My varmint load is a Sierra 85gr HP at 3820fps and it makes ground hogs vanish. It has also made a few crows vanish.
My old elk hunting mentor used a pre 64 model 70 in .264 mag to shoot rock chucks in northern California, many years ago. You didn't even need a license back then, even for out of staters.
He told me that several times he'd shoot at a chuck with that 85gr Sierra and not see any impact...? The chucks wouldn't even run off. That puzzled hell out of him and he set up a close target.
Among the holes he found shredded particles of lead and jacket material. Some of those bullets were ripping themselves apart before they got to the target!
Old Jim, was always leaning hard on the velocity throttle and found out that he needed to slow down a bit!
Now days I run the same bullet out of my .260 and seems to be very accurate.
