Like most have said before the .270 is fine as long as you pick your shots. That was all my Dad hunted with and killed plenty of elk with it. All he ever shot were 130 grain handloads. His best bull was a 7x7 Rosevelt on the upper Kalama. Huge elk and one shot. I use a .280 for all of my hunting, I hand load Nosler partitions for it and I have no doubt that when I finally get a decent shot at an Elk it will more than do the job. One of these days I will look at something in the .300 to .338 range but that is more for just wanting another gun