Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters What are the flattest shooting Big Game rounds around to 500 yards

Answer is obvious, the B-29!

I'll take a 30/30 with a good turret scope and MOA bases over a set and forget 257 Weatherby if I was betting money.

Well as is so often the case, the answers are easy but the question is complex.

No "flat shooting round" is better than any other if you shoot to a range you need to compensate.
You see, if you need to dial it in, you dial it in. If that's 7 clicks or 13 clicks, you dial it into your sight or scope and you hold on target.

If you have to hold high, it matters not if you hold over 7 inches of 13 inches. You still hold over.
So the holding is the important factor, not the flight of the bullet. If you are shooting far enough to need to hold up, you need to hold steady. If you can hold, the amount you hold is just what you hold. The gun and the shell don't know or care. Neither does the game animal or the enemy.

The American shooting industry is super good at getting people to look at the gear and goodies offered for sale, instead of looking at reality. The reality is simply that the hit is going to be made by the good marksman, and the poor marksman should not shoot that far. Buying the super fast slick uber-magnum and shooting it off a bench rest is counterproductive to hunters. It limits your ability to actually do the holding because of the fact that you are not practicing realistically. And shooting all those rounds from a rest will never allow your skill level to increase because you are not doing the holing. The rest and the gadgets are.

A man who can shoot tiny groups from a rest is not as good at bringing home the meat as the one that can shoot 2 MOA on demand without a rest. Those that can hold 2-3 MOA without the bench (or some type of rest you don't carry in the field) nearly always bring home the meat. I can't count the number of hunters I have seen in my 45 years of guiding who were wonderful "bench shooters" and still could not shoot well enough to make consistent kills without their bench rest of gadgets.
As recently as last year I saw a man fiddle around with the "gun-garbage" on his rifle and make so much movement and take so much time that he didn't kill his deer, and wounded 2 antelope. We got both antelope in second shots and 3rd shots, but never did get him a deer and the shot that he was to take was only 155 yards according to the laser. His gun was an uber magnum too (7MM STW)

7 years ago I was hunting with a friend who was with me while I also had a license and we agreed that neither one would wait on the other if we got into the white-tails. I had my Ruger #1 9.3X74R and he had a 6.5 Ackley Improved with a super scope (6X-18X) We got into a herd of deer on the river. He went prone and deployed his by-pod and could not see over the grass so he then started to go for a log to rest over, had to re-fold the bi-pod, screw around with his scope and so on------ and after all that the deer started to move off. I shouldered my Ruger #1 and fired one shot, killing my buck. He never shot. He told me "I just could not get into position"
My position was standing up on my hind legs like a man. I shot at the buck with about 18" of lead as it ran from my left to right. Bullet hit it in the middle of the chest. The deer staggered and went about 10 yards and fell.

My hunting friend can shoot his 6.5 A.I. out to 600 yards, and makes hits of targets all the time. If he has "all the time" that is. He's been trying to convince me for years now I need a 6.5 MM and a load that goes over 3000 fps to hunt with, and lord forbid I use a low powered scope. All "real" hunters need a scope of at least 12X.......right?

My #1 has a 1.5X -4x on it. That buck was killed with the scope set at 2X

But my unfortunate friend only brings home meat every other year or so, and some years he doesn't get anything.
He has all the latest and greatest goodies the gun-rags tell him will make him a much better shot, but yet he doesn't get much meat in his freezer.
Why?
He is very concerned with what's fastest, has the best BC, has the clearest optics, has the "best synthetic stock" has the best by-pod, lightest trigger and so on and so on and so on.
Everything is important...... except for going out with a bare rifle and a lot of ammo and just learning to shoot.

So guys, my opinion is just that.... My opinion.

But I have about 5 decades of experience behind my opinion and I have come to a place in my life where I see salesmanship as exactly that. An attempt to see me a product. In every case I can think of now for the last 40 years or so, all those products are not something I need, and when I have tried them I found they are not even something I want.

So what the flattest shooting rifle shell......?

Correct answer:
It doesn't matter!

As soon as you start hold higher YOU have to HOLD higher, so the amount you hold up is not "known" by the cartridge It's 100% in your lap, and YOU have to shoot, not your cartridge.

It's the man..not the gun.

IMO. It doesn't matter what kind of flat shooting rifle you have if you don't shoot/practice enough at 500 yards.
small things seem to add up after 400 yards.

Windage?

I've been through this exercise. You can find an oddball cartridge that's theoretically superior to other oddball cartridges, but then you have to build a rifle for it. Once that rifle is in your hands, maybe you find out that it comes up 1-200 fps short no matter how many rabbits you pull out of the hat at the loading bench, and suddenly it's no better than any of several others. Or maybe you burn out the throat in load development and accuracy goes out the window. Or maybe someone discontinues the one component that it takes to make your specific rifle shoot the way you want.

Instead, I'd look long and hard for something you can buy locally, that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, that doesn't devour barrel throats, and that doesn't detach your retinas in recoil. Kinda makes me think of the 270 Winchester, 7mm Remington Magnum, or 257 Weatherby Magnum...



If you're not sure, then shouldn't you pass up the shot no matter which rifle or cartridge you choose?


Okie John

The Yetti,

Good to hear somebody recognizes the revolutionary advantages of the B-29!

And the winner is by a landslide the B-29 or is that BS-29?

6.5 x 300 was looking good but I am already doing 3200 with a 140 in three other cartridges. Still wan't another 257 Weatherby but don't really need one however the Whitaker special #1 with a 28 inch barrel would be sweet. So stay where I'm at, learn to dial in or what's the third choice? Dots or BDC helps and will be using both this year but the real answer is hunt more so I get opportunities within my preferred window. Not moving too fast and within 400 yards preferably 300.

500 yards...

When I was 12 years old, with my '06, I figured out if I wanted to hit a deer at 450yd, I'd need to hold on the spine. Another 6" of air would get me to 500, but that was about my limit with irons, because the front sight covered up the target.

When I got my first scope it felt like cheating.

All those earlier scopes came with screw on covers to protect the adjustment dials against movement and seal the scope from rain in the field, so twisting was out. It was years later the Duplex reticle was considered a great innovation because it could be used for range estimation and with different aiming points once you knew how to use it.

With just crosshairs, at 500 yards it doesn't take any more time to hold on the top of the shoulder as it does to hold 1/3 of the way down. By comparison, Mildots have a wealth of information, but a plain crosshair is fine.

Time spent actually shooting at targets in the field goes a long way.

You could just learn how to hunt and get within sure, easy range instead of just shooting stuff in the next zip code. I hunted open farm land with lots of big open fields for 20 years with a 12 gauge slug gun. Somehow I managed to kill multiple deer with it every season.

Reminds me of a little repeated Elmer Keith (IIRC) quote, "I like to do my hunting before the shot".

It's my dream rifle! Was told you have to give up your first born to get one, but mine is 15 now and apparently there is not a big market out there for em, shoot, half of the time I'd give him away for free.... LOL

http://www.reloadersnest.com/detail.asp?CaliberID=100&LoadID=1147

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5278 fps

Provincialism at its finest.

[/quote]You could just learn how to hunt and get within sure, easy range instead of just shooting stuff in the next zip code. [/quote]

Not trying to start a pizzin match but I have hunted with: pistols, muzzleloaders, bows, spear, atlatyl, and knife so I know what getting close is. This is just a different proposition and good fodder for gackery.

Every review of it says the 6.5-300 WB has the longest point blank range of any current factory cartridge.

The debate is over.

BWAHAHHAHAHAHAHA quote of the century!!!!

<chuckle>

Just a small comparison with three calibers and a Barnes bullet suitable to kill deer and light enough to be fast, that I could also be able to find data for easy

.257 weatherby 80 TTSX @ 3800fps max. point blank range 406 yds.
6.5-300 127 Barnes At 3435 fps max point blank range 379 yds
.30-378 weatherby 130 gr TTSX at 3800fps max. point blank range 403 yds
all figured using Barnes data and JBM ballistics calculator set for a 4" radius of vital zone and 4000 ft elev. and 40 % humidity at 59 degrees
A 100 gr TTSX may get the 6.5-300 closer to the other two but it is all close enough to not care.

My personal choice is a 147gr ELDM out of a .260 that is stupid accurate and turn dials on my SWFA, Because elevation is easy, wind is trickier here all of the above will blow around like varmint bullets.....

22-243AI with a 35 gr bullet at 5,000 ft/sec plus. Velocity beats BC every time at distances less than 500 yds. Use a Barnes bullet and you'll never catch one in a whitetail. Virtually no recoil either.
Contest over. LOL