.41 mag for elk?

thats the load i carry for bear protection

I'll also say that once you fire the first shot, keep shooting even if it's at the hind end. Assuming of course the first shot was a hit. Put as much lead in that animal as you can.

In Kentucky the law requires to hunt elk with a handgun: the bullet shall produce at least 550 ft/lbs of energy at 100 yards.

Sooo, the warden carries a shooting-chrony with him in the woods ;-)

Yep! He carries it in a holster right there beside his service gun and ticket book. I wonder what he would say if you got 549 ft/lbs at 99.75 yards?

In Colorado it has to produce 500 ft lbs of energy at 100 yards with factory ammo.

a hollow point out of a 41 for elk would be unethical

if you must use a 41 then use the heavy hardcast.

I agree with you on both points, but the same must be said for the 44, and even the 45LC.

A 41 simply wont cut it.

Or...throw the gun over the elk's back to make him look the other direction, grab the big gun and hit him with the big lead!!

I like that strategy Dan! I'll have to give it a try!

.... When used properly the .41 as the lowly .25-35 will and can work if it applied properly!

... properly loaded and applied it will work in spades on Elk

Well stated, Dick!

This is one of those discussions that has a lot of opinions for & against. But many keep going back to the old argument about seeing elk run off from being hit with a 300 Win mag so how can a handgun get it done. Its simple, energy figures don't mean a whole lot in the real world of hunting. You need bullet placement & you need penetration, that usually means a good cast bullet, expansion is nice but not necessary if you are using a 41 maggie or bigger. Saying a 44 will work & a 41 is too small is a strange statement.
I don't believe a 210-215 gr slug is the answer because I don't think either will give you the needed penetration to exit on an elk, they are very tough. I've mentioned before that I think they are tougher than moose.
I've taken 2 elk with my 41 maggie's, both were one shot kills. I used a 230 gr Keith on one, got about 4 feet of penetration on that one & used a 250 gr LBT on the other, broke both front shoulders & also exited. Stood next to a friend a few years ago & watched him drop a nice bull moose with one shot using a 41 maggie & one of my 230 gr cast slugs. The bull was facing us straight on, got about 4 feet of penetraton on him, although we could not find the slug, but it was well past the diaphram. The slug went through the brisket, into the chest cavity, took out one lung & the top of the heart, went back into the guts somewhere. He went about 30 yds & dropped, probably was down & out in 6-7 seconds.
Don't make the mistake of pushing for every bit of velocity you can squeeze out of a sixgun, you have to work your loads up where you can manage the recoil and get good accuracy. 1100 fps with good accuracy is much better than 1300-1400 fps & flinching. My 250 gr LBT was doing about 1150 fps on my last elk, she never took a single step, I think the distance was 74 yds.
A bigger caliber will "not" make up for a bad hit.

Dick

[quote=sixshot]This is one of those discussions that has a lot of opinions for & against. But many keep going back to the old argument about seeing elk run off from being hit with a 300 Win mag so how can a handgun get it done. Its simple, energy figures don't mean a whole lot in the real world of hunting. You need bullet placement & you need penetration, that usually means a good cast bullet, expansion is nice but not necessary if you are using a 41 maggie or bigger. Saying a 44 will work & a 41 is too small is a strange statement.
I don't believe a 210-215 gr slug is the answer because I don't think either will give you the needed penetration to exit on an elk, they are very tough. I've mentioned before that I think they are tougher than moose.
I've taken 2 elk with my 41 maggie's, both were one shot kills. I used a 230 gr Keith on one, got about 4 feet of penetration on that one & used a 250 gr LBT on the other, broke both front shoulders & also exited. Stood next to a friend a few years ago & watched him drop a nice bull moose with one shot using a 41 maggie & one of my 230 gr cast slugs. The bull was facing us straight on, got about 4 feet of penetraton on him, although we could not find the slug, but it was well past the diaphram. The slug went through the brisket, into the chest cavity, took out one lung & the top of the heart, went back into the guts somewhere. He went about 30 yds & dropped, probably was down & out in 6-7 seconds.
Don't make the mistake of pushing for every bit of velocity you can squeeze out of a sixgun, you have to work your loads up where you can manage the recoil and get good accuracy. 1100 fps with good accuracy is much better than 1300-1400 fps & flinching. My 250 gr LBT was doing about 1150 fps on my last elk, she never took a single step, I think the distance was 74 yds.
A bigger caliber will "not" make up for a bad hit.

Dick

Saying a 44 will work & a 41 is too small is a strange statement.

This is one of those discussions that has a lot of opinions for & against. But many keep going back to the old argument about seeing elk run off from being hit with a 300 Win mag so how can a handgun get it done. Its simple, energy figures don't mean a whole lot in the real world of hunting. You need bullet placement & you need penetration, that usually means a good cast bullet, expansion is nice but not necessary if you are using a 41 maggie or bigger. Saying a 44 will work & a 41 is too small is a strange statement.
I don't believe a 210-215 gr slug is the answer because I don't think either will give you the needed penetration to exit on an elk, they are very tough. I've mentioned before that I think they are tougher than moose.
I've taken 2 elk with my 41 maggie's, both were one shot kills. I used a 230 gr Keith on one, got about 4 feet of penetration on that one & used a 250 gr LBT on the other, broke both front shoulders & also exited. Stood next to a friend a few years ago & watched him drop a nice bull moose with one shot using a 41 maggie & one of my 230 gr cast slugs. The bull was facing us straight on, got about 4 feet of penetraton on him, although we could not find the slug, but it was well past the diaphram. The slug went through the brisket, into the chest cavity, took out one lung & the top of the heart, went back into the guts somewhere. He went about 30 yds & dropped, probably was down & out in 6-7 seconds.
Don't make the mistake of pushing for every bit of velocity you can squeeze out of a sixgun, you have to work your loads up where you can manage the recoil and get good accuracy. 1100 fps with good accuracy is much better than 1300-1400 fps & flinching. My 250 gr LBT was doing about 1150 fps on my last elk, she never took a single step, I think the distance was 74 yds.
A bigger caliber will "not" make up for a bad hit.

Dick

my point has always been that it's load dependent. i have loads that i shoot that are wholly inapproprate for raking shots on elk out of my 454, same way i wouldn't use a hornady 325 on certain shots out of my 475, but there are loads that are appropriate in the .41 and there's 500 smith loads i wouldn't wanna use. once you get the 41 and above imho its 99% about the bullet but it's always 100% about accuracy and if someone shoots it better than a larger caliber, use the .41

I don't think anyone is actually badmouthing the 41 maggie, those who have used it very much knows very well that it doesn't take a back seat to some of the bigger calibers, that is with correct bullets, 250-265 gr, etc. Some don't have any experience with a 41 yet they down play what it can do.
I've used it a great deal on big game & although I know in my head that a bigger caliber should work better I've never actually seen it work that way in the field. I've taken a couple of cow elk that were extremely large & my friends bull moose would certainly be bigger than a large bull elk.
While its never a disadvantage to use a bigger caliber it can work against the shooter if he over guns himself & starts to lose accuracy. Heavy bullets don't need maximum velocity to work, the large mass gets the job done if the shooter makes correct hits & that will never change.
Back in the days before most of us had access to chronographs I thought my loads were going faster than they actually were. Along the way what I discovered was, my loads at 1100-1200 fps were passing through everything I shot, deer, elk, bears, antelope, lion, moose & African game & everything in between. So a little light came on in my head, if 1100-1200 fps is working & my 41 maggies are killing everything in sight.......why do I need more horsepower, answer is, I don't, what I need is accuracy every time, without fail. Give me any angle & I'll hit the vitals. Will a 250 gr 44 slug out perform a 250 gr 41 slug, of course not. We can discuss "marginal" but .019" probably fits that discription quite well.

Dick

my point has always been that it's load dependent. i have loads that i shoot that are wholly inapproprate for raking shots on elk out of my 454, same way i wouldn't use a hornady 325 on certain shots out of my 475, but there are loads that are appropriate in the .41 and there's 500 smith loads i wouldn't wanna use. once you get the 41 and above imho its 99% about the bullet but it's always 100% about accuracy and if someone shoots it better than a larger caliber, use the .41

Why will the bigger caliber give you a range and angle advantage? ....................

..............................
But you are right that when extreme penetration is required, I do prefer really big and really heavy....

As for me, I will stick with my .454 and .475 for the bigger game. And I will encourage my elk hunting clients to do the same; as I want them to have the best advantage they can get because of the odds against you when hunting elk.

I'd rather them to bring a 41 mag than a 454 or 475 if they shot the 41 more acurately. One must place the bullet propely are all is lost and elk hunting isn't easy.

So, I guess I believe in shot placement with displacement!

I wouldn't recommend using the 41 on elk unless you were shooting something like the 265gr Cast Performance and shoot to break it down.

Well said TCTex! Couldn't agree more.

Just curious if anyone out there would suggest or has experience dropping an elk with a .41 magnum. If so what bullet/load? Currently I load a 210 grain sierra jhc @ 1500 fps. would this do the job on an elk under 100 yards?? thanks for any replies.