are waiting with baited breath for the hunt story. 

Well sorry to say that my .30-40 didn’t contact with any elk this 4th season.  My either sex tag went unfilled.  Couldn’t find a single elk anywhere in our hunting area or any fresh sign.  Did find the remains of what appeared to be a very large elk, which I’m assuming was a bull that winter killed.  I don’t know as all we found was the lower jaw bones but no skull in the remains.  The bones had long since been picked clean and were bleached white, but the shoulder blades and hooves were huge.   

Got to the hunting area late opening day as my hunting partner had to finish up some work, we arrived just after dark and set up camp.  Hunted hard Thursday no tracks cut to follow but we had hope as overnight we were supposed to get snow.  Snow didn’t come overnight but late afternoon on Friday still no tracks cut.  By Saturday morning there was about 1 foot of fresh snow on the ridge tops, we got up on the ridges and zigzagged through the timber several times and never cut tracks again.  So that afternoon we tried hunting below camp in the cedars and oak brush again no tracks to cut.  We woke up Sunday morning to new fresh powder and no tracks again so we wrapped up camp about noon and headed home. 

Bad thing was we talked to several different hunters in the area and not one elk was taken the whole 4th season in our little area of National Forest and BLM.  Had a great time camping with my friend, and saw quite a few deer.  I even spotted one Ermine hunting in the snow.  Wish I had my camera handy for that one, but my lens fogged up and he disappeared quickly when he spotted us.