New member on the OR coast

[Jewell2001]

I live on the oregon coastal range. I grew up over in eastern oregon. Hunting rockymountain elk. Move over to the coastal area a few years ago. Ive been wanting a roosevelt elk so bad. The unit I hunt has alot of clear cuts that joint up whith each other. The bulls I've seen have been to far out in the clear cut for me to shoot with my basic set up. So out hunting for blacktail deer this here. I was glassing a couple clear cuts. Spotted a 3couple point at 500 yards and a really nice 4 point at 700a yards. The time my partner and I made are way around through the revines trying to get with in a couple hundred yards. They both had moved into the blackberries and small reprods of fer trees. Ive always done my own reloading, so I know the pattern my rifle shoots. For blacktail deer. I shoot a Winchester 70 243. Its your basic self gun. For elk Ive all ways shot a 7mm mag. After time over time of not just being in range. I was getting very discouraged. So i started researching long range shooting. I picked up a Remington 700 300 RUM this year for elk. It only has a 4x12 Leupold on it for now. Im thinking about having leupold build me some turrets for it. Build them just for my handloads. I know its nothing like you guys shoot. But Im happy just starting out with what I got. I've been doing alot of shooting in different locations and terrain with it. Im 100% confident on my shots out to 400 yards right now. After that I start to wounder if Im going to get the job done right or going to have to track all night. I really want to be confident in my shot out to 800. I know I have to upgrade my equipment more. But a night force is way out of my budget right now. What is some good optics that are not a fantasy that will help me get out to the range I want. I want to upgrade this 300 RUM for now just to hunt elk and to shoot them between 600-800 yards. Any advise would be very appropriated. My plane is over the next couple years building a long range rifle out of my old 7mm smith and wesson 1500. But there is so many choices to make on how to do that. Leave it at a 7mm. Make it a 30 cal or see if it can be biult into a 7mmgun STW. Plane on taking my time with it. Getting everything the way I want and make it a rifle Im proud to hunt with. For now I will upgrade the 300 RUM just enough to hunt these Roosevelt elk. So again all information you can pass down my way. Will be very helpful. Thanks