Single shot rifle for hunting elk?

I own several single-shot actions in rimfire, center-fire and shotgun. I have never felt limited by any of them. I have taken follow-up shots on two or three occasions, but not once has the 2nd or 3rd shot mattered. Either I missed with all 3 or the first one would have done the job with no follow-up shots needed. The last time I shot and the animal didn't go down, or show any sign of being hit, I was honestly too stunned to even try a second shot...by the time it occurred to me, the deer took a few steps and fell over, dead. I treat all of my rifles as though they are single shots, in that I don't quickly cycle the action after I shoot, in anticipation of a 2nd shot. I shoot...and see what the results are. Usually I start digging through my pack for gutting gloves and never even put a new round in the chamber.

Perhaps if I had paid a lot of money to book an elk hunt, or even drew a tag and was doing it on my own, I would feel differently about having a fast follow-up shot. I don't think so, though. I am in the habit of shooting and expecting that to be the end of the matter, so it would take a change in my mindset to be prepared for a fast second shot.

The only thing that one needs to do to make a single shot completely suitable for hunting elk is to decide that you won't take a shot at an elk unless you know you can make it a good one. It's that simple. It's that complex.

Any argument that one must have more shots available because you may be forced to take a bad shot due to the fact that you paid a lot of money to hunt, or time constraints mean a bad shot is your only one, is just bad hunting ethics. If your only shot is a bad one, it should not be taken. Spraying bullets is not good hunting practice. So a single shot is just fine in that sense.

My problem is that I can, apparently, really f*** it up. Twice in 45 years of hunting I have really screwed up the first good shot and the second one from my repeating bolt action saved the situation. I can't remember a time when I just plain missed the first one and then made the second (or third), but I want to be able to fix my stupid blunders as fast as possible. Many times I have needed a "finisher" (sometimes intentionally, actually) and I like not even having to look at the gun to get the next round ready.

So I don't use single shots for hunting anything.

I don't know...I used to use a single shot in my younger days of whitetail hunting, but I've been using a repeater for an awful lot of years now. There's no way I'd go back to single shot. It's great to say "put it where it counts", but where it counts to you and where it counts to the deer aren't always the same thing. Now, I don't know if the deer in my immediate area are just super deer, or what...but seems about every second year somebody in our hunting party nearly loses a deer that "was dead". I'm talking about tracking these thing through willow so thick you can't even "paddle" through them, because they just press you in place like a featherboard holds your workpiece against the router table. I've quite literally tracked deer for fellow hunters (and yes, even occasionally myself) that have had two broken shoulders, hamburger for a heart, and dollar sized chunks of lung all across a nearly 3 mile trail. This was courtesy of a .30-06 at just under 100 yards. Now, granted a second shot may not have changed a thing. After all, these deer should have been dead with the first one...but they don't seem to mind. Maybe a guy would have gut shot the thing the second time, as it was running away, but maybe that gut shot would have flopped it so that it wouldn't have the strength to get back up again?

Two years ago I shot a whitetail buck four time. I thought I had somehow missed the first 3 times, though I started shooting at only about 120 yards away. For the first shot he was facing me head on. When I squeezed, he changed direction and kept running (right to left). I got lined up and squeezed again. Again, no indication of being hit, but he turned again and ran left to right (towards the bush). I shot a third time, and he once again showed no indication of being hit, but turned and headed away from me for a few brief seconds, then turned and head right to left one more time. This last shot was at about 60-65 yards, with my .270 WSM with 130 gr. Ballistic Silvertips. By this time I was madder 'n heck, and I just could not believe what was happening. And, of course, I was starting to shake. My last shot was at about 130 yards when he turned broadside to jump the fenceline I was sitting on. I squeezed, he tried for the fence, but didn't really clear it. He just sort of belly flopped the wires, and guts went flying about 7 yards. Then he did a nice flip and lay completely still. When I skinned him out, I'll be darned if every single shot didn't expand into lung or heart (with the exception of the gut shot, of course). Luckily, the only meat I lost was a few ounces of backstrap, but there were virtually no organs left intact in that critter.

Seeing those kinds of things, I just feel I owe it to the creatures I hunt to always have at least one follow up shot. Nothing against those that use single shots, of course...but it isn't for me!