� re: Mule Deer's comments about the difference modern bullets make, here's a comment from a recent article by Ross Seyfried in support:
"When in doubt . . . get a .270 Winchester!
Now the guy in the front row is gasping, �Yes, but what about Elmer Keith, and I want to hunt elk.� First, like my dislike for my super-power cartridges, I can make a pretty honest case for my .270. I grew up, not a student of Jack O�Connor, but as a pure disciple of Elmer Keith. I not only read everything he wrote, but had the great good fortune to know him well and to become his friend. At the time his opinion was perfectly founded and honest, �only big bores and bullet weight can make a rifle that will kill well.�
The equation at the time was valid, for him. But there were two parts of it that the old master did not factor in. First, he possessed almost super-human skill with any firearm. He could shoot his .577 like it was a .22. He thought we were all like him. The humble gentleman thought of himself as normal, but he was not. His advice would not apply to the majority of us who are intimidated by the flash and recoil of the bigger magnums of today. The second part is that he did not have the great advantage of the �super-bullets,� we have today. Bullet design and construction are far more important than size, and today�s bullet technology has stretched the results of what the smaller, less powerful cartridges can produce."
Also, my friend Elmer wanted the critter to be dead, dead, dead about the same time as the bullet stopped inside the critter or came out through the hide on the other side � the ultimate bang-flop. He'd had to track (and had lost) far too many clients' wounded critters through the dog-hair tangle that's so common in good Idaho and Montana elk country. He wanted 'em to go down, as our mutual friend Jack McPhee said, "like an armload of wet fish nets."
Dead
later, no matter how soon later, wasn't quite good enough.
