Jordan,
That's very illustrative of the differences in two bullets in different cartridges.
But it's also not what we're talking about, because there isn't NEARLY that much difference in wind drift between a 160 Partition and, say, a 168 JLK (which in an earlier post you suggested would be a fairer comparison than a 180 Berger) in the 7mm Remington Magnum.
I ran the number for the two bullets you suggest through Berger's ballistic program, using actual BC data from Bryan Litz's latest book, BALLISTIC PERFORMANCE OF RIFLE BULLETS, an almost 500-page book of the results of his actual range tests of the BC's of various bullets. One of the interesting things about Bryan's tests is how often the listed BC's of various LR bullets are higher than reality, partly because many companies (especially smaller companies) only list a best-case scenario. Well, it turns out the 168 JLK is one of those bullets, and it actually drifts only about 2" less in a 10-mph sidewind at 500 yards than a 160 Partition.
So no, somebody using the same wind hold with both bullets wouldn't hit a wolf in the butt with one and in the chest with the other. Plus, I would hope that anybody who's preparing for a possible 500-yard shot on a bighorn ram will have been practicing with the bullet and load they'll be using, so can make a decent wind hold with that load.
As I stated earlier in this thread, BC doesn't make nearly as much difference as many people think at ranges out to 500 yards, given spitzer bullets. I didn't get this information just from running the numbers through ballistic programs, but because astonishingly enough, I do a lot of longer-range shooting throughout the year. This is partly because i have to test a lot of rifles and loads, but also because I can shoot at anywhere up to mile on some public land only 10 minutes from my house. I don't often shoot at a mile, but often do at 600-1000.
So many shooters are fixated on high BC these days they often forget there are two bullets factors in wind drift, BC and velocity. A couple of local friends who decided to start playing with longer-range shooting were out practicing at 500 yards this summer, up in the local mountains. One was shooting his new .300 magnum with 200-grain AccuBonds at 2900 fps, and the other the .270 Weatherby Magnum he's used to kill a pile of pronghorn, mule deer and elk over the past decade, with 130-grain Partitions at 3500 fps.
After the reading they'd recently done, they assumed the .300 magnum's bullets would drift far less than the .270 Weatherby's. Instead, they were astonished to find that in the same conditions, there wasn't any practical difference, since for practical purposes the bullets all drifted about the same amount, close enough together for killing big game at 500 yards.
Neither one of them had ever used a ballistic program, so I showed them one on the Internet, which showed them the results they got weren't an anomaly, since there was only about 2 inches difference in wind drift.
Now, if either one of them wants to shoot beyond 500 yards, the .300 would definitely have an advantage. But they don't, partly because they saw how many weird things wind does to bullets at 500 yards.
