Originally Posted by EdM
[Mule Deer]What Stammster and Dan say about clothing!

However, one of the old-time "truths" that I've found most persistent is the quest for the fastest possible muzzle velocity, to the point where many handloaders still push the envelope to get another 100 fps. This was understandable during the early evolution of smokeless powder, because velocity--and the accompanying flatter trajectory-- was it's big advantage over black powder, especially into the early years of general scope use, which started in the 1950's. quote=

But higher-BC bullets don't require nearly as fast muzzle velocities to perform the same way even at "normal" ranges, say out to 300-400 yards. Yet handloaders keep trying to push for another 100 fps--or even 50--because of a long-time belief that it adds a vast advantage to trajectory/killing power/etc.


Kind of like RL-26, 150's and the 270 Win...[/quote]

Yep. After trying RL-26 in my Model 70 Featherweight, and running some other tests, I decided not to switch, for several reasons: With 150s at 3100 it kicked like a light 7mm Remington Magnum, and I haven't hunted with any of my 7mm RMs for years. Also found 26 more temperature sensitive than I prefer, noticeably more so than H4831 Extreme--and also realized my wife and I have been using 150s at 2900 fps or so for decades and everything we shot died quickly, including animals up to bull moose in size.

Though for the last animal I took with my .270--a mule deer buck--the load was another old standby, a 130-grain with enough H4831 to get just under 3100 fps. It worked very well, and is more accurate than any of the RL-26 loads tried.

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