Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Regional differences in calibers?

Being in the military the last 10+ years, I have been fortunate enough to live and hunt in a few different areas of the country. Though I never hunted in TX, I did frequent the range quite often and have a few friends and family member that hunt in TX. The .25-06, and .270 was a common caliber, and 7mm Rem MAg was in the mix as well.

Growing up in AR, and now living back here .30-30's, .30-06's, and .308, .243, and 7mm Rem Mag or .270 are common. I have and hunt with a .280 quite often as I know of three other people that hunt with one here as well. Though the .30-30 seems to be a very common rifle, I have noticed that once someone here gets a better paying job, or after their 35th B-Day, they graduate to a .30-06. I have known a few people that purchased a .300 WM, or .338 WM to hunt with out west.

Upon moving to MT and knowing people from AR that went there to hunt, I thought the .300WM or .338 would be the mainstay. Boy, were my eyes opened. True the big mags were popular with the younger crowd, the more experieinced, older and mostly MT natives I knew, hunted with .30-06's or .270's for just about every thing. I also had two hunting partners that had only one rifle and they were 7mm Rem Mags, and both had previously lived and hunted in Alaska.

LAst but not least was MS. Here, I found that is was pretty much like AR, with .30-06's being the most popular. There was a little more mix of people hunting with shotguns that in AR in my younger days. I could go on a little more, but I think the point is across. I have noticed in recent years with AR enacting more stringent deer dg rules or doing away with deer dogging all together, semi-autos, pumps, and lever actions, are now less popular and bolt actions and single shots becoming more popular every year.

One thing I have noticed on forums, including this one, is a regional difference in response to the "one-gun" type questions. Easterners tend to pick short-actions (especially the 308) and Westerners seem more likely to pick a long-action (especially the '06). By no means a hard and fast rule, just my observation when viewing some of those threads.

Makes sense if you consider "eastern" to mean woods-style hunting, but less sense if you consider the more trend to food plots and "beanfield rifles."

FWIW:

Oregon runs pretty standard:

30-06 and 270 lead with 7mm and 300 mags right behind. 308, 243, 25-06, 7-08 follow and then all of the others trail behind.

BMT

There is regional variation in both firearms style and chambering that makes perfect sense because of regional variation in topography and vegetation. It is pretty rare to find a lever or a semi-auto in the Rockies because long range accuracy is more important than firepower.

I grew up in the Rockies, and spent several years studying at the university that is the real basketball powerhouse in North Carolina. After I returned out west, I invited a friend from NC out for his first antelope hunt. He showed up with a 30-06 with a 1.5-5x scope. The caliber was great, but a 300 yd goat looked pretty small in that scope, even on 5x. He just wasn't used to country that looks like...




I also had the chance this fall to look at the hunter sign-in sheet at a private ranch that kills over 300 cow elk each fall. The calibers listed were the big four: 30-06, 270, 7 RemMag, and 300 WM. Everything else combined was an also-ran.

utah708,
You mention that the antelope looked pretty small through a 1.5 - 5x. That antelope would have looked like an antelope at 60 yards with iron sights, an easy shot to make. There seems to be this fallicy that you NEED high power to shoot at long distances for big game. I shot an antelope at 280 yards with a fixed 4x out here in eastern CO, it died just fine.

One thing I have noticed in attedning gunshows all around the DC area is that PA folk own more Winchester 88s in .308 than anywhere else in Christendom! And they must alll be for sale!

And then there are the Remington 760s and 7600s, almost all in .30-06.

The capability to throw lots of lead, relativley fast, and relatively acccurately, w/o access to semi-autos -- banned in PA -- made for a whole mini-market for such rifles.

Build it and they will come. Force it by law and they will stay.

1B

You went to NCSU?

I still see lots of lever guns chambered in .30-30 and .35 REM in the hills of WV every year... .444 Marlin in my choice.

Cross the river into MD and you see long action bolt guns in the magnum of the month round.

I think not only the cartridges but the platform that shoots them varies a great deal from place to place.

Our hunt club in the deep south's opening day rifles were all 270,7-08,7rem mag,308, 30'06 & 35 whelen. all bolt actions mostly remington bolt actions. Most of the scopes are 3x9's, my whelan has a 1.75x6 leupold. Most members have 2 or morw using rifles usually a bolt action carbine & a standard sportster.

Looking at it from a different angle, I might as well add my two pennies to the pot.

I don't know why it is but here in Chattanooga and the north Georgia area, you could hardly ever find a gun store that sold Winchester Model 70s. You could order them, of course, but they were very rare indeed on store shelves.

It was much easier to find a $1200.00 Weatherby MKV than it was a plain jane, garden variety Model 70. Go figure. Remingtons were and are all over the place. Ditto for Browning products. CZ's have made a strong push in the last five or six years as have T/C Encores.

I do not know why Winchester is not represented very well in this area. Maybe, just maybe with the introduction of the new Winchester, a few more stores will carry them.

Landrum

The northeast(NewEngland) is a funny place because you're likely to see damn near anything,from 30-30 and 35 levers to 300 magnums of some variety.The 30/06,308,7/08,and 270 are very popular.For most of the shooting here they all work; but I've had shots over 300 yards back here on power lines,and remember more than one time when some guy sitting a logging road in Maine could not reach to 300 yards with the lever 30-30 he had.

Funny thing I see here a lot(other places too, I'm sure)is the accumulation of far reaching magnums by guys who never shoot past 100-200 yards, at the range,or in the field; who have never set foot west of Chicago,nor into Canada.When asked why they say so they can handle 400-600 yards if they have to ...someday.They say there is not much need to practice because the technology today in scopes, cartridges,allow such shooting....Pretty funny..

Two years ago I was with a group of guys doing a drive for black bear in the swamps of north central pennsylvania. I could not beleive the rifles that were carried. Moslty XXXMagnum in Rem 700's with large 50mm scopes of different degrees of high magnification. Not that this is a bad set-up for hunting, but wouldnt be my pick for a bear drive. I think you see more and more of this because these are the rifles that are written about. It didnt take me long to learn that maybe gramps new a thing or two by choosing a 760, or all those 99's I use to see. Bolt-guns are great for drives or timber hunting also, just make it short, fast, and low power on the optics for me.

Yo Mike. I was tationed near New Bern in The early '50's and used to hunt N.C. Deer with my .30-06 Garand. I just got from Korea and I never hunted before. Now I live in Northern Wisconsin and I can assure you the Deer here, (Although they are the same species) ar harder to knock down than those little things that live in the swamps. They are cornfed, Bean and Afalfa eaters and a few time in the last few years I have had to jump on their backs and do the old throat slitting trick. a 200-250 lb Buck is not out of the ordinary, and if you don't hit it just right, kiss it goodbye. The point that I'm trying to make on this forum is, go with the caliber that is generally accepted in your region for the particular game you are after. There are guys up here that will shoot at a whitetail with a BB gun, just to say they did it. I had a ton of fun hunting near J'ville and I am not critizising any region, I just thought I'd throw my 1 cent in. (My wife has my other one.) Thanks for your input on the Four guns I threw out there. Semper Fi.
Ron

I wish I was on my way to Alaska. I went up there last summer and if I knew that was as awesome as it is, I would have been living there 30 years ago.
Good Luck to you.
Bring Water. They catch rain water in ketchican in tubs to use for drinking water.

Ain't that the truth! I have been on a few of said bear drives here in PA, and I've had a few buddies carry firearms not quite suited to quick, close shots. I've been carrying my 700 in 7mm-08 with a 2.5-10 on it, which is fine and dandy, except the fact the brush is too thick to shoot half the time. Next season, I'm thinking my open-sighted 760 Gamemaster in 280 or just taking a machete in one hand, 44 mag in the other.

Oh, and yes, TONS of pump rifles here, as well as Model 70 270s and then the 30-06

Around here, there seems to be the 270 crowd, tend to be older and better hunters, the 3006 people because they just don't care with the latest and greatest. 300 mags are popular, people who spend a lot of time on foot like the 338WM because of bear encounters of the close kind. then there is every thing else.

I see more of a regional difference in actions rather than calibers. In Colorado most people carry bolt action rifles. I never see a semi(other than the odd BAR), lever action or especially pump action rifle. I disagree that the 270 is a dog in Colorado. I see TONS of thoes and most people I know own one or more. I think htat the 270 is still second only to the 30-06 in popularity.

760 in a .280, now thats a keeper. Just make sure you dont cut a hole in your hip boots with the machete, then your SOL.

Had a buddy who worked in a gunshop in WI, he swore they got every BAR in 338Win that was ever produced and sold them as fast as they could order them.

I worked a gun counter in a town on the ND/MN border in the mid and late 90's. The folks from MN just wanted a rifle with a clip, anything with a clip. They'd pay top dollar for a 788 because it had a clip. Sold tons of Remington's when they introduced the 700DBM. Lots of Reminton pumps and autos went to MN as well, because they had a clip. You see in MN when in/on a vehicle, you must have the gun in a case, fully zipped up, with no ammo in the magazine, a removeable clip solved this problem. The folks in ND are allowed to carry a gun in/on the vehicle with ammo in the magazine and no case necessary. A clip was almost never a deciding factor for the ND guys, in fact many of them profitted handsomely from selling their 788's to MN guys and then bought something that they really wanted.

For a time I ordered all the ammo for the store. 30-06 and 270 ran neck and neck, 243 was next, 7rem, 300win, 308 nearly always tied for 4-6, 25-06 and 22-250 were next and the rest paled in comparison.