Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles What's More important to you?

What's More important to you in a deer/elk rifle? A super flat shooting rifle with a smaller caliber bullet or More knock down power plus a bigger hole with a larger caliber bullet?

To me....it's all about rifle fit and being intimate with it. After that it just don't matter much to me.

Plus with dotz I can make about any round do well to 500 yds so I really don't need all that speed.

Sorry, I just can't follow instructions very well...grin

Dober

I like a super flat cartridge that hits hard.Thus the STW.Thing hits like a Tyson punch.

Stick or rock...

That works...

I like a bigger hole... Give me a larger caliber bullet over speed in most cases...

Rock you have more range...

I'm with you on the big 7's, that's why I dearly love my 7 Mashburn Super.

Dober

It depends for me. I am not a fan of small/fast rounds for elk. I have dug too many lead core bullet jackets out of elk shoulders, scared over from seasons past. For lung shots, nearly anything works but I like to put my bullets tight to the shoulder, and if I should put it a few inches forward, I like to have weight and modernate velocity to break that shoulder and keep going. I mainly use a 300 Sav these days, but am no stranger to a 340 Wby and 375 H&H. Premiums help with the small/fast rounds but I am just old fashioned and like more weight/diameter.

Mike, you get this at a sacrifice and that being recoil... Now for us recoil sensitive shooters could have a little troulbe with the STW....

just kidding got love the BIG 7....

Yup the big 7 has opened my eyes.As for the recoil Randy with the new stock it's worse than my 300 Win.But it's a fast sharp kick thats over before you know it.

Time for work... talk at you all later...

I bounce back and forth on this and have varrying opinions for deer and elk. I like fast and large and good penetration for elk, and fast and explosive for deer sized stuff. I believe speed kills, as it is the variable that is squared in energy equations. Penetration doesn't concern me much on deer size stuff, so I'm ok with fast openers, but on elk sized stuff I want slow openers. Same theories should apply on either animal, but I like what I like. So, when selecting bullets for elk, I leaned toward 200 grain Accubonds in my .300 Ultra, 250 A-Frames in the .358 Norma, 175 Mag Tips in the .280, but light for caliber TSXs in .270 WSM and .264 Win Mag(but I have used Partitions in both also). Guns I load for friends include the .30-06, .270, .300 Win Mag and .325 WSM. In those, for elk I load up 180 TSXs, 160 Partitions or 140 Fail Safes, 200 Accubonds, and 220 A-Frames, respectively.
For antelope, I'd load 100 gr Ballistic Tips in the .264, 125 Ballistic Tips in the .30-06, 100 gr Hornady Spire Points in the .270, 140 Ballistic Tips in the .280, 150 Speers in the .325 and either 85 gr TSXs or Partititions in the .243 WSSM or 90 gr Ballistic Tips.
Clear as mud right? But I've since sold all but one of my rifles and hunted everything with the .264 this year with either 100 gr Ballistic Tips or 120 TTSXs.

It was fun.Later Randy.

Heavy for calibre. If the bullet is going over 3000fps, I add more weight.

larger caliber and heavier bullets (within reason) for me.

Not to highjack but I think shot placement is most crucial. I have a friend that took an elk down at over 500 yds with a 257 wby and 120 or 115 grn tip. Ya that tip is cruising, but not real heavy. 1 shot, placed correctly and it took the top of the heart off. Then there was a guy that had a 338-378. Shooting at a monster bull at around 400 yds. Couldnt hit the elk for trying, not sure but I think he had to use a 300 win to take care of it. Practice and shot placement I think is more crucial than than weight of the bullet.

As big as needed to make two holes, and as fast as I can make that happen. JMO, Dutch.

Something that I can carry every day for a couple of weeks were the Elk live. So a rifle in the 7 to 9 lbs on the out side just about dose it for me as for cartridges well anything from 6.5 x 55 to 338 Winchester is plenty. Of late the 7mm Remington Mag has been doing it for me only because I really like my current rifle so chambered, thou my old sako 75 in 338 seen more elk and moose hunting. When its all said and done, a 30-06 with a good fixed 4x scope house in a rifle that tops out around 7lbs or so launching any good bullet from 165 to 220 gr. Is really all you ever really need for Deer/Elk or 95 % of the worlds big game. But that would be to simple and well boring.

Randy,

Personally "flat" doesn't matter one bit to me, within reason. I mean if the rifle is making 2800 fps with a decent-BC bullet, that's flat enough. I'll compensate with turrets or a reticle.

But a big ol' hole is a pretty cool thing.

My .358 has been nothing but wonderful on blacktails. It just flattens them, with minimal muss and fuss and bloodshot.

My hunting rifle batter shows that I tend to aim for around 2800-2900 fps, with the exception of my purpose-built .358:

.358
7mm-08
30-06
.300 WM
.325 WSM
.338 WM