Hey all. I'm looking to get into a new rifle for the next deer season. Looking for consistency from 50-250 yards(that's my hunting spot), flat and powerful but not not overly destructive. I've been going back and forth, comparing two different levels.
Category 1 - 270 or 308: Seem fairly similar, the 270 seems to edge out on most numbers, but seems I'd be just as happy with one as the other. Please share personal experience between the two of there's big defining pieces I'm missing. Would've probably had 7mm-08 in place of 308, but ammo is simply not as available around me.
Category 2 - 7mm mag or 300 mag: These are obviously a step up. My brother uses a 7mm mag, and though it seems way unnecessary, it gets the job done every time and doesn't seem to destroy the deer. I can read numbers all day, but from personal experience is there a vast difference between these two in actual performance? Or are they both in the "stupid obnoxious" realm for whitetail, and it doesn't really matter?
I'm trying to pin down the best (relative) choice in each category and then make up my mind from there. Trying not to over think it. All of these will absolutely kill a deer with good shot placement. I'm just trying to see why or if I should really lean one way or another, or just pick one and have fun.
Thanks!
Like I said earlier, what you are asking for is a Mono bullet to do the work.
To expand on that, If I am looking to kill deer and wreck a minimum of meat, it WILL be a mono out of a VERY accurate rifle. Accuracy that is absolutely dependable is confidence to place a bullet EXACTLY where you want it. That kind of accuracy is not something you get with every rifle, but you can get close with a lot of them I have a .270 that I shoot with 110 grain TTSXs. I get 1/2 inch high by caliber wide groups out of. I used it to put a deer down where it stood at the bitter end of legal shooting light out past 250 yards in a cut hay field because I was not longer certain of EXACTLY where it was standing, and I wanted nothing to do with having an hours search to find blood if I was lucky. I put that bullet within 1/2 inch of where I wanted it. I used a .243 with a TSX that was even more accurate to place a bullet through the brain stem at 165 yards because I wanted that particular deer and it was the last minute of the deer season on the same field and I had no choice but to let it go or take that shot. It was facing dead straight away from me. I have never shot a deer in the ass in my life and that one was not about to be the first one. The latter ruined zero meat. The former ruined a very small amount, maybe less than a burger's worth on each of the shoulder blades at the top of the blade.
Without the combination of the superb accuracy of those rifles and the mono bullets the choice would be pass or more wrecked meat, maybe a lot more.
Get started reloading! You want and need the accuracy that can provide. Monos are sensitive to seating depth with individual rifles and that can mean the difference between really superb accuracy and "minute of deer" accuracy.
