Partially due to a shoulder injury and partially due to age I was looking for a rifle in 257 or 260 lately and they just don't seem to appear in gun stores. I guess gun stores stock what sells, but I would think those mid range cartridges would be a lot more popular.
What makes less sense is that I have seen two dad's this year start their first year hunters out with 30/06s and both cases ended up with wounded and lost elk. My guess is that those kids would have had a better chance of killing elk with a skaller cartridge.

Royce

I'm continually amazed and the number of people I meet that look at me like I have 3 heads when I tell them I use a 223 a bunch for deer hunting.

People are mostly stupid, you know that.

Yes a big mistake. While we as grown men think that the 30-06 doesn't have much recoil...to a child it does. I know somebody's going to come along and say when my boy was 6 he killed a moose w/my .358Norma Mag. but it's really tough on youngsters. Knowing young people are so excited to get to go hunting they often times hide the fact that the recoil on a certain rifle is too much. All we have to do is watch their faces while shooting and see how they close their eyes, yank the trigger and grimace w/their face. powdr

223s with TSXs are deer killing machines.

We just started out my bud's 14 YO son with my old tang safety Ruger 77 .243 this year. He took a small buck at around 75-100yds or so with 1 shot.......


I think a 223 with TSXs or a 60gr. NP are great starter guns for young deer hunters. A 243 is also, IMO. Nothing more is needed to kill a deer, and more recoil is only a bad thing to a youngster.....

Royce..., I've killed a fair amount of deer with my 30-06, then I bought a 243 and found out it kills the just as dead. Imagine that!! I know what you're saying about getting older, I don't find the 06 to have brutal recoil but I'd much rather shoot the 243.


Steelie..., saw a nice one taken with a 223 in Macon County, damn deer looked pretty dead too me!
IMO the ones knocking it never used it.

I doubt if there is an elk alive that could take a 100 grain Nosler Partition, or any one of several other bullets behind the should and live more than a few seconds.

If you can shoot, must anything kills anything. If you can't then it really doesn't matter what you use.

I wouldn't blame the cartridge for the kids or parents mistake. Some (and adults) just kids can't handle a 30-06. I was using one when I was 12 with no problem whatsoever. The kids were just that: Kids with no experience at pulling the trigger on live game. Probably very little trigger time and need much more practice in general. These notions that someone missed because of the cartridge they were using is simply idiotic. Put the blame where it truly belongs: Hunter inadequacy and inexperience. Pretty plain and simple. Nuff said..

Absolutely!!! Larger caliber doesn't compensate for poor marksmanship.

Neither does a smaller caliber..

Once again, nothing escapes you.

Put it thru vitals and it does

I never fired a rifle until I was 16. First rifle was an 06 Savage 110. It kicked the living hell out of me. 1 or 2 shots no problem but sighting in I was developing a flinch. I sold it. I went full circle and now own 2 30.06's and probably acquire a couple more although the 308 win is slowly changing my mind on adding more? I didn't have anyone to teach me to rifle shoot. My father was a strictly shotgun person and only owned 1 shotgun a 12 gauge. It was difficult to learn how to shoot or what to get not having anyone who could teach or show you. Rifles were considered taboo in my family since the range they possessed and the fact no one hunted medium game in my family. I learned a lot from then til now and still learn.

Royce not sure what rifle you are considering but you should be able to find it "online" if you can't find it in your retail store. You can always find a used 243, 308, 7-08 and convert it to a 260/257 with a barrel swap. Tikka T3, Remington SPS, Kimber should be able to be found with a little looking? Check over at Euro Optics.

I like Steely's answer to this!

Even a .243 can be a lot of kick for a kid. I started with a 700 ADL with a hard buttplate when I was 11 and was terrified of it!

With the bullets we have today, this seems a foolish discussion. It's no trouble at all to put together a 30-06 round with very low recoil and good for 300 yards if need be.

I've torn both rotor cuffs and know what bad shoulders are. Full power 130 grain TTSXs are deer killers deluxe. I doubt that anyone could tell the difference on game if you back them down 10% or so, but the recoil drops back in a hurry.

Try the 7-08, they are easy to find........with 120's, & even 140's it is very easy on the shoulder, even in a gun as light as a 700-Ti.

MM

Fred,

You missed a couple of nice .257's on the Capital used rack within the past month or so, though the prices might have been more than you wanted to pay.

+1.. Captain obvious misses much.

Sometimes my arthritic shoulder starts acting up and the heavier calibers cease to be fun to shoot. I went to two Winchester M70 push feeds for those time, one in .257 Robt. a lucked into the same model gun in 7x57 Mauser. I'm working up an elk load for the 7x57 and pushing the envelope a bit so put a Decelerator pad on the gun. Very pleasant. My elk hunt isn't until the second week in January so I still have time for load work up. If I don't find what I like, I can always go with my .35 Whelen, shoulder problems or not. That rifle fits me so well I hardly notice the kick. Guess my point is add the 7x57 to that list of mild kicking rifles.
Paul B.

Agreed. Get a 7-08. I load 120TSXs for deer in a Finnlight and recoil is mild....

You need to teach my former neighbor how to consistently harvest deer with the .223. He did very well with the .30-06 & .270, but he struggled with the .223.

Why? Shot placement? Bullet selection?

TSXs will shoot through a deer lengthwise. BTDT got the T shirt....

I can't remember what he was shooting. I do remember that he reloaded all his ammo. I helped him skin a lot of deer that he shot with either the .30-06 or .270, and I helped him look for a fair amount if deer that he shot with the .223. He eventually added a .243 to his arsenal which improved the situation somewhat. The guy was automatic with the .30-06 or .270.

Hmmm.

All I can say is that if you hit a deer with a 223 in the right place with the right bullet, it will die just the same as with a larger bullet.

My cousin's wife kills them every year with 55gr soft points. I use TSXs, just because, but have hundreds of Winny 64gr PowerPoints that I will switch to if my supply of TSXs ever runs out.

I do like having the tougher bullet in the smaller caliber, but really am not so sure it is needed if I do my part....

Hands down my favorite low recoiling round for deer is the 250 savage. Be it for beginners or experts it just kills great with regular factory loads and hardly kicks at all, even with a steel buttplate it never bothered me at all as a kid of 11. My dads 308 was way more of a handful back then. Didnt make me flinch but I didnt particularly like shooting it and I was already an experienced hunter and shooter for my age.

In the 22 centerfires, Ive used the 22 Hornet, 223, and 22-250. The big case is better than the tiny one by a bunch, but I still took a bunch of deer with it. But the 22-250 compared with the 223, its an improvement but it isnt by much,just a lil more range. I have shot both in factory rounds with standard 55 grainers in them but the 60 Hornady SP is a good solid bullet for deer and the 60 Partition is simply awesome for a non bonded or solid bullet. Ive gotten almost full length penetration with it on a 200lb buck at 3400 and the bullet weighed 42 grains.

Still there is a noticable difference in the effect after the shot between it and the 250 and 243. They show the hit more/better, especially on bigger bodied fellas. Even if the deer dies within same time frame/distance. Does that make sense?

Where shooters can get into trouble is to take a bigger bullet shot with a little (standard)bullet. With standard bullets it doesnt always work out the same as if that bullet and caliber were designed for deer. Ive done that, and learned my lesson after a couple tracking jobs that took too long. As in one time I forgot I was holding the rifle I had and a young buck offered a shot in a brushy unit. I had a small window to shoot thru and it was to break the shoulder. It didnt have the effect I needed and I had to track that one a ways!

Other than that I cant see how the caliber would make the difference. Unless!... unless he was rushing them when they weren't dead yet and they jumped up and covered ground, the bullet hole closed up and they dropped in some canyon. I can see that happening.

You missed the 'People are mostly stupid'

I can't believe we are still having this conversation. Remington's Managed Recoil loads were introduced in 2004. That's 10 years ago, people!

The .30-06 MR load is a 125 grain bullet at 2660 fps.

What made the guy stupid? Why were his results better with the 06 or .270 vs. the .223? Or am I stupid for reporting what happened?

Scrolling through this thread wondering when someone was (finally) going to mention this. +1.

(I started my 9-year-old on the 270 with my own 'managed recoil' type 100 grain hand loads. He loved the feeling of the recoil after experiencing none with the 22 LR. Consequently he shot it frequently, not a lot in a single session, and he became good with it. Consequently he had no problem handling full power loads when we hunted moose when he turned 10.)

No telling. I've seen plenty of people [bleep] up LOTS of things and I have no idea how they did it.

Here's a hint on stupid. If 10 people are giving a task to do and 9 of the 10 can do it repeatedly with no issues, but the 10th continually fuggs it up. The 10th is stupid.

I have NO idea what he was doing, where he was shooting them etc etc, but NEVER underestimate stupid.

When we talk about recoil, we usually cite the physics of recoil -- bullet weight, powder weight, stock design, etc. But the human factor is there, and it can't be made into a formula. Does a shooter hold the buttstock in the pocket of his shoulder, or just outside it? How tightly does the shooter anchor the rifle to his shoulder? What is the angle of the shooter's wrist on the pistol grip. Is the shooter's head floating freely, or does he have a good cheek-weld? Does he have a death-grip on the gun? Does the shooter cant the rifle? Does the shooter move with the rifle, or does he resist the movement? And, as the quoted post alludes to, the body size of the shooter makes a difference.

While the physics of recoil are the same with the same rifle from shooter to shooter, how that impacts the shooter can vary widely. All of these things and more affect felt recoil.

I'd hypothesize that if we spent some time on shooting form, recoil would be less of an issue.

Steve.

There's also the factor of age, and size doesn't always work the way many shooters automatically expect it to.

Both affect flexibility. I've know several people who happily shot shoulder guns of fairly high recoil until their 50's, when they started developing shoulder problems or recoil headaches. And just because somebody's big (or male) doesn't mean they can take more recoil. I've known 100-pound women who shoot lightweight .338 Winchester Magnums and even big-bore double rifles without any problems, and big, strong, young, men with no physical problems who can't shoot a typical 7mm or .300 magnum without flinching, because they don't roll with recoil like a smaller person.

One of the interesting things about shooting, which is often apparent on the Campfire, is that so many shooters believe what's true for them is true for every other shooter on earth. This tends to be a general characteristic of most humans, but it obviously isn't true. This conviction that everybody else is exactly like us results in comments like, "Recoil's all mental," or "More shooting will cure it," or "Adding a good recoil pad and hearing protection cure a flinch." Well, sometimes each of those are true, but sometimes they're not.

And being able to understand the differences between other humans is what makes really good teachers and coaches. Only offering statements on how recoil affects us doesn't cover much of the rest of the world.

Amen, Mule Deer...

I have a friend/co-worker who's wife weighs probably 130 soaking wet...
Her favorite rifle is her .300 weatherby model 700. I've seen her shoot 40 and 60 rounds in a morning, and she has fun with it.
I've used her rifle, and don't much care for it.

You've written a lot about stock fit. Wish it was all in one place so I could get into it further...

Regarding the .223 on deer. What happens when that itty bitty bullet hits heavy shoulder bone? Can a .223 get the job done at 250yrds as compared to a 30-06? Nor does the .223 have the penetration for a raking shot.

Yes. It does. A TSX will plow through a deer with zero trouble. Try it......