It's that old vicious circle again, Laddy. Many years ago, writers of old convinced a significant number of readers -- including many who later became writers -- that only a far-reaching magnum was suitable for hunting big game. Readers lapped this lore up, in part because most of 'em hankered to hunt game they'd never hunted before, in far-away states where they'd never hunted before, and wanted to be ready with an adequate magnum.
When I was a lad new at all this, typical hunting rifles from coast to coast and from tropics to Arctic were .30-30s, .32 Specials, .250 and .300 Savages, .270s, and .30-06s. Writers wrote about new stuff, and readers who had to have the latest bought everything they wrote about. By gradual evolution, NEW became BIG became NECESSARY, in the minds of readers and writers alike. Readers and writers have conditioned each other's thinking along these lines. Get an article published saying that a .250 Savage is a good mulie gun, and you'll get a lot of flak from readers maintaining that ya gotta have a magnum.
Maybe you can explain to me why so many readers who shoot no more than one deer a year (and often fewer) feel qualified to judge the opinions expressed by writers who've shot several a year for years.
