Hand gun hunting

While a .40 may be legal for hunting elk I would step up some in power to do so cleanly. I haven't looked at the energy levels that a .40 S&W has but for it to be legal it needs to have 500 foot pounds of energy at 100 yards for elk.

I have killed a few elk with pistols. A .357 mag, .44 mag revolvers, 7-30 Waters, and .357 Herrett out of a Thompson Center Contender.

The closest shot was on a cow at 20 yards and the furthest was a 150 yard shot on a raghorn bull in Colorado.

stevedcarlson said:

Has anyone killed an elk with a hand gun? If so what did they use. I am thinking of using my Glock 23 .40 Caliber do you think it will do the trip?

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Yeah, a .460 Smith & Wesson:

http://utahwildlife.net/forum/41-hunting-outside-utah/99138-da-road.html

I have a .40. I use it for road signs and beer cans. Prolly be OK though, a Utah guy shot and killed a moose in Wyoming a couple years ago with a .380. The moose "attacked" him on a snowmobile trail....uh while the guy was on a snowmobile....an operable snowmobile with fuel even. Anyway ya need to check the regs, a .40 may not meet the regs in Utah.

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Wyogoob What happened to the guy that shot the moose? I don't see how you can justify something like that if you can simply ride away from it? Sorry not trying to hijack the thread

I just took a look at the engery levels for the .40 S&W and while there are a few factory rounds that have over 500 ftpds of energy at the muzzle I doubt that they would still have it at 100 yards as is required by the DOW. So I would say that it isn't legal for elk.

http://www.ballistics101.com/40_caliber_sw.php

I reload all my guns so I think I will be able to find a good load to get to that magic 500fps hopefully if not I will not hunt with that gun! Thanks for the info guys!

stevedcarlson said:

I reload all my guns so I think I will be able to find a good load to get to that magic 500fps hopefully if not I will not hunt with that gun! Thanks for the info guys!

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Remember for a elk that needs to be at 100 yards and not the muzzle.

Here's an interesting chart on handgun cartridge energy:
http://www.gunnersden.com/index.htm.handgun-ballistics.html
A quick look at the 40S&W numbers makes me think you can't get there from here.

It should also be noted that the DOW does not go by what you hand load but charts such as what Cooky posted.