Boone and Crockett Club Confirms New World Record Roosevelt Elk

Timothy Carpenter shows off his World Record Roosevelt Elk Antlers that measure 455 2/8 inches. (Image provided by The Boone and Crockett Club)

A Boone and Crockett Club Special Judges Panel recently confirmed Timothy Carpenter’s massive Roosevelt bull elk rack as a new World Record, with two teams of judges adjusting the score from 439 7/8 inches to 455 2/8 inches.

“The main objective of any panel, whether it be a Special Judges Panel or Awards Judges Panel, is to confirm the accepted entry score,” Kyle Lehr, the Club’s director of big game records, said in a B&C news release. “Sometimes differences in measurements are discovered through this process, and corrections need to be made. In the case of Mr. Carpenter's Roosevelt elk, those differences resulted in an increase in score.”

Carpenter’s elk, which he killed on September 21, 2023, in Humboldt County, California, crushes the previous World Record of 419 6/8 inches taken by Rick Bailey in British Columbia in 2015.

Carpenter has a number of large Roosevelt elk in the record books, including a 2011 bull that scored 398 1/8 inches, which is the current archery world record.

To declare Carpenter’s entry the official World Record, Boone and Crockett Club had to first follow its procedures, which require that the final score of a potential World Record be verified by either an Awards Program Judges Panel or a Special Judges Panel. For Carpenter’s elk, the Club held a Special Judges Panel in Verdi, Nevada. The measurers included the panel chairman and veteran measurer Victor Clark, Tim Humes, John Capurro, Slade Sanborn, and Jeff Simmons.

Carpenter, 39, guides elk hunters in the fall and works as a wildlife biologist in the spring. He said he rarely gets a day to hunt for himself, but he is able to get out in the field often.

“It is very rewarding to be part of any successful Roosevelt elk hunt,” Carpenter says. “It is that much more rewarding when we are able to take animals that are mature — or even past their prime —and are Boone and Crockett animals.”