I've been looking for to buy a new hunting rifle with an all around caliber. I know how expensive shooting can get when you don't reload. Is .308 caliber the cheapest round for deer you can buy from factory? I have a .243 but I was looking for something with more power.

Up here 30/30 is the least expensive ammunition you can buy though the rifles cost a little more than the lowest cost bolt rifles.

If buying the cheapest bolt gun, then anything in 308, 30/06, and 270 would have the cheapest ammo. These three plus the 243 all have the same price tag for comparable ammunition.

308 is probably the cheapest, easy to find factory load option if you're looking to buy cheap ammo. There isn't a huge difference in cost between any of them once you start looking at the better loads, but 308 is still a little less. And 6.5 CM is usually $1-$2 cheaper for the good stuff than 308. And is just as available.

7-08 is a great choice as a cartridge, but ammo is a lot harder to find and more expensive around here. That may be different in other places.

What JMR40 said.....

what wood master said

.30-30 is always a couple bucks a box cheaper than .243, .308. .30-06. and 270 around here. Right now Remington core-lokt .30-30's are 9.97 a box at Wal-Mart.

308, 270win, 30-06 all about the same price at Walmart. Read the other day Walmart is the largest seller of ammunition in the u.s.. bought 10 boxes of federal blue box 308 from Walmart when they were selling existing inventory. After 5.00 rebate cost was 7.50 per box. Life is good.

30-30 is the cheapest

Do a quick price comparison for yourself at your local stores.

If you are going to load for it later, get a 6.5 CM (or if you must a .308). Easier to get accuracy.

Don't know your plans, but a .243 with good bullets should take anything short of moose and big bears. You can buy a lot of premium ammo for the price of a new rifle and scope, or a handloading setup.

Just a thought. Not trying to kill your new-rifle buzz.

In all the GS and stores that carry ammo, I`ve never not seen 06 or 308 ammo..various brands too. Either would be my choice.

Well, actually, 22lr...

What ever the local Walmart sells. I took a perfectly fine .308 and turned it into an equally fine 7mm-08 and probably doubled my factory ammo cost and no deer would ever tell the difference.

"All Around" in Florida for deer or "All Around" in the United States?

What a person would suggest for shorter range hunting, and for smaller deer for east coast conditions, is not the same as what one would recommend for Mule Deer in Wyoming.

For guys suggesting 30-30, this makes sense in the short range conditions of the east coast. Out in the west, the conditions can be substantially different. A 30-30 can be a real handicap here:






For "all around" for the entire US for strictly deer (Mule Deer and Whitetail), I would suggest, a 6.5 CM, or .308.

The .30-06 and .270 are excellent and factory ammo can be had at similar prices, but for east coast ranges, they are not really needed, except in niche circumstances such as bean fields, etc. Plus factory 30-06 is more often than not loaded at very similar velocities to .308. It is only until you get into 200-220 grain 30-06 ammo (ammo oriented towards larger game) that you see a difference, or premium ammo.

The traditional .270 is never really a bad answer, and thousands of deer and elk have been cleanly taken with the Campfire's favorite whipping boy.

Many many years back, on the first hunt, after working on an outfitter and guide ranch in the Frank Church, I saved up enough to buy my first "new to me" rifle. A Browning .270. Since all I had ever hunted with growing up was a .270, it made sense. Opening morning, I found the buck I was looking for right at 400 yards. The first shot out of that new Browning resulted in this runt.





So, the .270 will indeed get the job done.

In summary,

For a non reloader who is only going to hunt deer, with consideration that "all around" may mean anywhere, I would do the following:


I would pick the rifle I like first.
Then choose the cartridge.
6.5 CM or .308, with .270 as a possible mention for inexpensive ammo options.


Cheers!

If you time your buying, midway can really discount factory ammo. I have found that the 270 ammo selection is very good and cheap.

They usually are within a few dollars of each other. 6.5 has been surprisingly cheaper than 243, 308, 270, 3006 here.

Buy a 308, you will like it.

Thanks, you guys are awesome.

I chose a 7mm-08 for my son last year. For him as a new hunter, the lessened recoil outweighed the cost of factory ammo, particularly with the limited amount we shoot. We shoot in the late summer to practice and sight in our rifles, then hunt. Unless I were doing a ton of shooting, the cost of ammo is not a factor for me. I would instead focus on rifle and caliber.

Just from a quick survey of Midway USA, Scheels and Sportsman's Warehouse. For cheap deer loads, .243, 6.5 CM, and .308 all run about the same price. Sometimes 7mm-08 is also that same price, sometimes it's a bit more. .270 and .30-06 are usually a few bucks more, everything else and anything with the word "Magnum" in the name is pricier.

I picked up a .308 for my boys a while back for the simple fact that you can get the ammo just about anywhere where I'm at. Hell even the local hardware stores carry .308 ammo

I know four ways to save money on ammo.

The first is to buy a 5.56 NATO or 7.62 NATO rifle, use milsurp ammo for practice, and buy good commercial ammo for hunting. For this to work, you have to do some research to find out which milsurp ammo to avoid. Or you can buy commercial FMJ ammo loaded for those rifles, which tends to be cheaper than hunting ammo. I had good luck with PMC 147-grain FMJ in a 308 Model 70 several years ago, but just last weekend, I walked into the range house at the club where I shoot and found a guy nursing a swollen face. He had just destroyed an M-1 Garand shooting bad milsurp ammo, probably Korean ammo loaded in the 1950s. The bolt smacked him pretty hard in the face on its way to parts unknown and he'll have a glorious black eye for a while, but that event could have killed him.

The second is to check the big-box stores about this time of year. They stock up for hunting season and often need to clear out inventory afterwards, so you can get big discounts on good, fresh commercial ammo.

The third is to buy in bulk. Ammoseek.com is your friend for this. It crawls the internet and finds the best prices, but you have to watch the price of shipping. Some places ship for free but make it up on the price of the ammo. Some places charge a flat rate. For others you pay normal shipping, which can ruin deals. No matter what you do, you won't save much if you only buy 1-2 boxes--get at least a case. A few years ago, I found out that one specific rifle shot WW 30-06 180-grain PowerPoints exceptionally well, so I bought 1k rounds through Ammoseek for about $16/box delivered. It was all the same lot number, which was nice, and it lasted a couple of years.

The fourth is handloading, but that doesn't always pencil out like it used to.


Okie John

The "white box" 147 gr. fmj stuff for 308 has mostly been marginal in my experience.

For one example, a while back I did a favor for a friend of a friend who heard of me as having some experience mounting scopes. He had just bought a Rem 700 VTR and a Meopta scope, and if he supplied some ammunition would I mount the scope and zero it for him? I said sure, in those days I had more free time and it was an excuse to have fun at the range.

The ammunition turned out to be some of that white box fmj stuff, I don't remember if it was the Federal or the Winchester version. I got the scope mounted and had a bit of a bad time zeroing it because of the groups (verging on patterns) it shot. But I was dealing with a new rifle and a new scope, so no solid conclusion could be drawn.

I took everything home and prepped the brass. It was heavy milspec stuff, so I filled it with one of the old school loads with IMR 3031 and a 168 grain match bullet. I used best practices sizing the brass and seating the bullets so the assembled cartridges came out pretty straight despite the fact they weren't built in some of Lapua's finest. On the return trip to the range the rifle plunked those into nice tight groups. Rifle and scope were both OK.

I have shot some Norma fmj stuff in 308 that was quite good, but you don't find it cheap all over the place.

Watch out for shooting old military ammo because for some reason military ammo was loaded with corrosive primers or powder way longer than the commercial stuff that we all shoot. I think it had something to do with better temperature ignition, but I know I was surprised at how recently it had been loaded. I'd be real careful about the 7.62x39 military stuff. I know we dropped some ultra hot 7.62x39 stuff out of helicopters in Vietnam to blow up an AK-47 for someone finding it and trying to shoot it.

Reloading is an expensive hobby, and most of us wind up spending a lot more money than if we had just bought ammo. Plus if you factor in your time at the reloading bench there isnt much cost savings. However, it is a great skill to learn and rewarding when done correctly.

If all you're hunting is deer, then the .243 has more than enough power and will be more enjoyable to shoot.