Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting Best caliber for hunting long range whitetails .

The subject get hashed, smashed, and trashed weekly....

I think I may agree After 40+ years of .277 I am experimenting and right now I am playing around with a 95 Berger in my 243. I must admit it looks promising and damn is it fun to shoot.

Randy

It certainly should, I have a 243 while a 105 A-MAX flatten a whitetail at 680 yards

video or it is all BS

wtf do you now about goats...I thought you was et by a beaver.

Depends where you're hunting. Open plains where a critter can't run out of sight in a week... Use a .243. Next to the swamps and thickets with power/gas lines where I hunt... You better bring more gun. Shooting behind the shoulder around here = you chasing a critter through who knows what and likely never finding him. DRT highly preferred. Also with private clubs running next to each other, if a deer crosses the property lines you can't just chase him... Gets complicated. Most use .270, fast-7's, and magnum .30's with soft bullets.

and short action 6.5, 7-08, 280, 280 ai for me!

6.5 to 30 caliber is the epicenter for me.

I would put the range smaller than you, Bob--6mm to 7mm. Run a Berger VLD in an 8 twist barrel in 6-.284, 25-06, 264 Win, one of the .270s, or a 7 Rem Mag, and the limiting factor would be the loose nut behind the trigger.

By the time you get to the bullet weight needed to get high BC in a .30 magnum, the recoil becomes a problem for me.

Excellent point. I think this is why many favor 338's and similar for elk in the Northwest. Not because they are that hard to kill, just hard to find sometimes.

That may be true but how many 5-600 yard shots do you get in a place like that?

260

"The 270 is so flat you can hold dead on out to 600"

To be honest up here in New England, just about everywhere. 5-600 yds shot would be taken on power line row's or clearcuts, a couple of steps away and your in thickets and cedar swamps. I know its a regional thing but would venture a guess that you have the same sort of situation in the south, texas, Northwest and probably upper mid west to name a few.

As he said, power line right of ways and underground gas lines are areas about 50-60 yards wide and can be miles long in a straight line. They are kept pretty Clean for service on said power services. They run through the worst/ thickest mess imaginable. 50 yards in and that critter may never be seen again. Plenty of people use the smaller calibers with great success but Murphy has a way of showing up. I'm not talking bad about about the smaller calibers, it's purely a matter of either DRT or blood trails a blind man can follow. Many of us tried the .243 thing with 95gr NBT and the like. One might DRT and the next might run 200 yards. We err on the side of overkill. Losing a deer is unacceptable if you can help it.

Yeah the funny thing is despite hnting them in places like Alberta and field edges in Sask and Manitoba(Montana as well) two of my bigger bucks from the Northeast were taken at about 300 yards;another at 330...swamps in the northeast can offer some long shots from treestands,as well as clear cuts.I hunted a clearcut in northern Vermont this year that would challenge a 1000 yard shooter.

To be honest,and this is my own experience but 500-600 yard shots get all the ink,but are rare in a hunting sense.Eeveryone talks about them but I am willing to bet that the vast majority of deer are killed at far less distances than that.There may be places where they are routine but I have never hunted them,east or west.

I set the bar at 6.5 myself because,while I have used the 25/06 and the Roberts(one of my favorites),I notice they kill well but not with the finality of the bigger calibers when distances get stretched.I never wrapped my head around 6mm's of any sort for large bucks and long range(yes I know they kill them but I have been underwhelmed). I like more bullet weight and frontal area.While the 30 calibers bounce a bit more,they are just genuinely good killers,and I have shot enough 165 gr bullets from a 30/06 to 600 yards,seen it used on elk to 500,to know it will get to 600 yards with enough authority to kill well.Recoil is moderate.The 30/06 with a 165 at 2900+ fps is no toy.

Bob,

I do not disagree and believe in the New England states the vast mjority of deer taken are sub 200 yds and probably sub 100 yds. I was good with a Marlin lever gun for many years until I hunted Maine and started hunting power lines and clearcuts that as you said can go 1000 yds. Me I am not that good and limit myself to a 300 yd max or so. I am sure that the 6mm's and 25's get the job done and looking for one myself. I just like a little insurance for a good blood trail and feel comfortable in the 270/7mm/.308 range

I think the 7mm is a good choice. I have had good luck with the rm. I recently bout a 300 RUM just because I like the 30 cal better. Not knocking the 7mms at all just always hunted with a 30 cal with great success. My opinion would be 30 cal and the. 7mm

Undoubtedly true, but that was not the question. The question was, "what's the best for deer at 5-600 yards."

Which is a very subjective question because it's hard to define "best," especially not knowing the shooter, his experience, tolerance for recoil, etc.


It's funny, on a lot of these threads, the conventional wisdom is that the caliber (or more likely cartridge) choice is secondary to shot placement for deer-sized animals (the OP didn't say anything about "big bucks"). "Shot placement trumps all" in other words.

If this is true, or if shot placement is important at all, then there are a lot of things other than "knock-down power" that go into what the "best" deer cartridge might be. Things that would tend to make it more likely that the shooter's shot placement will be what it needs to be at 5-600 yards. Things like moderate recoil to allow the average shooter to shoot often, shoot a lot of rounds, and enjoy it. Things like moderately-priced ammo. and components to allow the same. Things like good, high-BC bullets at 140 or 160 grains to help with the above and to help with shot placement on windy days.

I just saw NMS's post above. The 300 RUM may be a great choice for him, and I'm not knocking it. Probably not the best choice for most people though.

I like my M-70 in 300 RUM firing the 180 gr Cutting Edge bullets at 3425 fps.

Gunner