During 20 years of professional taxidermy, the biggest bull elk I ever mounted was for a 16 year old kid who used a .243 with Barnes bullets. That's not a caliber that's recommmended for elk, but shows what you could do with the right bullet and good bullet placement even with a relatively small caliber. Here's a picture of that mount. By the way, the big bull dropped dead in its tracks to a heart shot!
