With moose season rapidly approaching, lets talk about the right cartridges for moose hunting this week.

First of all, a moose is a massive animal; they have a great amount of muscle mass coupled by a heavy bone structure. This being said, it means you need to have a fairly powerful cartridge to get the job at hand done cleanly and humanely.

Even though it can be done at close ranges, forget about taking your trusty 30-30 Winchester on a moose hunt, it just doesn’t have the popcorn, it was intended for deer at woods ranges.

For close yardage shots only (120 yards or less) here are a few cartridges that will work fine. They include the .300 Savage, the 8 mm Mouser, the 45-70 Gov’t., the .444 Marlin, the .303 British, the .35 Remington and probable the best cartridge of this bunch, the .358 Winchester. If you happen to be using the .444, the 45-70 or the .35 Remington, I strongly recommend that you use Hornady’s new “Lever Revolution” ammunition.

My friend and neighbor, Pete Kolofsky of Sebago, harvested his 900-pound bull last year with one shot with his 35 Remington using the “Lever Revolution” ammo. Kolofsky shot his bull in the middle of the front shoulder at close range and it dropped the massive bull like a bad habit.

Other choices of cartridges for longer shots are numerous. If a moose hunter happens to be carrying a 270 Winchester or a 280 Remington, or perhaps a 308 Winchester or the venerable 30-06 Springfield (Maine’s most popular moose cartridge), he or she has a good moose set-up. For any of these cartridges, I strongly recommend a well-constructed bullet, preferably a “nosler partition” or a “trophy bonded bear claw.” Both are offered by the Federal Cartridge Company.

Going up in power and performance, here is what I consider the kings of moose medicine. They are the 7 mm Remington Magnum, the 300 Winchester Magnum and the 338 Winchester Magnum. Also in this bunch is the 300 ultra mag and the whole cast of the new Winchester short magnums, the 270 WSM, 300 WSM, the 325 WSM, and the 338 WSM. Any of these loadings will make “Bullwinkle” give up his ghost real quick with a well-placed shot.

Shot placement on these big critters is crucial. If you want to chase them for 100 yards into tangled up blow downs, go ahead and lung shoot them, but if you want to anchor them where they stand, place your bullet in the middle of the front shoulder, Mr. Moose will go nowhere but down, end of story.

Good luck to all of you lucky moose hinters, and remember to get that moose cooled off and to a processor as quickly as possible, moose meat is too good to waste.

A couple of there real good choices I forgot to mention earlier are the 350 Remington Magnum and the 35 Whelen, either on of these fine rounds are great moose stoppers.

If you have trouble getting geared up with any of these cartridges or perhaps a new rifle or scope, I can suggest Howell’s Gun Shop in Gray. The crew at Howell’s is very knowledgeable and has the stuff you need in stock at all times and are very fair with their prices.

Enjoy your moose hunt, have fun and be safe.