Still haven't gotten around to making a 338/06, but having shot a huge pile of animals with various 30 cals/7mms/270's and big pile of animals with 358 bores...to me it is very obvious that there is a huge difference in effect between the 30-and-unders and the .358+ bores on every species of game from whitetail up to elk/bull caribou size.
I've hit a few animals with 7mms and 30 cals which dropped in their tracks and a few with .358+ bores that did not. Stuff happens.
But once you get a big enough sample size the difference is not subtle. At reasonable hunting ranges the medium bores hit much harder. Exactly as Beretzs said, animals tend to either drop straight down or maybe just stagger and act confused. What they very rarely do is the pedal-to-the-metal death run that they nearly always do when you hit them with smaller calibers. I'm sure if you had a small sample size and didn't match the bullet to the animal, maybe you could come to a different conclusion.
There is also a lower velocity threshold where the medium bores stop having that effect (and you get the death run like you'd get with any other caliber) but it seems to vary bullet to bullet.
Edit: no flies on the 308 200gr partition; I just had a WSM throated long for that exact bullet. But it don't make a 30-06 into a medium bore.
Last edited by TX35W; 04/12/22.
