I will not try to answer this question myself.
After all, I am merely an individual elk hunter and can only offer my little window of personal experience, okay add in the experience of a few of my close elk hunting friends too.
Instead, I will offer the suggestions of an extended fourth generation ranching family that, on their several close by sister ranches in the Manti La Sal Country of south-central Utah’ have been hunting elk, guiding trophy elk hunts, and selling cow elk tags to hunters forever. They take hunting really seriously.
I hunted late season cow elk there always successfully for a decade on one of this extended family's ranches.
For the record, the smaller herds of elk on their collective ranches number in the many dozens, easily into the hundreds, and on occasion the herds can be over a thousand elk.
I will also add that their collective experience includes hunting elk in the thicker forests on the top of the Aquarius Plateau, which tops 11,000’ and is the highest plateau in North America.
Here is what they suggest as minimum to the new elk hunters in their family and circle of friends.
For cow elk their minimum is a 270 when used with Barnes all copper bullets, which they hold in high regard. With conventional lead core bullets, the 7mm mag is their bottom line for cow elk. For bull elk, their minimum is a 30-06 with Barnes bullets or a 300 mag with conventional bullets. Of course, any newer chamberings of the same bore size that has the same power/velocity meets their extended family’s suggestions.
How many elk this ranching family group, and the other hunters that have taken there is beyond counting.
Anything under .277 or 7mm bore diameter are considered deer cartridges, and the deer cartridge minimum is .243 with Barnes all copper bullets. Actually a .243 is considered a coyote caliber.
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