Lots of folks bought into the 264 Win mag when it first came out here in Idaho. It turned out to be a poor elk killer with the bullets offered from the factory at that time. The Nosler partitions are much better bullets, but the 6.5 is an extremly light gun for an elk rifle.
It will kill, but you will need to be careful about both shot placement and ranges you shoot. If your hunting steep country keep in mind a wounded elk can go a long ways and it's usually downhill into a place that will make recovery hard.
I use an 8mm Rem mag for an elk rifle and my hunting partner has used a 7mm Remington mag stoked with 175 grain Speer Grand Slams for a long time now.
Most of the folks I know that hunt elk here in Idaho use as a minimum the 308. The 30-06 is popular along with all of the 30 magnums.
I've got a friend whose wife has killed perhaps 20 elk in the past 25 years. She uses a 243 with heavy bullets. I don't believe she's ever taken a shot longer than a hundred yards and 99 percent of her shots are neck shots.
Basically she proves that any good centerfire can take game the size of elk, but in the past 45 years of elk hunting I've also seen lots of elk wounded and lost with much more potent calibers/cartridges.
Bottom line is if your a careful hunter most anything will work. If you plan on harvesting and do have to take a less than perfect shot then can you turn it down?
I know the argument about a poor shot with a monster magnum can wound just as a poor shot from a 223 will, but I also feel we owe it to the game to use a cartridge powerful enough to do a quick certian job.
I don't know where your going to hunt elk, but it you come to Northern Idaho drop me a PM and I can point you in the right direction to some fair hunting.
