Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game practical caliber and cartridge differences

I have been following another thread on this site with stunned amazement and lots of laughs. I find it unbelievable that the judgement used to justify some things has so little logical or factual backup!

Lets see where to start..............

I guess since a .223 and a .22/250 shoot the same bullet and it could be said that either one placed in the exact same location on an animal would result in the same outcome they can be considered about the same. Sure the 22/250 is a bit faster and flatter but from a performance stand point what they heck they both get the job done.

a 22/250 and a .243 will both kill a deer if the bullets are good and the impact on each deer is identical so I suppose these two from a purely functional perspective can be considered the same. Both flat shooting and both will kill a deer with equal shot placement. After all I saw a very good friend of mine shoot a mule deer buck with a 22/250 in Idaho that was so far away after the shot the deer ran about 30 yards I was just about to say it was a miss when we could clearly hear the bullets impact and see the deer falling. Only the deer was 30 yards from the impact! The sound coming back from the impact was a hella long time compared to any prior experience like that I have had! It was the longest shot on a big game animal I have ever seen in my life and it was with a 22/250! Certaily much flatter shooting and at least as effective as a .243 would have been capable of!

Well a .243 has killed lots of deer and elk even black bear and sheep, not much difference then a 25/06 right? With equal shot placement they both work about the same........Woulden't ya say?

The previous thread says that the 25/06 and the 270 are for all practical matters about the same again with equal shot placement. Well Jack Oconner himself said that the 270 was the functional equal to the 7mm mag and the 30/06 so long as good bullets were used and proper shot placement.

A hot loaded 30/06 with a 24" barrel can equal a factory loaded 300 win mag with a 24" barrel or come pretty darn close with the same bullet. So for all practical purposes they are the same to about 300 yards or maybe even further!

Since a 300 mag can shoot a 200 grain bullet faster then the 338 can. I suppose these two have no real practical difference either. After all if you shoot an elk with either on dead center in the chest will the outcome be any different? Come to think of it that 338 with a 250 grain bullet is right on the heels of the 358 Norma mag. Only a minimal 100fps difference with the same bullet weight and construction!

Well by that measure is the 358 norma any real difference then a 375HH shooting a 270 grain bullet? Certainly not they would both have equally good results with identical shot placement and bullet construction.

Since the 375HH is the legal minimum for all dangerous game in Africa by people who know this business then why use the 416 rem mag? The 416 cannot be much better if the 375HH is legal? I suspect with identical shot placement and with quality bullet any buffalo shot through the heart with either will die just as well. ......No?

The 416 and the 458 both shoot a 400 grain bullet about the same speed so where is the difference there? Gotta figure these two with equal shot placement would also have similiar results.........right?

Hmmmmm this is interesting. I suppose since the .223 is the same starting at the bottom and follwing this theory all the way to the 458 I can just get the .223 cause if the shot placement is identical with the same quality bullet the results should be the same right? Why use the 458 on and Elephant when the 223 has so much less recoil and is a lighter gun?
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So where is the break then? Legally there are laws that actually define these things in some countries and certainly within many states. In my home state of Washington you cannot shoot a deer with a 22/250 but you can in Idaho. In my adopted home of South Africa you cannot hunt the big four with a gun less then 375 caliber. So some agencys have set official limits for these things.

Speaking just for myself and with the many animals I have been involved with as game manager, Alaska guide and Africa professional hunter, There is another level that I see for big game that will be quite controversial for many of you. However I don't think that big game especially the bigger species in North America are well suited to sub 30 caliber cartridges. I know of and have seen far more animals lost and or wounded with sub 30 caliber rifles in my life then all the lost and wounded larger then 30 caliber problems combined.

It's not that sub 30 caliber guns don't kill well, they sure do. The real issue is not the killing power or their trajectory capability it's the locating of the dead animals that becomes the issue. In my career and in my personal life I have probably seen 10 animals lost with sub 30 caliber guns for every single lost animal over 30 caliber. So it's my view that rifles for big game in the USA and even in the world should begin at 30 caliber. This is for hunters who take this persuit of hunting big game seriously. However it may even be more important for those who are not as serious because they tend to have less skills and may need the extra help with blood tracking. Since when did this become like fishing where we are trying to land the biggest fish with the lightest tackle? There ain't no catch and release here folks! These are lives we are talking about and a limited resource. You just can't keep shootin and killing game til you find one down before you notch your tag. I would like to know what cartridges and calibers folks would turn to if there tag was only good for a single shot rather then an animal in posetion

I just think trying to make a smaller cartridge into a bigger cartridge or a smaller bore into a bigger bore with all the mental gymnastics used in some of these posts gives me a good laugh. Following this logic nobody would need anything more then a 22LR if you take the theories used back far enough!

I think I'd second that!

Your analogy with fishermen using the lightest tackle to land an over sized fish is a good one and I have used it myself.

I think some of the threads can go off in all directions based on the interpretation of the question.

Your suggestion that a 30+ caliber is the better choice for most larger game is imminently sensible. The problem with being sensible is that this thread probably won't go too far and won't provide the entertainment some others do.

Now, if you had asked what was the best .30 caliber for that single rifle choice, then we would still be replying to this one into next year.

AGW

1: Placement
2: Projectile selection
3: Cartridge headstamp

That's the order of importance,in stopping heartbeats.

Myself,I don't think head shooting Freezer Meat mandates a 20mm MK12,stoked with MK106 Mod O (HEI).

Nor can I see myself in a tissy,over what someone else finds fortune in.

Gimme a 7-08 and an X and the rest is easy......................

nice post JJ, personally i like heavy bullets at maderate velocity. the 338-06 is about my ideal cartridge. i like my 8x57, 30-06 and 45-70. i want to put together a 416 taylor so i can cheaply lob 400 grain bullets at 2200fps. but i am not a long range shooter. i have more fun sneaking up on critters than shooting them. a nice 180gr plus bullet somewhere between 1800 and 3000 fps suits me just fine depending on what cartridge im using. simple, high sectional density bullets do great things when not driven to hyper velocity. if im not mistaken this logic has been around for alot more years than ive been on this earth. so personally ill sneak a lil closer or be content i passed up the shot.

my wife is a lil different though, she shoots cartidges like 250 Sav, 260 Remmy, 6.5x55 and 7x57 but i have alot more padding on my shoulder than she does and would rather have a light kicking rifle than anything.

When my immigration application was accepted I had to thin my rifle rack for logistical reasons.

I culled 3 x .416 Weatherbys, a .458, a .416 Remingtion and a .45/70 and that was only in the 40 calibers, so I am guilty of being a little heavy handed myself.

As much as I like the 7mm's, the .30's do hit harder to a degree you can notice in the field.

I think a really good thread would ask the difference between the various .338's based on field experience. Wouldn't that get interesting?

I think the 338Ultra stoked with a 210XLC is the most impressive sumbitch I've ever hit the switch upon.

Despite that glowing accolade,it is largely a niche tool,within my stable.

As to the 7mm vs 30cal debate,I've always said I'd not point a 30 at somethin',that'd make me balk at the 7em-em.

I'm a Seven Slut,but house enough 30's,that I can play on both sides of the fence.

'Course I can shoot a lil' bit and that don't hurt...................

True. I expect you log 5,000 rounds a year?

A guy with that much practice, a custom rilfe that shoots bbug holes, and the trajectory of his bullet taped to his stock (complete with silly-wet turrets) can make a 7-08 sing.

But, frankly, my dear--you don't matter. You are so for onto the side of the highly competent shooter, that caliber selection is unimportant. Hell, Karamojo Bell killed elephants with a 7x57 (the 7-08's ballistic twin). he does not matter either.

Its my freind Pat, that matters (an that JJ was speaking to). He goes "hunting" every year. But he still owns the same box of 180 grain 30-06 remmy Express ammo that he bought in 1994. Pat needs to shoot a big caliber. That way, if he ever sees a deer, he has a chance of finding the blood trail.

If he was shooting a 223, trailing would be impossible.

BMT

Alot of the "experimenting" with various cartridges I think is all about trying new stuff and keeping it interesting. My 25-06 kills deer so well because it is accurate and easy to shoot, therefore, the bullets typically find their intended mark. same for my kids 250-3000, they are 6 for 6 with that one, all one shot kills. they are not afraid to shoot that rifle. still, I think the benchmark for comparison in big game rifles is the 30-06 with 180 grain bullets. some better for some applications but at 100 years old, it's still around for a very good reason.

Well, heck...

I guess I'll eventually just have to get one of each and see if there really are any differences... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Sounds like good advice!

I see more noobs shooting cartridges above their abilities,than I do in the realm of their relative capability.

No shame in a guy running somethin' middle of the road,IMHO.

I can't recollect a noob with a 223 in his mitts,fixing to Rule the World and fixated upon rewriting the B&C Record Book . What I don't savvy,are guys making the mundane difficult?

The Science of stopping heartbeats isn't an unsolved mystery,though many seem bent upon making it seemingly as difficult as possible. The pendelum I see,is swung towards the more capacious offerings and that ain't helping their results,so I'm not quick to pin a malady upon a mechanical shortcoming,as much as practical shortcomings involving practice and common sense.

Long way of sayin' a big fancy miss,is just that..................

I'm not immune from deviating from the beaten path.

But no matter what I'm yerkin' the trigger upon,the relative order of importance for Dealing Death,remains the same.

Placement
Boolit selection
Chambering

The Turdy Aught Six never much impressed me,despite my killing more than a few things with one.

It operates in a realm with much company................

I see this go both ways depending on your favorite expert. Les Bowman used to say he sees way more game lost by guys showing up with big bore magnums than anything else.

-Lou

Les Bowman was correct. He was a great man left a big pair of shoes.

There are two sides to this whole story I think. There is on the one side a number of hunters who, for whatever reason hunt with whatever rifle they end up purchasing. Without doing any research for themselves they rely almost totally on the person behind the gunstore counter to advise them on what to use. This can have alot of different consequences depending on the knowledge of said person behind the counter. I find that wherever I purchase rifles, I always am more informed than the person who is selling, but than I would consider myself in the second category. And the second category are those who have made hunting and shooting a very indepth hobby. And depending on the individual there can be alot of different consequenses in this catagory. I personnally respect the game that I hunt. Enough that although I may be experianced enough to take game with smaller than normal calibers, I will not and always use something appropriate for the game being persued. THere are others in this category though who know better, but for there own reasons try to make themselves look good by using smaller calibers so they can say "hey look what I can do with a .223!" . The best that can be done is to try and educate those in the first category, and not placate or encourage those who fall in the second and should know better. I say use enough gun for the job.

Rob

Here is an interesting scenerio that actually happend and I'm afraid to say in the various locations I find myself in from time to time is not that unusual.

I was visiting the XYZ paper company in Cowlitz co. Wa. (one of the big dogs) during my visit there for business I was sitting in the maintaince break room with the 10-12 fellas who manage the care of the mill. Now I have been going to this place for many years now for my business and several of the guys and I have spoken at length about hunting. These core of maintaince guys are in some kind of 7mm magnum cult, but it's not a cult about how good the cartridge is or how well it works. It's a twisted bizzaro cult. Let me expain.

During many past visits the conversations about various guns would come up with the typical magazine hype and misguided quotes about ballistics and other facts. I'm way outnumbered here because I'm not a member of this "7mm mag cult" quite the opposite if they knew my feelings about the cartridge I would be thier anti-christ.

So having set this up for you, you can see they find no fault in their favorite cartridge. Which when you include the "bubba factor" involved makes this sooooo much fun for me. During one of the conversations about 2 weeks into the elk season one fella says that his elk was shot at an honest 500 yards paced off across a clearcut. I said he must have a hell of a good stride to keep that line straight when the clearcut dropped down about 100 feet and then back up the other side. He said yeah well it was 500 yards paced maybe it was only 475 straight line. Hmmmm (bubba factor) so I let it go and he keeps talking about just how tough this elk was. He shot the first time and kicked up crap under it's feet so holding high he shoots and this time sees crap fly up behind the elk. No to his credit he still knew it was too low and not shooting over(surpised the heck out of me) So he claims to have held three feet over the back and then "sho nuff" (his words) he plugged that thing. The elk jumped in the air and took off at which time they shot and hit it two more times(?). Now to get over there somehow with the pickup truck. When they get to to opposite road they see the tracks in the snow and one tiny spot of blood so now they are sure it's been hit at least one time. Following the tracks in the snow he sees an elk ahead(must be the right one) and he shoots again hitting it quartering away. Man these elk are tough(his words) so they continue to follow but it's gone a long way. One guy heads back for the truck to move it ahead to the next road. The other keeps following and sees the elk yet again and shoot straight up the tail end. Now that elk is wobbly and headed for the next county. Then he hears a shot and another shot and then a third shot, and silent. When he arrives at the road his buddy is there claiming to have shot it three times less then 50 yards away.

So they find this dead bull about 75-100 yards from the road. They claim it was one tough old bull that took 7 shots to bring down and it was so tough that the meat was completely blown to bits and all shot up through both shoulders and the hind quarter. Yet it still lived and was able to run all that way. The bizzaro part is that they adore the 7mm mag so much and find no fault with it. Even though at least 7 rounds put into the bull and it still lived and ran all that way. They never once considered that the bullets used were the wrong choice or the cartridge used at such close range for the followup shots was too fast for the construction of said bullets.

The pride in their faces was like nothing I have seen before and the great performance of these 7mm mags was the only reason they were able to bring the beast down. In one guys words, I'm glad I bought this instead of a 30/06 that 30/06 would have been worthless on a bull like this that took 7 shots to kill. I aksed about the recovered bullets and they laughed! They cackeled out of control! YOU CANNOT RECOVER A 7MAG BULLET! In his words " the bullets are so fast that when they hit an elk they explode like litte hand grenades blowing huge killing wounds into them. That's why these 7mags are the best elk rifle ever! Nothing else has the explosive bullets like the 7mag does. My silly reply are you sure that's good? What........he says! Without that kind of power how do you think we would have ever killed that bull and found it? All the other guys use 300 mags or 338's and those bullets just zip right though without any damage. .............( wow what a concept)

Not to be outdone one of the other fellas in the 7mm mag cult starts with Oh yeah we shot that one up at Hansen creek two years ago and it took five shots for a young cow, that story went on much the same way! Yet they must have a shrine someplace in the mill with a small carpet in front that they can kneel on it and pray to the lord of 7mm magdom. I'm simply dumbstruck at the lack of skill and knowledge infront of me, .........Yet they are bold and confident in there beliefs that what they are doing is somehow way ahead of the expert level of PNW elk hunters.

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So lets put a few things into perspective here. Any young guy coming to work at this place will learn his ballistics and his gun choice from these guys and will be sucked into the hype and non-sense surrounding these kinds of guns and skills. This is where many of the people get their information and form their beliefs and undrstanding of rifles.

The great majority of people choose a cartridge based on "feeling and Emotion" learned from a father or other older mentor. In some cases from a cult of co-workers as described above. Darn few have ever sat down and worked out the differences between cartridges or been able to spend time with a guy who has a lot of experience. There are a number of folks on this site who I have a lot of respect for. But we may not agree 100% on the details. We certainly agree on the majority of the issues. These guys would be a huge and powerful resource to help set the mind straight for people with limited experience.

I have had a number of Emails from guys with limited experience in the last couple years who have lots of questions. Certainly I'm biased towards some things and for sure these feelings carry a lot of weight in my responses. But they hopefully don't carry the "bubba factor" of credibility!

JJ, I've read this post twice through now and still fail to see where these fellas using frangible bullets and their apparent desire for explosive impact has a thing to do with the 7mm magnum cartridge. Hell there is a veritable host of ultramagnum class rounds out today in various calibers that used with the right (or rather wrong) bullet will provide explosions to make the cult of the 7 mag green with envy. If these guys were loading 140 TSXs and hitting the elk in the right place they STILL wouldn't be recovering bullets - but they also wouldn't be firing twice or tracking wounded elk...

As an aside I've only seen two elk shot 5 or more times and both were with 30-06s, one with the old original 150 grain silvertips and one with the 150 grain Hornady.

Add me to that list. If that story is what you base your opinion of the 7mag on your wasting alot of cyber space.

Chuck

JJ, interesting topic, and one we should think about more often.
We rarely consider what weight/caliber/trajectory (read speed) we want to use, but instead fuss over the fact that a 30-06 is/must be much better than a 308. That, or the fact that a short action is some huge advantage vs. a long action. Stick's 7mm-08 would be just as effective in his hands if it was a 280, 270, or heaven forbid 30-06.

Our real problem is that we tend to not be logical, but tend to rely on emotions in our choices. Either our dad/uncle/older brother/partner used such and such, and they were successful, so it must be the rifle that does it, or I missed/lost a big one last year so I should get another(generally bigger) rifle.
If we spent more time actually doing something to make us better hunters (practise and exercise being two obvious ones), less money on equipment and more on funding hunting trips, we would be much more effective.
Having said that, I enjoy fussing/dreaming over details of the next ultimate rifle as much as the next guy.
For myself and where I hunt, I've pretty well settled on the 270-280-30-06 class for deer and prefer something bigger for moose. The fact that I might run into a grizzly while deer hunting makes something like a 243 quite impractical. That and the fact that I have had enough hard bloodtrails with something like a 270 to make a smaller caliber largely unappealing. My latest buildup is a 35 whelen which will finish up at less than 8lbs loaded. I believe it will be very practical for moose, black bear, and not unreasonable in heavy cover for deer. It won't be my choice for longer shots in the alpine or across a large clearcut, but I wouldn't feel too awkward with it if that was the rifle I had.
I also am not an advocate of very long range shooting. The concept of shooting an animal at well over 400 yards is not hunting to me, it's shooting, and there is a huge difference, for me. Others may disagree, so be it. I can appreciate the skill involved in long range shooting, but we owe the animals better than that in a hunting situation.
YMMV
Pat

The intent of the post was to show how people get so caught up in a belief that they fail to see the big picture. Light weight fast bullets at close range are a problem most experienced guys would realize and deal with. Yet these guys actually thought it was a good idea. Not only that but because the philosophy was so well embedded into their heads they were promoting this to others as the best combination of components for shooting an elk. When we are talking about what people use and how they come to the ideas about what they shoot many of the ideas come from bizzare back grounds like this.

I sit here shaking my head that anyone would choose to use ballistic tips out of a 7mm mag and shoot an elk in the close range of the cascades!