Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters What’s actually matters

in a recent thread I asked how many of us still use the 94 year young 270 Winchester. Evidently many do! In other threads and discussions I have noted the excellent hunting experiences I have had with the 7x57, 25-06, 257 Roberts and the great 250/3000! I could have also praised the 30-06, 280 Remington 300 H&H and the .338. All in my experience worked just fine and in most cases most would have produced the same results, either a miss, my fault,or a fine trophy.
Having said all this my observation is this, most modern rifles when teamed up with modern powders and bullets take the rifle/bullet combinations out of the questionable category. The questionable component is us! They all work just fine, at times we don’t!

I have owned all of those caliber rifles but now the only one i don/t have anymore is the 30-06.

A guy made me an offer for it and for what it cost me to put together i could not refuse.

It was done on a real nice Mauser action.

Within reason it's always been the Indian and not the arrow.

Or, to quote Jack O'Connor quoting an Indian guide, "any gun good gun, shoot'um good".

An uncle of mine killed more deer than enough, with a .22 Hornet...

What matters most is:

1. Good health

2. A good spot

The rest is fun to think about, but really just mental gymnastics

This is so true. I’ve had seasons where I’ve lacked these things, and either is absolutely more important than the gun, bullet, or cartridge that fires it.

It's not like anybody on this board couldn't survive just fine with a 22LR if it was legal for all game.

All the rest is just for fun. What's truly important are things like: family, shared experiences, safety, health, desire to hunt, time off from work, etcetera.

God and family.Everything else is a bonus.

>YES X2

Your health is your wealth.
We all take it so much for granted until we don't have it.
We discuss guns and cartridges ad nauseam, but in reality I haven't seen enough difference shooting what I do to make any difference.

Modern rifles take away the plausible deniability that hunters have had previously. You can't blame it on bullet failure. You still might get away with the scope being knocked catawampus, but it's getting harder and harder to make even that excuse.

Me? My last "bullet failure" was 2005. My last "scope misaligned" was 2008 (it was on Weaver pivot mounts that got bumped). By 2011, I had to blame it on a physical disability. I was kneeling to take a shot and a previously injured foot gave out just as I squeezed the trigger.

What's the world coming to? I mean it. We're all running out of excuses!

At least in turkey hunting I can still blame it on the choke being too tight.

Well stated and agree 100% with both of these posters.

Probably won't be too long before you watch target acquisition and lock on with your phone, then press "fire"........

"Uhhh.....batteries were low....".

From personal experience I can say when your health starts going downhill, it definitely limits what you can do as far as hunting is concerned.

I don't know where the fu ck you have been, but there have been good bullets since 1947. There were also good rifles and powder back then that were more than capable of moa accuracy. I'll fill you in on a little secret, every bullet manufacture has been trying to compete with said bullet from 1947 and many have fallen short.... Just sayin..

30 years ago I figured out that the 7X57 killed anything I shot with ease. I never forgot that! I also hunted with a 270 a lot and have owned 3 of them. For the last 4 years its been a 6.5X55 swede. The one thought that goes thru my mind is had I started out hunting with a 22/250 or 243 would I have seen that there is little need for the big cartridges I use? I guess it gives me reassurance knowing I'm overgunned


Trystan

Amen, Tom

Every centerfire rifle I own has killed what it was aimed at. I have a pretty good spread of rifles from 25 to 35 caliber and they all work and nary a .270 in the bunch. Happy Trails

My big game hunting primarily consisted of white tail deer in thick woods. So, rifles that could shoot well at very long distances had no special appeal. .250 Savage, .257 Roberts, 6.5x55, 7x57, .300 Savage, .303 British, 8x57 .35 Remington - these were all great performers in our hunting camp. They were also considered to have more to offer than the .30-30. Some of the guys used, "big guns" (i.e. .308 and .30-06). I did much of my deer harvesting with a .32 Special ('94 carbine) and a .35 Remington (Remington M08). For the deep woods hunting I am describing, I don't think any of the modern developments would work any better.

I like to focus on the details and intricacies of bullets, loads, trajectories, calibers, cartridges, scope reticles, ideal rifle packing/shooting weight, etc. Because they are things I can control. I can no longer control how my body is going to do on any given morning. I can't control whether the elk are going to be within 5 miles of me, but I can get all of those largely pointless details "right". It helps, in the day-to-day of hunting season, to feel like I have control of the equipment, and to feel assured that I have made the best choices for my hunting goals when I can't control the most significant things.

Here's why it's the Indian and not the arrow, in my opinion:

The difference between .27 caliber and .35 caliber is 0.08 inches.

0.08 inches is less than 1/2 of 1 percent of the size of a deer's chest cavity.

Both will kill with a CNS shot.

Both will penetrate anything we normally hunt, including bones, with modern bullets.

In most cases death will be caused by loss of blood. The larger hole made by the .35 caliber bullet will enable faster bleeding out but the difference is probably insignificant.

That's why I think most of the stuff we discuss is irrelevant. Success would be far better if we'd practice shooting instead.