Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters How much is “Enough”?

Thanks for the response Mule Deer!

In veterinary school if we said autopsy it was big trouble, and I have always tried to clarify that.

As a side note we could not use the term symptoms.......animals only exhibit signs.

So my suggestion is one to help credibility and possible butt hurtedness by haters who gonna hate.

Not by me, you have taught me a ton, and I am thankful to communicate with you.

If it's new species or opportunity for me, it's an excuse to acquire new calibers or cartridges. Don't even really have to use it, but it's a great reason for new acquisitions.

There's no way one of my mule deer rifles would be adequate for white tail.

Eggs-xactly 1 minute!!!!!!!


Most brilliant!

I've been following this discussion and wow, a lot of great experience offered. Maybe a good question would be is there a animal where you HAVE felt under gunned or is particularly harder to kill than others?

Oh, I daresay it would be adequate. Whether it were ideal would be up for debate, again dependent upon definition of debate parameters.

You guys are making me want a .470 NE for next deer season. Loaded with soft cast bullets at .32-40 velocity it would be enough gun for little old Eastern whitetails, soft point express loads and a scope for those "high wide and lonesome" shots, and the Real McCoys for pissedoff brown bears/cape buffalo/elephants that want to turn me into worm food. Hmmmmm....

I'm sure that's where I got the idea to try Big Game and it works. I do think though it can do well with a wide variety of different powders but if you have Big Game you might just end up using it in the end. The 358 Norma is a real thumper and should have been much more popular than it was. Hope you have fun with it........

Yessir our WT are TUFFER than them mullies !
Always tryin to help a fellow hunter.


Many years ago a friend and hunter told me that the Mule Deer were called that because they had..........
mule tails !

Jerry

Why absolutely nothing wrong with that as long as it’s MORE than enuff gun.


Jerry

Thanks! I've only shot a few black bears with my (your) 375, and it did a fine job, but honestly the black bear I shot with my 30-06 died very quickly as well.

It's that "plumbing" stuff inside that needs to get disrupted. Lots of different ways to do that I suppose.

One time that I kinda wanted a 375 in hand was when the grizzly showed at modest range. The 30-06 did fine, but I've wondered a few times if that first hit would have been more decisive with another 100 grains of bullet. Who knows?

Good discussion all. I'm enjoying.

Regards

Not trying to be a smartazz but it was a bit hard to necropsy a dead bull being dragged by a couple of trespassers and even harder to examine crippled deer that went over onto the adjacent private land. I believe the bull was hit in the ribs twice and in the hindquarters twice before it dropped. The .243 was shooting Win Power Points I believe. The deer crippler was shooting 80 grain Core Lokts. Not sure what the other guy shooting at the bull with the .308 was using. The .308 is certainly adequate for elk as I have taken several with that cartridge. I know you are a fan of light rifles and can appreciate that. I, however, am not. Happy Trails

Mule Deer,
In my 11th Ed. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary the first definition of necropsy was: AUTOPSY 1; esp: an autopsy performed on an animal.

I can also confirm what Angus said is taught in veterinary school. You would quickly be corrected if you referred to a postmortem exam of an animal as an autopsy.

My advice (since nobody asked for it) would be that if you want to sound like you know what you are talking about, use necropsy in reference to animals and autopsy in reference to humans.

Oh, and instead of "use enough gun" maybe the saying should be "use enough marksmanship."

Yes. I passed up shooting a big Russian Boar at 300+ yards the other day because all I had was a .223. Tried to move closer but he vamoosed. If I had been holding my .30-06 he would have been toast. Also I was sort of disinvited on a Nilgai hunt because I proposed bringing my .308W. Didn't want to take my .30-06 on a trip to South Texas and lose it (lots of stealing down there I've heard). It was told to me that I needed something on order of .338WM. Personally I thought the .308W would have been fine.

I don't think anybody else noticed an inaccuracy with the use of "autopsy" in referring to the postmortem examination of fatal wounds of animals. But I wish you would school folks on the use of the words too versus to. I would do it but I know that correcting people's grammar irritates them, therefore you can handle it.

Clearly we must blame the hunter, not the cartridge, for failing to shoot it in the ear.

Some times the unexpected happens, this animal was shot at about 75 yards with a 45-70 400 gr. hornady soft flat nose, bottom bullet hole, top bullet hole is a .270 130 gr. Nosler AB, running very fast at about 50 yards, the 45-70 round never entered the chest cavity, the 270 round killed it.

How did that happen? Rio7

Do you mean the 400 grain 45-70 bullet blew up?

I think it must’ve been a Speer. I’m not aware of any 400 grain Hornady?

I use the 400 grain Speer in my .460 for schits and giggles. The muzzle velocity is 2500 fps,much faster than the .45/70 and I would not not use this bullet for big game in the .460.

Shot this bunny about 75 yards away.

While I have never had the fortune to hunt Africa or either Canada. I have hunted out west and felt the need for the big 30's. I have had persuasions of most of them. I have come into my old age of just enough and settled upon the 708. It will humanly kill anything I will get a chance to shoot. And will not bust my body in the process

Interesting reading here. This argument is one that will continue forever and has never been solved, as their really is no specific answer.

I hunted for many years exclusively with 7 mags and have taken lots of deer, a couple dozen elk, a moose and three Oryx with said rifles shooting good bullets. I never once felt under-gunned and have never been recoil sensitive. For the hunting that I do, I never felt the need for a 30 magnum, or anything any bigger. The 7 mags were easy to shoot on the range and not terribly expensive to load, but were more than enough for elk out past 400 yards. If I was headed to Africa-which I don't care to do, because I cannot bring the meat home-I may be inclined to get a big bigger medicine.

That being said, I have to laugh when someone states that deer were lost due to shooting them with a .243. I have shot somewhere above 150 deer doing depredation work, using a 6 mm Remington and 100-grain Interlocks. I never had any more problem with killing them, than when using my 7 mag, or .308. I also know people that have been successful on elk, using a .243, although I never would.

I was on an Oryx hunt near Las Cruces, NM, and was riding around with a range rider on the base. He said that he had a guy with him one time that could not hit anything with his big rifle, due possibly to a failed optic, but he was not sure. They rolled up on an Oryx at relatively close range and the range rider loaned the guy his .243, loaded with 90-grain Speer bullets that he used for coyotes. The guy smoked the Oryx with one shot and the bullet gave complete penetration.

I have shot 7 mags, .308s, an -06, 6 mm and now .260 and Creed. I have noticed virtually no difference in killing power between any of them on deer-sized game. I have not and will not hunt elk with the smaller calibers, not because I think that they are too light, but having two 7 mags, it just does not make sense to me to use the smaller calibers. I, now, use the 6.5s for virtually all of my deer/antelope stuff, but still drag out the others once in a while, just because they are there!

The bottom line, is that if a rifle is too big to do lots of practice with, then get one that you can handle and can practice with a lot. With correct bullets, smaller calibers leave a pretty big footprint in the hunting world. The 6.5s have become extremely popular for that exact reason. They recoil is nil, the ammo is cheap-even if you do not reload-and in my opinion they kill far beyond what paper ballistics say they should. I would much rather see someone hunting elk with a 6.5, that can shoot it, than a guy that thinks he needs a monster rifle, just because some article said so.

Bullet construction and marksmanship trump caliber nearly every time and a bad hit is a bad hit.

My thoughts? 90 percent of the posters on this thread make stuff way to complicated. The larger cartridges you cited are not because people think they need more gun, it's for extending maximum range, not because they need to use enough gun up close....

A lot of this stuff uncomplicates itself hunting a lot and seeing lots of animals killed. It would render this discussion humorous...