7 for deer and 8 for elk works pretty good, then I went and got a 0-6 and messed it all up.
oddly enough my 7mm rounds mimic the factory ammo from 100 years back.
As a gun buff and a reader and reloader I got a bit of a surprise when I made my first Western hunt to Wyoming in 1989. My Dad, brother, a good friend and I went on an Antelope hunt west of Casper. I had a .250-3000, Dad and Gordy had .257 Roberts, and my late lamented friend Tom had the world's shiniest Browning 7 mag.
We were staying at the Miracle Mile Ranch on the Platte River and our hosts were a wonderful, self sufficient ranching couple, that told us, "We sell beef, we eat Elk."
We were staying in some converted bedrooms in their basement, and it resembled a General Store down there. Eventually talk turned to rifles, and Ed the rancher, put his out for our perusal. First was his retired Model 94 .30-30. A sorrier looking specimen I'd never seen. Rode hard and put up wet was exactly its history. The butt stock where it had been exposed in a saddle scabbard was bare wood, sun bleached and raggedy. The wrist had so much friction tape, yes friction tape, not even electrical tape, that Ed said you had to squeeze the lever to get it to discharge. Ed said it was retired when the wiggly butt stuck made it too hard to shoot accurately. Yes, it had been his Elk rifle, he said it worked fine. The stock got busted when a horse rolled on it. Ed told us that story with some self deprecation. He said every rancher should know better than to leave a rifle in a scabbard on a horse when he dismounts for more'n a few seconds. His only twenny two was a similarly battered Nylon 66, more tape. If I remember correctly, it was in a Jeep when something heavy got tossed on it. I was becoming disenchanted.
Ed couldn't recall how many Elk he'd killed with the .30-30, but he said until very recently the ranch was awarded two "ranch tags" every Fall. He explained to my why you looked for a "blonde" cow if you wanted the best meat.
He put the .30-30 back into an equally beat up scabbard and slid it up into the ceiling of the basement, and drug out his "new" rifle. I was shocked again. A bedraggled Remington 760 pump in .30-06 with a K-2.5 Weaver on it. Ed told us the .30-06 had so much more range that he thought it best to have a scope put on it. Again the right hand side of the stock was without finish, but at least it wasn't broken. Bluing, well it had been blued once upon a time, but much like the Model 94, many miles of riding in a saddle scabbard with fine dust had given the rifle a, well let's generously call it patina. As I was recovering from my dismay at finding a clunky old Wisconsin style deer camp rifle in the hands of a "Genuine By God Western Rancher," I asked what ammo Ed used to kill Elk. His reply left an indelible mark on my formerly Jack O'Connored, Elmer Kiethed, Skeeter Skeltened, Finn Aagaarded, outdoor writer educated psyche. With my confidence already addled, (after all I had been convinced the hoary old .30-30 was inadequate for white tails), my experience was limited to government mandated shotgun slug use for deer. Ed told us and showed us. He said, "Whatever's on sale at the Holiday Gas Station." That was the closest source of ammo 36 miles away. Then he really delivered the knock out punch. "I like the 150 bullets when I can get them, they seem to shoot a little flatter." He pulled out a partial box of Holiday brand loaded by Federal, 150 grain pointed soft points.
I felt my ballistic world shifting beneath my feet. My moorings to decades of perusing articles and books containing the opinions of learned men who had trodden if not the world, then at least the West when game was plentiful and of Boone and Crockett proportions, were cast off. Elk cannot be killed with a mere .30-30. Cup and core bullets? What? Why a 150 grain cup and core soft point would render an Elk suitable only for display at the "Scratch and Dent" used Elk dealership. No exotic, high performance, controlled expansion hand loads? Ammo purchased at a, ah a, Gas Station? Oh my.
So, I guess the point of this rambling diatribe would be this. If we could hunt, shoot, and have the discipline to place our shots like the folks that actually live on and from the land, the 7.65x53 with a plain old mid weight jacketed soft point would work just fine. The world's Armies could have slaughtered all of the people they are answerable for, and all of the game been hunted, all of the competitions shot with a single example of a cartridge. Roy Weatherby not withstanding.