Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Mule Deer article

Mule Deer, love your article re recoilless cartridges. I agree with you re the 250 savage representing the starting point. My recent experience with the cartridge is that it is a for real deer killer with manageable recoil for the young shooter. It has it all over the 243 for the recoil sensitive. A good friend asked me for a recommendation for a rifle for his young son and I suggested the urge 77 ultra light in 257 Roberts. I went with the urge as they are the only group that chambers for round. don't see how he can go wrong. my 250 save is a model 70 compact with a Douglas barrel. I believe a 22-250 would be fine also but the 250 savage or roberts is a better overall choice.

Bob, I second your comments...

MD, great stuff!!!

Thank you Mark

Great article, John. It made me feel smart <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />, because it sounds like the advice I give to youngsters starting out. I follow it also, with my 7mm-08.
Will

Yep. Great read, for sure. And good advice, too. While reading that article, I reminisced about the deer I've taken with the light-recoilers, and, darned if old M-D isn't right - they're just as dead as the ones that were shot with rifles that would toast them with muzzle blast if the bullet missed.

Too many guys seem to think a good "starter rifle" is a 300 Ultra-Mag. I always see a few with "less than 1 box of ammo fired" tags on 'em in the used gun racks every spring.

R-WEST

PS - I always recommend the 7-08, too. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

It was refreshing to read an article about functional deer killers that have been around a while, rather than the usual gunrag mantra of NEW<IMPROVED>SUPERLONG>SUPERSHORT>yada, yada yada
and what the heck is the deal with Tikka--did they just give a dozen rifles to every gunscribe? You can't pick up a magazine without seeing a feature on a Tikka.
John's article focused on several of my favorites, not fancy but they just keep on killing deer. He also fired up my jones for a 257 Bob, which I need like a hole in the head but have decided I must have. Hope the guilt doesn't make me dump the .25-06.

Sounds like a great article. Could someone point out where to find it? Is it available on the Web or only in print?

Thanks in advance.

don't sell that 25-06!!! but a new bob can't hurt either. mine is built on a model 70, short action, with a 24" stainless shilen barrel. load 115 partitions and it is super. another route for a bob is the ruger standard or ultralight, great rifles for the $, especially if you are looking for a bob.

Bob: I don't see how I could have missed that article but I did. Where was it published?

Thanks, guys. For those asking, the article appeared in the latest issue of RIFLE magazine.

I just got back from SHOT, where even some old and jaded gun writers told me they liked the piece. Also got to shoot some of ther new low-recoil ammo from Federal and Remington in calibers like .270 and .308 WCF and .30-06. They are essentialy reduced loads, which kill deer just as well as full-power stuff to 200 yards or so. Now even those who don't handload can ease new hunters into the old '06!

JB

I don't like the .243, either; but, how can you recommend the .22-250 over the .243??? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

RSY

257Bob--my choices to make the Bob are a short SUCKS which is currently a 7-08 or a SantaBarbara commercial 98 wearing a 30 year old Douglas 6mm Rem tube. My inclination is to go with the 98 action which will give me longer OAL capability, but I'm not sure if this is really necessary or desireable, or whether it must be combined with a long throat to be worthwhile. This Bob thing has been growing like a rash for several years, and I've decided to scratch it. Advice?

Steve:
Just to comment: I recently built 2 Bobs on Mauser actions. One on a VZ24, that wears a Pac Nor, with a VX1 in Conetrol mounts, one on an Argy that wears a Shilen tube, with an older Leopold compact 2x7 in Conetrol mounts. Both are essentially identical, short (21") tubes, very light weight. Both were built for ladies, the Argy for my wife. Both shoot under 1", but not under .5". The VZ gets fed factory ammo, the Argy gets my handloads. Both ladies scored this year on our lease, the lady with the VZ/factory (a Federal load, I think) taking the biggest rack of the season, a nice 8pt. My wife took a scraggly 6pt. Both 1 shot kills, deer dead on the spot, no traveling. Range in both cases was (+/-) 100yds.

RSY, I'm not MuleDeer and didn't read the article but I can say the 22-250 recoils substantially less than a 243 and here in MT is a proven deer-getter. Go out to eastern Mt and tour any rancher's home... generally you'll find a couple of 25-30(+)" Muley racks that were taken with the rancher's "truck gun" which 9 times out of ten is a 22-250!

I wish I had read your article 38 years ago. My first hunting license, age twelve, list my weight as 74 pounds. My first rifle was a 30-06 and it punished me severely. I was lucky enough to have a loving and caring uncle that offered to trade me a .257 Roberts for my rifle. The .257 took me from dreading going to the range to wanting to shoot all my ammo ever trip.

Please continue to encourage young and/or beginning hunters to start with a smaller, but still sufficient, cartridge.

I also enjoyed the article. My son has to wait 2 more years before he's 12 and legal. I've started him on the 22 for plinking, a few 223 rounds and some 22-250(he's not real excited about them). He wants a 25-06 when he can afford a rifle,but I will probably have him hunt with one of mine for the first year or two. I may have to buy another one- I always seem to end up carrying my 22-250 or my 7600 pump 308. Funny, a safe full of rifles and I always end up where I started my collection.

I wanted to carry this thought over from another forum. I believe the new 25 WSSM would fall right into this light recoiling rifle category. It is basically a souped up 257R - but factory loads won't be handicapped like the 257R is. Also, seems like I read where some of the writers think the shorter cases recoil less than the equivalent full lenght varieties. Seems like most wished it was a 25 WSM but it sure wouldn't fit in the light recoiling category. Maybe Winchester does know what they are doing - at least in this case.

The .257 WSSM sure should be a good one as well.

As for less recoil than "standard" cartridges with similar ballistics, well, with all due respect to my colleagues, I believe they are repeating what enthusiastic press releases claim. With the same bullets at similar velocities, I have never been able to see any difference between the recoil of the shorties and standard cartridges, whether belted or not.

JB

I think that the idea is that less powder is fired with the more efficient fat short cases so their is less recoil.

Conrad

What I took from this article is that the concept of "handicapped" rifle loads is less important than we've believed in the past. Perhaps our automatic assumption that "faster" is the same as "better" needs revision; perhaps "less muzzle blast," or "less recoil" should be what we think of as "better." If that's the case, then the 257 R is "better" than the 257 WSSM by virtue of getting the job done with less velocity, recoil, blast, powder cost, etc.

Jaywalker

Conrad, yeah that's the basic idea--but applying it to the short mags is somewhat deceiving. The .300 WSM, for instance, uses about 5 grains less than the .300 Winchester Magnum. In the real world this doesn't make enough difference to matter, especially since the average .300 WSM should (in theory) weigh about 3-4 ounces less than the equivalent long-action rifle.

Also, applying the "efficiency" label especially to short mags ignores the basic ballistic fact that ANY cartridge with less powder space in a given caliber is more efficient. It has nothing to do with case shape. The .308 Winchester only has half the case capacity of the .300 Remington Ultra Mag, yet obtains about 75% of the magnum's velocity.

JB