For big animals like moose and elk , you NEED the power and the bullet weight in your cartridge to push through thick muscle , bone and sinew . The needs to be enough energy to transfer in to the heart and lungs to drop that animal in its tracks . 300 win mag , shooting 200 gain bullets has that kind of energy out to 500 yards and it only drops maybe 3040 in that flight time . But , when you take the same heavy cartridge and start shooting it at smaller animals at closer distances ? You end up blowing out half the animal and destroying a lot of meat . Even worse with high energy rounds like this , you can blow out the stomach and get all kind of horrible in the cavity to deal with . 3006 is really the do all cartridge you want to consider here . Deer , Bear , no problem . Elk , Moose . within 300 yards ? Done . Go take a look at cut blocks and measure off 300 , 400 , 500 meters . See how far that distance really is in the real world . Stop and ask yourself if you ' re really going to be shooting those distances . Chances are you won ' t be .