downwindtracker,
One of the more depressing things I've done in recent years is test bullets in media that retains the wound channel. There is suprisingly little difference in just about any centerfire cartridges of approximnately the same bore diameter.
While bullet diameter certainly has some effect on game, it has to be LOT more than 3/100ths of an inch. In fact, I have never been able to see any diffrence in the way the .30-06 and .375 H& kill "deer-sized game," and have killed a lot with each. There is a difference on larger game, but it is not as large as most people would imagine.
One problem here is that most hunters never shoot enough of any size game with any one cartridge to actually get a grasp on its capabilities--and even fewer get that sort of experience with two or three cartridges. So a lot of opinions of "killing power" are based on maybe 3-4 animals, which means nothing.
The longer I hunt, the less I believe in much inherent difference between most big game cartridges. In recent years have decided that the bullet has far more effect on killing power than, say, the conventional spread of bullet diameter in "all-around" big game rounds from 6.5mm to .33.
JB
