Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles What calibers are you plains, farm field, Mountain hunters using?

308/168 or 300wsm/180 here from prairie to high mountain timber.

This is about my experience too. I still kept/keep going back and forth between the 270 and 7 Mag and so just decided to regularly use 280 and/or 280 a.i. Now everybody, just like my family, thinks I'm crazy. Mission accomplished I guess.

Big Sky: Another good option!

Bob, yah, like I said, when you use so many they all become head-scratchers. It seems, even knowing better, I end up chasing what is "best" and come to the conclusion they all have their own pluses and minuses. So much so that it seems every caliber/chambering is just a nice compromise of the ones immediately above and below it in the lineup.

Big Sky: Doing the comparison thing will drive you up a wall eventually. Not to say everything is the "same" of course but when it comes to cartridges, I always tried to "compartmentalize",and look at them as they stand on their own two feet...and results in the field resulting in dead animals.

In doing the "7 Rem Mag" vs everything else thing (as just one example),my thought process was: "What's wrong with a 160 gr 7mm bullet at 3050 fps"?

Answer?: Nothing.


I would automatically dismiss concerns over whether an STW,280AI,7mm WSM, 300 Win Mag, 300 Weatherby etc etc,were somehow "better". This led to enormous peace of mind,contentment,and satisfaction as the game piled up. It also resulted in a smaller battery of BG rifles.


Then of course , there's the bullet thing....more important than the launch platform.

To my mind, it's easier to choose the bullets that suit your purpose, then back into the cartridge that gives them the velocity you want,then integrate the platform (rifle) into the equation.

Done this way ( in reverse),cartridge selection becomes "easier". IMHO of course.

.270 Weatherby Mag (mostly) or a .270 Winchester.

I can't/won't argue any of that. It is all sound. As a matter of fact, it sounds like you and I have approached things similarly. My failing has always been the desire to try and to own the oddballs and the tweeners in addition to the tried and proven. I could have saved an awful lot of money throughout my life, and would have been just as effective, had I bought a .22, .223, .243, .270/7Mag/30-06 and nothing else.

A smaller battery of rifles is not a bad thing. It sounds like you and I can both say "I have seen the elephant".

We all been down THAT road.

Amen... It's often paved with good intentions, many cartridges and usually comes back full circle...

Because its fun.

True!