Steven Jay Gould once wrote about how evolution tends to weed out the extremes of traits in an ordinary environment. I think it applies to firearms. Using rifles of adequate power to do the job if the bullet gets where it needs to go, but not so powerful, heavy, and loud that they are hard to shoot and induce fear and flinching, is the same thing. Try to hunt deer regularly with a 17 Hornet, you're apt to lose a lot of game for lack of range and killing power. Shoot an .300 Ultra for average deer hunting, or even elk, and you may find (or not, but keep using it anyway) that it's just too big to place shots well. That fairly large range in the middle ground (lets say from around the .243 to the .30-06) is where most hunters are going to find the most success, I think. And I think I may have made this connection from reading a gunwriter many years ago, so I will give credit to whomever put the thought in my mind. I'm wondering if it was Mule Deer?
Last edited by 300_savage; 11/28/14.
