Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Are we gravitating toward smaller calibers/cartridges?

As someone once said, spring black bear season is never not funny when the DSMF's arrive with their 375 and the ilk and shoot 4 1/2' bears.

It's JOC being vindicated. Thats what's happening. And a good thing it is, too.

7x57 is a big'un and the .270 is still gay.

.30-06 Springfield is where its at -if you want to include the big bears. Grancel Fitz had it right.

So does that make hunting the west with a 270 a small caliber and gay?

22-250 and 243's were the norm here while i was growing up, and still are.

Back in the 90's when there were lots of deer/elk in the area we'd get many depredation permits..My cull rifle was always a 22-250,even for elk. Just cows tho, pretty big difference between shooting a cow and a mature bull.

thats another trend around here when someone asks what to use for elk, we get gobs of pic's of 250lb cows "so and so bullet/cart drt this 'nice'cow"(they are always nice, for some reason)

270's and 30-06's are the common denominator everywhere. I still find humor in the 270 being "gay" as it's the cartridge that many are compared to.

You can go up and down with bullets in a 270 and have plenty of rifle for anything in NA.

Ha! True!

Sammer, back in the mid 1950's when my father was flying for Lynch's out of Billings, he visited quite a few ranches, dropping mail and groceries in the winter, or picking up a rancher for a trip to who-knows-where.

Anyway, he said there was generally a LARGE mule deer on the wall of the house, and when he'd ask what it was shot with, the answer was invariably "220 Swift."

Things don't change much in Eastern Montana... except that trucks are now 4wheel drive, and the 22-250 has replaced the Swift!

Well, and more people have phones too

Be it heavy or light, It's not what you shoot, but how well you shoot it.

All the rest is just mouth.

After shooting lots of deer with either .243(smallest legal caliber here), 7mm-08, .308 or .30-06, my personal gravitation has been to shooting deer with cool "old traditional lever guns".

It's what makes me happy!



YMMV

I've hunted with a lot of guys through the years that used .243's. It never struck me that their guns were as effective as my .30-06 all other comparisons being equal. I've never killed anything with the cartridge myself but felt I saw enough to form an opinion.

In what way was the 243 not as effective as the '06?

I recall a number of times during deer drives where the .243 guy wasn't sure if he hit or missed. We'd find blood (or not if he missed) and work out the trail usually finding the deer. I can't remember ever wondering if I hit a deer or not with my '06. I'd now whether it was DRT or ran off that I connected.

So the 243 didn't work great when the hunter missed the deer. Very interesting.

I didn't say that. Re-read it.

PG,

I think he is saying a 30-06 usually leaves a larger mark.

And there is some truth to that.

Your post doesn't make a whole helluva lot of sense. The deer shot with the 243 died. So what's the problem?

My posts sometimes have that problem. Sorry about that. What I was trying to say is that a killing shot, wasn't always as immediately apparent (or as instantaneously), with a .243 as a .30-06. Just speaking from what I've seen.

The deer is the determining factor more than the caliber. I've shot them with a 7 mag and they never showed any indications of being hit until they dropped 50 yards later. I've shot them with smaller calibers and they dropped DRT. I've had some run off when hit and you couldn't tell they were even shot and some do a flip even when hit in nearly the same spot with the same gun and load.

The .243 works. I don't question that. I just never seen it do anything to win me over from my .270 and .30-06.

Ok, makes sense.

If you want to see DRT performance, shoot for bone. It works just fine with a 243.