Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles all around cartridges

I think the intent of the article was if you could only afford one rifle to hunt CXP2 game{pronghorn,whitetails,sheep}to CXP3 game{elk,moose}along with some european and african counter parts he listed 4 calibers that could do it all.You could pick any one of the 4 and be able to hunt anything except dangerous game.At least thats what i got out of the article.

The world is full of all-around cartridges, where are the all-around riflemen?

You can kill anything walking this planet with a .270 if you got the hair.

Sounds good to me--the top four are there for a reason.

Add the 243 for Class 2 only hunts, and you're there.

...And you COULD kill a Cape Buffalo with a a kitchen knife.
Note: That is ill- advised

I wouldnt recommend tackling dangerous game with .223. But if you like long odds and lack the will to live, knock yourself out. I'd make sure my guide was close so he can finish off the bull.... ( or put me out of my misery

Add the good old 25-06 and its about perfect.

Damn straight!

Chuck Hawks strikes me as an internet expert extraordinaire...

It sure doesn't take a genius to write that article. I read the same one when I was a little kid. Not sure who the author of that one was now. Could have been any number of writers. Since every damned one that ever wrote an article for a gun rag has done essentially the same article since Jack O'Connor and Elmer Keith were just getting started.

I'm always amazed when someone uses Chuck Hawks as a source of credible anything... I'm loathe to quote gunwriters in general, and when I do it's not going to be Chuck Hawks. Ever.

I don't know the man and do not know his history. He is knowledgeable, but he strikes me as something of an internet expert as well. Many of his views that he espouses are not necessarily incorrect, but smack of the common internet lore that floats around that is parroted by those who lack real experience. On the other hand, some of his writings show real experience with shooting, maybe just not as much hunting.

Again, I don' know the man, so I really have no place to pass judgement.

He may be the most experienced hunter on planet earth... all I have to go by is what I've read.

I think it's easy to judge guys like my old favorite Finn Aagaard, or John Barsness, and Phil Shoemaker... they're out in the light of day for all the world to see and I KNOW those guys aren't internet jockey's... I guess if I'm going to quote a writer it'd be one of those.

But it's still going to be a rare event...

He also had an article disparaging ARs as a hunting tool. That really soured me. I have found ARs to be a fine hunting instument in many scenarios and the last thing we need is someone giving antis fodder.

Funny, he could have written that after reading Outdoor Life's list of most popular cartridges...

I've got a collection of "Hunter-trader-trapper" magazines from the 1910-1913 time frame. The "all-'round" rifles and cartridges recommended repeatedly by the writers of that day were the .30-30 and.32 special in the Marlin '93 and Winchester '94, and the .30-40 Krag and .303 British in the Winchester '95.

I load my 308 with 125 sierras in the summer for woodchucks, 165 partitions for deer and elk in the fall and since I'm in PA where the monster black bear live I loaded up some 180 partitions(though I know I could have stuck with the lighter bullets and been just fine). Anything in NA would die with the 308 in the right spot, not saying I would want to go on a grizzly hunt with my savage 99 308, but I'm sure it would get the job done just maybe not as fast as I might want or need( I got a .358 win for that).

God Bless,
MM

I often wonder why the .308 isn't picked-up more often as a great all round cartridge...especially in lightweight rifles.

It is for me!

I've killed coyotes, antelope, mule deer, whitetail deer and elk with the 308. If that's not all-around I don't know what is.

If a guy fails to grass any bull elk he ever encounters with the 308 it's his own fault or he chose a crappy bullet...

It is for me. 308 is one of the best. Must to to boring for some fanatics but anything in the lower 48 it will handle with ease with less recoil than a 30.06

The 7mm RM was my all around cartridge for 20+ years, from light varminting to elk. No complaints whatsoever but I simply wanted to try something different. Nothing I've tried has worked any better including carts in .257, 6.5, .280, .308, .338, .375 and .45-70. All I got for my efforts was a safe full of guns and I have no complaints about that, either.