Well as is so often the case, the answers are easy but the question is complex.
No "flat shooting round" is better than any other if you shoot to a range you need to compensate.
You see, if you need to dial it in, you dial it in. If that's 7 clicks or 13 clicks, you dial it into your sight or scope and you hold on target.
If you have to hold high, it matters not if you hold over 7 inches of 13 inches. You still hold over.
So the holding is the important factor, not the flight of the bullet. If you are shooting far enough to need to hold up, you need to hold steady. If you can hold, the amount you hold is just what you hold. The gun and the shell don't know or care. Neither does the game animal or the enemy.
The American shooting industry is super good at getting people to look at the gear and goodies offered for sale, instead of looking at reality. The reality is simply that the hit is going to be made by the good marksman, and the poor marksman should not shoot that far. Buying the super fast slick uber-magnum and shooting it off a bench rest is counterproductive to hunters. It limits your ability to actually do the holding because of the fact that you are not practicing realistically. And shooting all those rounds from a rest will never allow your skill level to increase because you are not doing the holing. The rest and the gadgets are.
A man who can shoot tiny groups from a rest is not as good at bringing home the meat as the one that can shoot 2 MOA on demand without a rest. Those that can hold 2-3 MOA without the bench (or some type of rest you don't carry in the field) nearly always bring home the meat. I can't count the number of hunters I have seen in my 45 years of guiding who were wonderful "bench shooters" and still could not shoot well enough to make consistent kills without their bench rest of gadgets.
As recently as last year I saw a man fiddle around with the "gun-garbage" on his rifle and make so much movement and take so much time that he didn't kill his deer, and wounded 2 antelope. We got both antelope in second shots and 3rd shots, but never did get him a deer and the shot that he was to take was only 155 yards according to the laser. His gun was an uber magnum too (7MM STW)
7 years ago I was hunting with a friend who was with me while I also had a license and we agreed that neither one would wait on the other if we got into the white-tails. I had my Ruger #1 9.3X74R and he had a 6.5 Ackley Improved with a super scope (6X-18X) We got into a herd of deer on the river. He went prone and deployed his by-pod and could not see over the grass so he then started to go for a log to rest over, had to re-fold the bi-pod, screw around with his scope and so on------ and after all that the deer started to move off. I shouldered my Ruger #1 and fired one shot, killing my buck. He never shot. He told me "I just could not get into position"
My position was standing up on my hind legs like a man. I shot at the buck with about 18" of lead as it ran from my left to right. Bullet hit it in the middle of the chest. The deer staggered and went about 10 yards and fell.
My hunting friend can shoot his 6.5 A.I. out to 600 yards, and makes hits of targets all the time. If he has "all the time" that is. He's been trying to convince me for years now I need a 6.5 MM and a load that goes over 3000 fps to hunt with, and lord forbid I use a low powered scope. All "real" hunters need a scope of at least 12X.......right?
My #1 has a 1.5X -4x on it. That buck was killed with the scope set at 2X
But my unfortunate friend only brings home meat every other year or so, and some years he doesn't get anything.
He has all the latest and greatest goodies the gun-rags tell him will make him a much better shot, but yet he doesn't get much meat in his freezer.
Why?
He is very concerned with what's fastest, has the best BC, has the clearest optics, has the "best synthetic stock" has the best by-pod, lightest trigger and so on and so on and so on.
Everything is important...... except for going out with a bare rifle and a lot of ammo and just learning to shoot.
So guys, my opinion is just that.... My opinion.
But I have about 5 decades of experience behind my opinion and I have come to a place in my life where I see salesmanship as exactly that. An attempt to see me a product. In every case I can think of now for the last 40 years or so, all those products are not something I need, and when I have tried them I found they are not even something I want.
So what the flattest shooting rifle shell......?
Correct answer:
It doesn't matter!
As soon as you start hold higher YOU have to HOLD higher, so the amount you hold up is not "known" by the cartridge It's 100% in your lap, and YOU have to shoot, not your cartridge.
It's the man..not the gun.
Windage?
