we leave for a montana elk hunt on new years day with our hunt to start on Jan 3. the host said the elk are there and we should have a good chance to fill tags. he said that the elk seem spooky this year and we should be prepared to shoot to 300 yards. My 375 winchester contender is my primary gun with a ruger redhawk 4.25" 44 mag with a burris ff3 as my finisher. I dug out my magnum research ssp-91 .308 out of mothballs and checked the zero and it is ready to go if need be.
I have been shooting off of the bipod prone, my prefered long range shooting position and off of my tripod trigger sticks with a homemade pistol rest out to two hundred yards. i have been able to keep the groups to 3 inches or less at 200. My son Brad has a Scoped Ruger blackhawk 45 colt with 250 gr deep curls and a heavy load of h-110 in case of a close encounter but he is carrying a browning a bolt 300 wsm to reach out there if need be. My wife will have her rifle in 7-08 so there will be one to use if i absolutely have to make a long shot to fill the freezer.
i feel pretty confident that the handguns will come into play if the elk are in a stalkable location. I have my range finder for exact ranging and my drop charts indicate a near top of back hold at 300 with my current zero. anything that i am forgetting?