One of the best hunters I've ever known was a guy who bought a RCBS press and two sets of dies while he was still in high school in the 1950's. The dies were for the .250 Savage and .30-06, because the two centerfire rifles he owned were a .250-3000 Savage 99 and a "sporterized" South American Mauser in .30-06. Both had their original open sights.
He bought the cheapest 100-grain .25-caliber and 180-grain caliber bullets he could find in local sporting goods stores, and used the "middle" load of IMR4320 in his Speer manual. He was married to a woman who was an enrolled member of the Montana reservation they lived on, so could hunt big game on the rez under the same regs as tribal members. He also hunted coyotes, foxes and whatever other furbearers he could every winter, and every fall drove 600 miles across Montana to hunt elk near the Idaho panhandle, where he killed a bunch of 'em, usually with the .30-06 but sometimes with the .250. I hunted with him quite a bit, both in eastern and western Montana. Witnessed him killing deer at 150-200 yards, often running, and he always got an elk back when elk weren't nearly as abundant as they are today--and often several, because this was back when many hunters shot enough elk for everybody in camp, if they had a chance. He didn't really care much about trophy antlers but killed some big-antlered deer and elk anyway, because he loved to hunt, so hunted hard.
He never hunted outside Montana, where he was born, and was also the only handloader I've ever known who actually did it to save money. When he died, he was still using the same rifles, press and dies he'd purchased in high school, the press mounted on a 2x12 screwed down across the back of his livingroom closet. I don't believe he ever shot a group in his life other than when sighting-in his rifles the first time. After that they always shot right to the same place with the same charge of IMR4320 and the cheapest bullets he could buy.
Thank you for taking the time to type that up. I really enjoyed reading it. When you said used the "Middle" load of 4320, I got a chuckle, because I remember back to loading my first handloads and picking the middle load out of the old Speer #9 manual. I suspect there were several folks who did that, for a long while. On a semi-related note, I always appreciated Nosler for putting an asterisk beside the most accurate load they came up with for each powder in a given cartridge. More often than not, I have had good accuracy with whichever load they marked with that asterisk.
