Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters The 10 Most Overrated Cartridges

Absolutely.

Rattle the cage.....

I have been known to do that right here on the 'Fire, just to see what kind of reaction I get.
As a matter of fact, in a different thread recently MD mentioned one of "my" instances that I used to get Big Stick riled up one time. God it was funny .

Obviously he (MD) bit on that bait too, though it wasn't meant for him. To be fair, I am sure I have taken other's bait as well.

Good times!

A lot of the writers might come out and say,"Hey, I know Petzal. He is just starting a bit of a flame war." What Petzal might not consider about his article is that there is a large group of new starting hunters that might take his word as gospel. This is where there is some consideration of some of the seriousness of making an article like this. Most of us have detailed knowledge of many different cartridges and their intended uses in the right spot and know that its the Indian and not the arrow in most of our use of weapons. Modern technology with increased rifle/handgun accuracy, new powders and new bullets can make many of the cartridges of past regain some of their pastiche. He never put in any qualifiers i.e( geographic location, species hunted, regulations, span of old vs new cartridges) probably just for simplicity and article length. JB or CB would not do this. Both have written articles akin to this but they each are much more systematic and specific. This is probably why I cotton to their articles a lot more than Petzal. He is the kind of writer who is like a weekend DIY expert who goes through a lot of nails in his project. He comes off as a smug curmudgeon and I think that that is his intention.

30-30. Most people who still use a 30-30 use it up close on whitetail deer and smaller ungulates. They are very familiar with the cartridge, their rifle and their capabilities and that is that. The same old hunters or hunters with an old family tradition use 300 Savages and 35 Remingtons to great affect.

I have not personally had good experiences with the 7 Rem but that was because of plastic parts on the gun in the first instance and strange circumstances with weather in the second. It is not a bad cartridge for somebody getting into hunting and it has a lot of performance in many of the rifles that have 26 inch heavier sporter barrels and the factory ammo tends to be accurate. It should be noted that it is not legal to hunt Bison in Alaska with a 7 Rem Mag and it is legal to hunt them with a 30/06 with 200 grain bullets.

There is so much hype about 6.5 manbun and 7.62 hipster that I found the article incomplete. 6mm and 6.5 mm Creedmoors are now the preferred bear and moose round for people getting into hunting up here. They also believe that it has some magical ability to be able to outperform other cartridges like the 270 Winchester or the 30/06. The hipster is a very good round but I believe that the 308 does not offer any advantages other than less recoil to a 300 Win Mag. Most 308s are now featherweights and controlling an ultralight rifle is an article unto itself.

I don't believe that the 300 blackout was considered in the making of this article. I see very many hunters coming back from the commercialized caribou hunting catastrophe called the 40 Mile caribou hunt on the Steese bellying up to the optics counter to buy a laser rangerfinder and then bemoaning the big bull caribou who they shot at with their 300 Blackout Sporting Rifle and it got away. I think that hunters who understand the capabilities of their equipment and weapon system do well with them. But I betcha on a nationwide scale that there are many wounded critters that get away from noob pretend snipers who think that they can make this work at 400 yards plus.

The 338 Win mag is also a cartridge that I feel is overrated. Many people buy one because it is the Alaskan or the Elmer Keith thing to do if you are hunting elk in Idaho and they develop a flinch. I would guess that there is a constant some place that shows people who have hunted a long time are buying 338s from new hunters who tried them and sold them off because of punishment and leaving the hunting community.

I probably would get along well with Petzal in real life but he comes off as a bit of a pedantic myopic ahole from his writing. It is like Lee Hoots or Larry Dr. Deer Weinshun who I believe write their bylines between camping trips on guided hunts to high fence game ranches for large critters that get corn stimulus checks from automatic feeders. Maybe it is that he is less personable in his approach. I also get the gun looney's high when JB comes home from Capital Sports with a new but old school beauty of a shotgun. Petzal seems like the kind of guy who doesn't open himself up to those feelings. That is just my take.

Indeed, internet forums might lead a noob to believe that any rifle/scope combo over 6 1/2 lbs. is just too danged heavy to carry around all day while hunting. I would much rather have an 8 lb rig after stalking an elk for three hours, climbing over rocks, ducking under tree branches, and crouching while hurrying through open areas, only to find my only good shot is one where my best choice for a rest is a rock with a jacket tossed over it. That extra pound or two can help tremendously with aiming when shooting under actual field conditions, not off a bench with a front rest and rear bags.



The "long range hunting" thing on internet forums has probably done more damage to big game hunting in North America than any other single hunting trend or fashion in my lifetime. Yes, there are some shooters who have the equipment, regularly practice to become proficient, and can reliably hit game past 400 yards. Unfortunately, after reading about these exploits and seeing them on video, there are probably many more who believe they can but really can't, yet still attempt to do so.



A .308" projectile with a proper bullet and adequate impact velocity is fine for pretty much anything in North America, providing the bullet is placed in the right spot on the animal. A larger diameter bullet with greater mass provides insurance for less than perfect shot placement, which happens sometimes. The recoil of a .338 Win Mag with a 250 grain bullet is fairly heavy, but easily dealt with by an experienced rifleman. It would be a poor choice for a noob with no intention of hunting a brown bear, yet once again, internet forums might lead one to believe it is the minimum caliber for elk.

I enjoyed Petzal's response to this Q and A about the 30-30:

https://www.fieldandstream.com/ask-...zzle-brakes-and-attack-mamba-like-snake/

"...Q: I want to take my next elk with a Winchester Model 94 .30/30. Thoughts? —Brent Houk, Girard, Kan.

A: You could populate a good-​size Rocky Mountain state with the elk that have been killed with .30/30s and .25/35s and .35 Remingtons, and all the other now-unfashionable lever actions and their cartridges. You’ll have to sneak up on the elk if you hunt with your 94. This is called “hunting.” You will probably enjoy it."



Snarky? Realistic? Enough humor to make you smile, and make it interesting? Guilty on all counts. The world is upside down these days. I for one will continue to enjoy his writing. He writes about stuff I like (shooting/hunting), and is entertaining. He's on the same side as us folks. Lighten up and enjoy the journey. If you can do better, go ahead and do it.

I know this thread is about what a dumbazz Petzal is...........but to answer the question. On any list #1 should be 30-378 Weatherby, what a worthless POS it is !!!!!!!!!

I hunted and spoke with a guy in east Montana Missouri breaks territory, who thought the 30-378 was the [bleep] best round around. And this in one of the best places to be able to move closer. Snipers

6.5 -300 WBY is even more cowbell.

+1, classic. I wonder where I can send him one of these?

I think there is a big difference between over-rated and quite effective.

'...Police departments like it because ammo is cheap...'

OR, ammo is cheap because police departments like it...........

'...I knew a former GI who threw his carbine away after he had to put 15 rounds into an SS landser during the Battle of the Bulge before the German realized he was being shot and fell down...'

LEOs have the same problem with the current 'rated' cartridges when shooting people high on crack and such............

That was my first thought. He could have randomly picked any 10 cartridges and this thread would still be exactly as it is currently. Heck his first sentence and even the entire first paragraph pave the way for the subjective nature of the whole article.

'...This is a true beast of a cartridge, and it holds so much powder that, when it was developed in the early 1950s, Federal had to invent the 215 Magnum primer to ignite all the propellant it held. The .378 is a true high-velocity cartridge that fires heavy bullets. It will do everything that Weatherby says it will. It crushes stuff up close and flattens stuff at long range. But it does so at the price of fearsome recoil. The rifle comes back so quickly that you can’t roll with the punch. The very first round I ever fired from a .378 smashed the frame of my shooting glasses...'

I'm sorry............... is the 378 WBY Overrated and fall short of it's billing, OR does it do what it's supposed to do??????

Reading the author:
If you don't understand Petzal's writing style don't bother with Lord of the Rings, or The Aneid......or,

You only listed 18 - Milek was twice!

IndyCA35: I have grown used to the drivel and idiocy espoused by so many of todays "outdoor writers" over the last 20 years that I simply ignore them!
But this latest bit of idiocy rivals even boob brown and small twigs lunacy!
I got only through paragraph two and decided that todays current crop of "outdoor writers" are not worth wasting time on.
And that is sad.
Sheesh.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Aren't you the guy who kept driving around Montana looking for rimfire ammo at the same sporting goods stores, over and over again, during the Obama rimfire shortage?

Hah! That was exactly what I was thinking!

300 Black out, its a turd of a do nothing. The millennial of ammo.