Since we hear so much about cartridges that kill out of proportion to their ballistic tables...

Ones that land in the guts or worse places.....

"Ones that land in the guts or worse places....." from guys flinching with the big magnum.

I know the 22lr kills a lot more than what the book says.

Can't think of any that won't kill as good as the book says. but there are a lot that work better than what is said.

,308




















Just kidding.

My friend and other guys that use the 270 say it takes deer down better than the 30-06 and 300 magnums. I guess the 30 cals are overrated arn't they (lol).

The smaller the caliber the more they fit your question - thus the .243 is probably the number one in this category.

...according to kevin robertson (the perfect shot), the .375hh...

You better be . . . . . . .

This thread should be a doozy....kinda like Grimms Fairy Tales.

Never seen a reasonable cartridge fail to kill well;seen some lousy shooting,but nothing a guy could blame on the cartridge.

I've never seen an animal killed with a cartridge.

Bruce

Even if I believed it, it's a train wreck I don't want to see again right now.
Wouldn't want to be accused of being a bomb thrower. ...grin

Similar to what I was going to say.

Now - BULLETS - that's a much better angle on this question.

Where can I see a copy of "THE BOOK"...

I have no personal knowledge of this, but from what I read, African pro hunters have a pretty low opinion of the killing ability of the .458 WinMag. Underpowered, they call it.

I'm thinkin' the 270...

RH

The only time I was around when they were run through the chronograph two 270's using two diffferent box's of factory ammo were way slower than published. In fact 130's in the 270 were slower than 150's in a 308 by 100 fps. miles

Just what is suggested in "the book", and to which book are we referring?

There is little reference to ballistics in the Good Book, except, of course, the "smooth, round stone" that David chose to sling at the forhead of the offending Philistine, Goliath.

-

Yeah.

I don't see that as a cartridge issue so much as it is about bullet choice and shot location. Mice bullets on mooses or moose bullets on mice-s doesn't work out so well as if you pick the right bullet for the game. But even that can be overcome many times with shot selection. Take a varmint bullet ... not so good on a shoulder shot on a deer but if you stick it in the ribs right over heart or lungs the results can be spectacular. You have to also consider the likelihood of getting an opportunity for that special shot that lets a bullet that otherwise won't work succeed.

Example, I've killed 4 black bears with the .25-20 WCF and 60 grain hollow points. That doesn't make it a wise bear gun.

To my thinking, more important than cartridge choice is recognizing what the shooting conditions will be where you're going to hunt, then picking the right bullet for the game for the shots you're likely to get. Picking cartridge, for me, is much a matter of maximizing the number of such bullets available so that perhaps there will be a load with a good bullet and adequate accuracy.

Tom

I saw alot of deer wounded with 30/30 lever action rifles when I was a kid.

I'm sure it had more to do with the shooter than the round.

For whatever reason, that has stuck in my head and even though I own one, I have never shot at a deer with it.

Really just a case of how people become weirded out by stuff they see, but don't fully understand. I'm sure it's adequate for the job, but I still won't use it for the simple reason I lack confidence in it.

And when you lack confidence in something, you can usually make your worst fears come true when using it.

JM

+1 on the 22LR. I've seen a CB Long between the eyes make stuff crumple without a twitch.

I put a few .40 S&W rounds into a deer flopping in the highway once. It weren't overly effective. An aquaintance accidentally (drunkenly) shot himself through the thigh with his .40 and a W-W BEB bullet. He drove himself through the hospital and was back in action the next day. On the other hand, everything I've dispatched with a 230gr 45acp hollowpoint has died in short order.

As the old saying goes (speaking of this side of the pond):"If you can't get it done with a 30-06, perhaps you should not be trying it."

Seriously with today's choice of "super bullets" vs say 1960, the whole game has changed.

My own centerfire choice happens to be Barnes. Been shooting em' ever since the first X appeared. Many freezers fulled, everyone a one shot kill and never a lost animal. 400 yard limit as I am a hunter not a sniper wannabe. Yeah I know some are $1.00 each so the 10 or so I shoot each year (including sight checks) equate to about 4 gallons to feed my Cummins.

Cheap bullets are like cheap guides....you get what you pay for.

I rememember reading something a while back where a gun writer was referring to the downrange perfomance of a .30cal magnum and how the velocity/energy at 400yds had dropped to 30-30 levels. He then went on to say that there weren't many animals that could survive after you touched off a 30-30 with the muzzle against their ribs....

I also have an old 30-30 that I've never killed anything with. Maybe I need to rectify that.

You do indeed. You are ... inadequate, incomplete ... probably didn't even know it. You MUST slay something with the .30-30. It's a right of passage to ... 30-30 slayer-hood.

Tom

I did shoot a doe in dress shoes and slacks with a borrowed one.

Does that count?

Rocky,

I have yet to hunt with an African PH who thinks the .458 Winchester is underpowered, and I have hunted with a quite a few now. I'm sure there are some, but my limited sampling hasn't turned up any.

I also knew Finn Aagaard pretty well, though long after he quit guiding in Kenya and moved to the U.S. He stated that he never heard the .458 was underpowered until he moved here, when he started reading about how wimpy it was in various gun and hunting magazines. He owned two .458's, mostly using them when guiding elephant hunters.

When Harry Selby shot the barrel out of his .416 Rigby, he returned it to Rigby for rebarreling. This occurs in glacial time in Britain, so for the interim he bought a Model 70 in .458 (a push-feed model, by the way, as was one of Finn's .458's). By the time the .416 came back three yeasr later, Selby had grown to like the .458 so much he sold the Rigby.

There were some problems with .458 ammo early on, apparently caused by the ball powder caking when stored "hot" for a while But that was half a century ago.

What was that doe doing in your dress shoes?

Heck yeah, that counts. I think that qualifies for extra style points.

I tried to go fishing in my rented tux the day I got married but they wouldn't let me.

Tom

I was working and stopped by a friends hunting camp to say hi. They were going hunting and wanted me to come along.

It was raining, so I borrowed a slicker and a 30/30. I was slipping down a road with tall banks on each side and a doe was nice enough to jump into the road about 40 yds. in front of me.

Bang, Flop.

I had to throw away the dress shoes and got soaked in the process, but it was worth it.

JM.

Please correct my memory but wasn't there also the problem
with the 458 Win cartridge while it was on the assembly line?

Seems while on the line and getting jerked around it lost powder out of it's case, something to that fact which led it to being
underloaded which also led indirectly to the development of the
458 Lott.

Good story John Moses. What part of Louisiana do you live in?

North Lousiana outside of Monroe.

JM

Sounds like they got their priorities mixed up.

A 7mag with cup and core bullets as it was originally produced. Lots of kills, lots of blood shot meat, lots of tracking, on moose. Better bullets helped and so did my advancing age and a 3006 in my hands!

SU35,

I have heard that somewhere as well, but don't remember where and don't know if it was substatiated.

"SU35,

I have heard that somewhere as well,"

There was an article about that in the past year or two in one of the gun magazines. I don't remember which one.

IIRC, it seems the writer knew what he was talking about.

I recently read that the .600 Nitro did not do as well as the .375 and larger cartridges on elephant.

The reason being that the large diameter bullet at the slow speed, about 1800 FPS muzzle velocity, would not penetrate as well as the higher velocity .375 to .577 calibers.

Before I am criticized, let me say that I have never shot an elephant, never been to Africa, and have never seen or fired a .600 Nitro. Just passing along something that someone else wrote who supposedly had experience in it.

Your tale JohnMoses reminds me of a story from our hunting club, years ago.

One of our members had a son who was definitely NOT a deer hunter or shooter. He was a lawyer who NEVER went in the woods, but showed up one year for Thanksgiving dinner in a suit and tie.....just as we were preparing to go out for a pre-meal hunt (traditional at our house).

That was in the days when "deer hunting" in East Texas involved packs of dogs and a "drive" with lots of standers. He was persuaded to go along....with a borrowed rifle he'd never shot (probably hadn't shot ANY gun more than a dozen times in his life) and still wearing a three-piece suit took a stand. Drive started and wouldn't you know.....the hounds made a bee-line for where he was on stand. One shot and an 8-point buck with an inside spread of 17-18" was on the ground (quite a good buck for those days in our club). He took his horns and share of meat (even though he didn't hunt, he did love deer meat) and went home that evening.

One year later....also on Thanksgiving....he arrived for dinner and borrowed a shotgun to join the hunt. This time he removed the coat and vest, but was still wearing a white shirt and tie when he took a stand. Dogs "jumped" a deer and ran away from his stand.....but in maybe a half-hour a shot rang out from his position. Seems an old "smart" buck had tried to slip out the back-side of the drive past his stand (which was NOT considered a very good place to be on that drive).

This time the buck was a tremendous trophy with 9 points and an inside spread of more than 21". Back at the house the deer was hung and with the crowd standing around he said, "There just isn't much to this deer hunting is there?". Several members (including his father and mine) had to be physically restrained from doing him harm. As far as I know he's never hunted again, but it worked well for those two times.

Good story. That kind of stuff happens more than we "real hunters" would like. (grin)

Well, yeah.....duh......


Ingwe

At the risk of spoiling someones day, I will nominate the 250 Savage to the top of the pile. No apologies in advance either.

Getting back to the start the 243 isn't much unless hit in the head the 223 is a better killer but then again shot the doe in the head . So with all said the 30-06 would be the one i think because of all the bullets , and people don't know what ones to use

Pretty sure it was Jim Carmichael in Outdoor Life in the past year

...............I`ve never heard of or have seen this book. Is there one?

As to what cartridges don`t kill as well as a book would suggest, and as someone else has stated, this is more of a bullet or bullet type issue than a caliber diameter issue.

Sorry I stole your confidence in the .30-30 all those years back. Is a feeble cartridge of course and I've had to shoot everything I've killed with one at least once as I recall. Not like the .270 at all...

I have probably had the most diffculty killing big game with the .308 Winchester than anything else. This was because I got an aluminum-buttplated Savage 99EG in .308 when I was 13 and weighed 112 pounds, and it HURT. The trigger wasn't so hot either.

Eventually I cured the flinch with a Remingtion 700 in .243 Winchester, which had a pretty good trigger, but I avoided the .308 for years until I started shooting the round again a few years ago. Somehow it kills darn well now!

This is just speculation on my part, but I think the 243 gets a bum rap.

It's very easy to get an 80 grain or smaller cup and core bullet going too fast to hang together on impact in a 243. I suspect that this accounts for a lot of the wounded and lost animals.

I think that if you load the 243 with 100 grain or 95 grain Partitions (or some such) it's probably as reliable a deer-downer as any, even for jumbo mule deer.

I was raised on a far West Texas ranch on the Mexican Border in the Big Bend Country and the 30-30 was king of the Mule Deer rifles back then, the 300 Savage was a magnum and people envied the 250-3000 user. The 25-35 was every ranch kids first rifel.

My brother and I were sitting on a rock and we could see a deer at about maybe 800 yards, who knows?..I told him I could probably kill it, he said BS and we bet a dollar (lot of money then) I took a rest and took the complete barrel in the rear sight and hit that deer between the eyes and won the bet! I had put the front bead over his shoulder btw...Oh well!

I shot another deer with the 25-35 running at over 300 yds. My dad said it zigged when it should have zagged..Nothing worse than a 15 year old cowboy with a rifle, trust me!! they should be tied to a tree during hunting season..

I had a job one summer shooting deer for meat to feed a fencing crew on a ranch in the Sierra Del Carmens of Mexico where my dad and uncles had a ranch leased for a few years..It was crawling with the so called Del Carmen Whitetail and Mule deer..I rode around horse back and shot deer with my Win. M-63 and 22 L.R. solids or HPs, couldn't tell much difference..two quick shots behind the shoulder and keep riding until I had shot about 10 then made a big circle and came back and gutted them..I learned this from an old Mexican cowboy that worked for us..If you pushed them they would run off but if you left and came back they laid down and died right there or close, never lost one. Then went to camp got a crew and some mules and packed them in gave some to the local Forrestals (game wardens, local cops and whatever)and the for the camp was a typical day..The locals sometimes traded us trapped quail and tortillas for deer. The locals had no guns back then.. It was a good time for a 13 or 14 year old kid..

The point is if used properly most any caliber will kill efficiently under certain circumstances...Under controled conditions and at short range the 222 is an excellent deer round, but it can also lead to failure if your careless with placement, same for the 25-35, the shot MUST be in the heart lung as a gut shot is a lost animal, he will go miles.

Alabamaed,
You ruined my day for sure! I have killed many deer and probably 6 or more bull elk with the .250 Sav. using the factory 100 gr. silvertip and the 117 gr. Rem Corelokt RN, in the Savage Mod 99..My dad probably killed 50 or more elk with it..and a truck load of deer..

I still have that rifle and shot a cow elk with it a few years ago, and have shot many deer with it since those early days..I think its one caliber that kills out of porportion to its size, and better IMO than the 243s that I have used...

The only way I know to make it fail is poor shooting or using the wrong bullets..but to each his own and I don't doubt you had some bad experiences with it..thats the way these things work....

Ray-I have shot over a dozen deer with the 250/3000 and have never lost a single one. I have shot them double lung, heart and shoulder. they all have seemed to go a little farther than with other cartridges and took a little longer to die. I have used 87gr, 100 gr and 117gr bullets from Hornady, nosler and speer. I have found that the 250 savage is about equal to the 243 win. The 250 Savage need a goodly bit more velocity with all bullet weights. There are better cartridges available. When I use a 25 cal it will be my 257 Roy. I am not slamming the 250 Savage, I just think it meets the criteria for the thread subject.

Thanks, JB. I'm delighted to hear the 458 isn't such a wussy. It makes the story better when I tell people I've fired a .585 Nyati that's twice as powerful as a 458!

I have, and it is.

Denton,

I have some experience with the .243 and believe you are absolutely right. I killed a number of deer and pronghorn with that .243 and never had a problem if I put the bullet in the right place. I used several different bullets in the 100-grain range, and all penetrated plenty.

In fact I have said more than once that they only people who have trouble killing deer with a .243 are some gun writers.

My all time favorite comment that I've heard more than once regarding the 243 on deer is; "yeah it'll work but you really need to hit 'em right". Fortunately the several deer that I've killed with a 243 (and one with a 6mm Rem) were not hit wrong (grin).

I agree on both points- especially the gunwriter part(present company excepted) ..I have always agreed with Jim Carmichael's take on the round that it is so accurate and easy to shoot well for most folks that they actually get MORE from it than many larger rounds, simply due to bullet placement.


I have always liked the .243.. And felt it was always a victim of it's own popularity over the last 50 years..

A lot of newbies get the gun and expect too much from the round. A lot of big bore freaks expect too little from it.

And a lot of .250-2000 and .257 Roberts lovers resent the little round because it larely suplanted those older rounds as a short action small caliber deer round in most models of factory rifles since the 1950s.

As to bullets..

In 1984 I saw a 100g Federal soft point bullet from at .243 shoot through TWO yearling antelope bucks standing side by side hit though the lungs broaside at 350 yards.

Those both dropped right where they stood. Of course, the second buck was actually hit by about a .35 cal slug by the time the 100 grainer had passed though the first one.

I would bet that such a bullet would most likely rake through any chest cavity on a single deer with the same result at that distance.

Whew!! For a while I was worried that my 243 was cursed.



I think the key is the 100 grain part. That gets the MV down to where a standard bullet is going to perform well. JB has been saying 2700 FPS for a long time, and that has always seemed right to me. I tend to gravitate toward heavy for caliber bullets.

Denton,

When I was hunting with the .243 a lot, I took at least half my animals with the 105 Speer Hot-Core. That was so long ago I didn't own a chronograph and I assumed the muzzle velocity of the load was about what the Speer manual suggested, right around 3000 fps. This was because I used the same bullet, powder charge, brass, primer and even the same model of rifle.

When I finally bought a chronograph a few years later (1979) I found my handloads, in my rifle, got around 2750-2775 fps. Which is probably why it worked so well! (Aside from me not flinching, of course.)

there is a fellow I spoke to at Kimber last year who says he has hunted mule deer all his life with the speer 105 hotcore from the .243.

High Brass,

I keep hearing the same comment about a bunch of rounds, including the .270 on elk, the .30-06 on African plains game, etc. etc. As if more powerful rounds will make up for bad bullet placement.

I have a little experience with bad bullet placement, just like anybody who has hunted more than somewhat, and have found that a "premium" .338 Winchester or .375 H&H bullet has relatively little effect when put in a leg or behind the rib cage, even on deer. Amazing, isn't it?

No substitute for a well placed shot is there?

I had a brief affair with the .300 Ultra Mag and wasn't impressed much. I used it for a little bit while culling Texas whitetails for research while in grad school. Only two times did I remember kills with it being something out of the ordinary for my .280. I also remember several well hit deer that went a heck of a lot further and with much less of a blood trail than I would have like. Mostly shooting 150 Sciroccos, but also some 165 Nosler Solid Base.

In all seriousness, relative to the reputation it has here on the Fire as a Hammer of Thor, the cartridge I've been a little underwhelmed with on deer, having kilt 7-8 of em with it... talkn' relative to what folks say, remember... dare I say this... uhm...

Never mind.

Exactly.......

A couple decades ago if somebody told me a guy could handily kill elk with 243, I would be skeptical............


Casey

Bullets kill.

In these days of the space age premium bullets, its not the cartridge performance that matters so much as bullet selection and trigger discipline.

Seriously? That's all my hunter's ed teacher used....and yes elk too. That was about 40 yrs ago. I'm gettin' old

Hey, don't remind me of "old"....

Never again....

I'm pretty sure it was Jim Carmichael.

It probably was. I believe I heard about it on the 'net, but don't usually read OUTDOOR LIFE anymore so probably missed the column. It isn't exactly one of the burning issues among average hunters.

Ray, your post on the 25-35 reminded me of my time in a small mountain community in Colorado, located pretty close to the back fence of the Forbes Trinchera ranch. A lot of the locals had old 25-20 and 22 Hornet rifles which I thought was odd for big game country. Took me about a year to figure out why these non-hunters always had elk and deer in the freezer. A whole lot of don't ask, don't tell there. LOL.

I'll submit my experience with the 7mm Rem Magnum. I have yet to obtain a 1 shot drop with this rifle and cartridge yet. Probably just a combination of conditions at the times it's been used, but still frustrating.

Once was at long range with a big muley that just wouldn't go down. I hit him in the front shoulder, the leg was literally hanging there and we tracked him for over 8 hours before catching up to him again. An additional shot in the neck from my 7 Mag, one in the chest from my buddy's .30-06 brought him down but a pistol shot was need to finish the job.

Two other times were with elk at very close range. One was a neck shot the other was a chest shot. Both animals bolted and had to be tracked and brought down with a second shot. In both instances the first shot had gone clean through and exited without hitting bone or vital organs. Bullets used were 175gr. Speer Grand Slams. The only thing we could figure was at such close range with the sectional destiny of the 7 Mag and its velocity, the bullets just zipped through and never expanded.

Hitting the front shoulder.....leg hanging. Neck shot/chest shot. Since they we're recovered, we have a bullet path, right?

Nicking stuff around the edges the first shot sometimes makes stuff "bulletproof".

Well Mosby,it seems you have been just damned unlucky......

Read your sentence above for the key to your problem....you say "in both instances the first shot had gone clean through and exited without hitting bone or vital organs "......

You did not have a cartridge problem, nor a bullet problem,...you had a shooting/placement problem. And "no",bullets started at high velocity don't zip through without expanding.

Bullets fired from any cartridge can't kill (at least quickly) unless they hit vital organs.

On the ironclad mule deer, you may have broken the shoulder,but you did not get a bullet into the vitals;you now know that deer with one broken shoulder can travel....use a bullet that will break shouders and penetrate vitals,and you won't have the problem

I've been lucky (so far) that the deer that I've shot with a rifle were hit well. Now I have made some not so good hits with an arrow and a 12ga slug unfortunately. I realiized that the BS about "a 12ga slug will knock 'em down blah blah blah" was just that...BS. Deer can cover a good deal of real estate when they're not hit well, even with a 1oz. slug! I did recover the deer (next morning) but it really highlighted how shot placement is the most important component when it comes to killing game (big surprise). I also, finally admitted to myself that a light weight 12ga slug gun kicks too hard for me. So, I stick to rigs that I can handle these days.

There seems to be an aversion to using premium bullets that don't come apart (Barnes, Swift, Partitions, the new Nosler/Hornady monolythics, Brenekke slugs) and shooting the durned deer/elk/antelope/goat/sheep etc. through BOTH front shoulders. Yea you might lose 5-7 pound of so so meat BUT they fall down on the spot and die right now. No ungulate can run on two legs. Been working for me since I took my first whitetail with a borrowed Model 12 and Brenekke slugs in 1957.

Stick around here and read lots of threads you will learn a lot.

Animal hit in the "vitals" do not travel for 8 hours

Bullets don't zipp through without expanding at high velocities.

I always thought the 12Gauge slug was way over-rated as a deer round. I have somewhat limited experience with them, but never been impressed especially once you get out around 75-100 yards.

Lou

Cartridges do not kill. Bullets do.
On that basis, there is no such cartridge that fits the question.

I know we are thinking of �big game� cartridges in this thread but I surprised to not see the 17HRM mentioned.
I am a small game and varmint hunter and I am fascinated by the accuracy of the 17HRM. If the critters are small such as �picket pin� ground squirrels, the 17HRM kills very well out to �unreasonable distances.� Larger, heavy bodied critters such as skunks and raccoons are an entirely different matter. The 17HRM, regardless of bullet weight, has not demonstrated and ability to �turn out the lights instantly� for me.
I have experienced quicker kills on well muscled varmints using the 50-grain Federal Premium load in the 22 Magnum when aiming at the point of the shoulder or for the opposite shoulder on treed critters, or those hiding in brush. The new light weight 22 Magnum load from Remington has also proven to be quite accurate and a quick killer, although not quite as reliable as the heavier bullet from Federal.
I know some hunt prairie dog with the 17HRM and I have assumed they were head shooting as I have read no mention of a lack of killing power.

Bullets dont kill anything unless launched from the part of a total system of which one component is a cartridge, and that is the subject here.

Maybe the ones that dont kill better because of their paper ballistics are the fast big bores. If the 375H&H is good for anything alive, and we have reliable killers in the 416' R's and the 458's, not to mention the Nitro Express rounds, then what do we gain from the high energy figures for the 460 Weatherby besides dislodged shoulders?

One legendary killer is the 22 Hornet - that supposedly only kills well in the hands of Natives in the north, who also magically push up the power of the 222 Remington also.


Honestly the only thing that raises or lowers a cartridge above the line created by the trio of bore, bullet weight, and velocity, is the construction of the bullet itself.

Not impressed with a 12 bore deer slug? You are correct it is a max (ethical) 100 yard proposition by my pal's A Bolt fully rifled 12 bore will put 5 Barnes/Federal sabots in a playing card @ 100 and my 870 with a 24" Hastings bbl and a loopie 1-4 will put 5 Brenneke Golds in 4-5" at 100. Trust me they will kill anything that walks the 50 states within their proper envelope.

My experience with small bores is in the Canadian Arctic, in the hands of my eskimo co-workers, which I had hired to accompany myself on a search of polar bear dens, on month long trips at the time over a period of 4 years. We are talking now about the first 5 years in the 1970's.
On those trips they also shot their legal quota of polar bears, their seals and caribou, ptarmigan and arctic hares for our meat supplies. In short we were living mainly of the land with a good supply of bannock, tea, sugar, jam, frozen char ...............and for them lots of tobacco and cigaret paper.
They shot polar bears with the .25-06,30-06, 308, 6mm, 243, .222 and one time with the 5mm Remington magnum in the head at 30 yards.
The most popular cartridge there were the .22 lr for small game and the odd caribou, the .222 and the .243/6mm. The .243/6mm was regarded as alround suitable from muskoxen/bears to seals.
Of the 24 bear kills I witnessed, I believe 2 were shot with the .25-06, about 4 with the 06, three with the .308, the rest were taken with the .222, .243, 6mm . Most bears were in the 250-600 lbs range, with 3 going over that. The largest one around 900 lbs killed with one lucky shots through the carotids with a .308 in a Savage 99.( He was aiming for the head). I remember the larger cals and the number of kills because we did not often carry the larger cals. Eskimos usually bring only one rifle on a hunting trip. The rifle they want to bring is the one that they happen to own or the one that will do for caribou, seals, rabbits and the odd bear. Eskimos have not been pleased by the 06 or .270 due to pelt damage on bears caused by large exit wounds. Bullet weights in those days was picked by the store managers, the eskimos in those days did not know much about bullet types and weights. However the 06 , .308 and also the .303 british were favoured for walrus/narwhal, beluga hunting.
Small bores were preferred because seals are still the no.1 game animal hunted. The .222 at the time was considered just fine for seals and the Peary caribou, a small race off caribou turning white with some gray in the winter and about 100-150 lbs on the hoof. If a bear was spotted on the seal/caribou hunt it was persued and shot with the .222.
Bears were hunted from the skidoo by chasing and tiring it out until they are exhausted. They are then approached and plinked of in relative safety from the skidoo with one or two good shots in the lungs, heart or brain. Not very sporting, but for the eskimos it is just fur collecting.

I witnessed quite a few kills of caribou with the .22 long rifle using solids. Peary caribou are easily approached to within 50-75 yards. One or two solids in the lungs/heart was sufficient. I never saw them run after the shot,except with heart shots.They usually lowered their heads and drowned in their own blood at the same place as they were shot, usually within 45 seconds, remembering timing a number of shots. Even when they run, it is wide open for hundreds of miles, with nowhere to go. Besides caribou,the .22 lr was mainly used for ptarmigan and arctic hares.
Things have changed somewhat now I understand.
Some progressive souls have been using the odd.375 or .458 for beluga and Narwhal hunting. Still the .303 with solids reigns king for that game.

The deer I killed with a .22LR both dropped instantly. Head shots. One was sick, the other injured.

I'll cop to the cartridge that, to my mind, performed "less" than it's campfire reputation would suggest. 7mm-08.

I've killed 7-8 deer with it and had a couple that really ran even well-hit. Just seemed unimpressed with it, they did.

I mostly used the 150 NP. In my M7, which had a slowish 20" tube, my MV was lucky to top 2600 fps so that might play into it.

I'm thinking there are better choices for bullet than that for the 7mm-08...seen deer and antelope wacked with a 160gr NP from a 7mm Mag and wasn't impressed either

I can't argue. My M7 was one finicky beatch. Those 150's were about all it'd shoot even half good. It's a .358 now.

I did carry my 7-08 (different one) for deer this year. I used 140-gn AB's. Didn't shoot anything with it though.

Dogzapper told me once that in his years of guiding in Hells Canyon, they'd give the clients with 7-mags and heavy Partitions to the low guide on the totem pole. Said elk really tended to run with that combo.

I don't think this que3stion has any answer.

It's not the arrow. It's the Indian.

From my side of the pond i've chance to hunt a lot (6 months a year mini), lived also some years in Canada and hunted there too.
My job allows me to see lots of european game, hunted, shot and killed, from high seats to stalking to battues. If you use the right bullet, of good construction, in the right place all the cartridges we use kill well. But note we speak of killing not stopping, and in this case some are better than other for this duty. It's why the 9,3s, 35whelen, 30-06 and 8mm Mauser have a large following in Europe.In France i think most problem arose with 300, 7mm and 270Mag not because they are bad but because hunters use them in a job they are not made for and buy the cheapest cartridges with bullets of not so tough structure. But all year long poachers shoot and kill red deers and wild boars, gams and roes with suppressed 22lr or Hornets, that don't make them good cartridges for driven hunts...
I saw some highly respected bullets failed, bad utilisation in two fast a caliber, not adapted to short range shooting (over expansion, no penetration or desintegration) not on African buffalos, only red deers or wild boars. From my perspective as handloader i choose bullets adapted to my calibers, velocity,and range where i will most use them, not by brand or name but by real experiences on hunting ground.

To oldman: Even if i'm french i also use Barnes from 1995, and but not for everithing and not for all calibers (got some believe me, even rare and widcat ones). Had good chance with Fail Safe but will never say they are do everything every caliber bullets...
Dominique

The cartridge is the engine. It is more of using the correct bullet for the application and shot placement.

JD338

Yeah I have seen the same thing many times.....they really peel outta there alright!

Bob, I think the 7mm RM, like the 243, is one of the rounds that is "cool" to dislike. I've owned exactly one 7mm RM and never shot a darn thing with it, but the idea that a 160 partition at over 3k wouldn't flatten stuff out is beyond silly.

But I'm also one that thinks the 243 is a fine round...

Brad, I dunno...I will admit that the 160 Partition is a pretty tough slug IME,and I have seen a mule deer or two HIT BADLY with it make some tracks...but whacked through the boiler room,it killed just fine...sometimes too fine,as ther was very extensive damage.

I have seen elk hit BADLY with it make tracks also,but I have seen the same from a 340....so....

Chest or shoulder hit to about 500 yards,elk I have seen hit with the 7 mag with 160 Partition generally went in one direction....down.

IIRC the bullet was one of Bob Hagels' favorites from the Mashburn and 7 Rem mag. I don't remember him,or Les Bowman,or Warren Page, or others who were on the scene for the development of the heavy Noslers from 7 mags notice or mention any of these "problems"...course what the hell did they know....there was no internet back then.

So many myths......so much utter nonsense

Yes, the Internet has a way of doing that.

Hello All
I'm amazed at the number of members that veiw a shotgun slug as not effective or aniemic on game. A Foster slug or even Lightfield Hybreds are designed not to exit deer, and are very soft lead. Where as Breneke, solid copper, or Nosler slugs are capable bullets for North American game within nominal range(typically inside 100yds). Even the 20ga Partition load from Win. pushes the same .45cal 260gr bullet 1900fps, 100fps faster than the 454 Casull load #SPG454 witch nobody claims as underpowered. I understand that slugs are not the perfect projectile, but as with all hunting arms the right slug, sluggun, and range make them effective killers.
nelson

Hit them solid in a vital zone and almost anything will work (with proper bullets).

Having been a writer and sometime editor for a while, I would edit that to say:

Hit them in the vitals and anything works.

That's the trick. I'll never own a 7mm Rem Mag because the bullet is still rising at 400 yards...seems like that would make it hard to hit with . I read that here.

And this gets at the heart of the matter. When I started this thread I was wondering what it meant to be more effective than paper ballistics would say, or less so. I think people get too wrapped up in the details. There is not so grand a difference as rifle loonies like to believe.

My 7x57 and .375 have, to date, had exactly the same effect on the deer I have shot with them.

No such thing as overkill - yet underkill is possible.

As an aside - cartridges do not kill. Bullets do - when placed in anatomic neccessities.

You never know what will happen when a bullet hits meat and bone. Shoot more than once if necessary. The more you practice your shooting from field positions, the fewer shots will be necessary in the field...

Hunters are an anecdotal breed, and bad juju on calibers and loads spreads faster than swine flu.

Here's an anecdote"

My brother and dad developed accurate loads with their twin Ruger .300s featuring Nosler 200 gr. Partitions for a guided deer/elk trip to Montana in the early '90s.

Only my brother got a shot, at a young muley about 150 yards off. The Nosler PT sailed through front to back on an angle and it took off unconcerned _ it seemed _ for a couple hundred yards. When they found it, internal exam showed minimal tissue damage. But it WAS dead.

I ran across that box of 200 gr. Partitions still half full on Dad's cluttered bench the other day. They decided the bullets were too hard. I may load some up in my 760 '06 and kill a deer with it this fall just to mess with 'em...

Well, not sure what "book" is referred to by the original poster. If he means ballistics tables, then as long as velocity/energy/bc are represented I don't see how the book would be off. Barring bullet construction differences, which doesn't seem to be what he's asking.

As far as cartridge promotion.. I'd have to say the 303 Savage was a bit oversold at the turn of the 20th century.




And the 22HP was WAY oversold. Taking tigers in Bengal with a 22 caliber takes some some serious balls.

coldcase: That's a good observation.... IMO this is because many hunters/shooters operate under the mistaken notion that rifles/bullets, etc are bludgeons;over sized clubs or Mack Trucks that "knock down" game animals, and kill by mysterious forces measureable by numbers and slipsticks,and that there is this vast difference between a Partition and an Accubond, etc etc....

They fail to realize that,in the end, BG rifles are (as O'Connor once wrote)scalpels;instruments designed to perform a surgical function at a distance,ie destroy vital organs and break heavy bone in the process that are essential to life and mobility.

So when they shoot an animal squarely through the boiler room (they think), or maybe hit a bit on the bias,or miss vitals or other essential stuff altogether,or use a bullet too tough or too soft and the uncooperative critter fails to fall down immediately, the cartridge is a "lousy killer"......or the "bullet failed",and you read such supersilious nonsense as was posted above regarding the 7 mag and heavy Partitions,with the guides drawing straws so the loser ends up with the Partition shooter.Sometimes the offending cartridge is the 30/06....or the 243...or the 270.Comical really....kinda like Saturday morning cartoons......

Frankly I believe none of it at all.. ..I have been in a lot of hunting camps,paid for a lot of hunts,and been "guided" here and there.I notice that guides tend to scrammble from fellas who do not do so hot at the sighting-in session....this little exercise is not just to see if your rifle is zeroed........it's to check YOU out as well.

I have never been sent packing because of the rifle,cartridge, or bullet that I was shooting....

It is no small wonder that there is so much utter nonsense spewed about by people with vacant agendas regarding cartridge effectiveness.(sigh)

This is a silly topic, seeing as each round will perform exactly to what the ballistics tables suggest. The only variable is what rifle you shoot them in, and how good of a shot you are. Sure some calibers are only offered in junky rifles, but that shouldn't reflect the round. You will also get yourself alot of stories from people who are less than "acceptable" shooters.

What you missed is the very subtle mocking in the question. It was essentially a challenge to see if anyone can come up with calibers that perform poorly despite their ballistics. Lots of people want to give credit to one caliber or another as "exceeding their paper ballistics..."

Missing the point. People give the reputation of effectiveness to cartridges as readily as to bullets. I could find a dozen threads about the "amazing 45/70" that don't mention a bullet type specifically...

And in this instance cartridges is a way of saying a bullet of a certain weight at a certain velocity.

Sorry for the top post.

Bob, I don't believe Steve Dogzapper to be a spewer of BS. To the contrary. You might drop him a PM and ask directly about his experience that I related. It may have been the 175 7mm Partition, too.

I'll stand by my statement that relative to it's rep as some sort of super-killer around here, the 7mm-08/150 NP combo left me cold, with a sample size of 7-8 animals.

Jeff: What I suspect Dogzapper and his guiding buddies were seeing was alot of sloppy, indifferent shooting by clients,and not any real defficiencies on the part of the bullets in question.

If heavy 7mm Partitions driven at magnum velocities(for me 160's)are in any way lacking in effectiveness on elk,I must be living in an alternate universe I have seen some very experienced elk outfitters specifically recommend Partitions,among others.

So you are saying: "A wrong repeated many times is a right."?

I do not believe that.

The formula: "cartridges is a way of saying a bullet of a certain weight at a certain velocity." still leaves construction of the bullet and shot placement out of the picture.

Which is my point - not missed.

A frangible bullet placed in the ribcage performs well.
A frangible bullet placed where meat and bone must be penetrated does not perform well.
A tough bullet placed in the ribcage does not perform as well.
A tough bullet placed where meat and bone must be penetrated performs well if it reached the vitals.

It's all good. Pick your poison, understand the limitations, place the bullet accordingly, and get out your knife. I think the debate never ends because some folks insist on placing a frangible bullet in a hard spot, or a tough bullet in the ribcage. Match the shot to the load and you're golden.

-

243 Winchester

It doesn't leave a blood trail with typical game bullets. That can be a major problem in thick brush when you can lose a wounded animal fast. Most users are not going to be shooting TSX's and Partitions.

It doesn't have enough whoomph at longer ranges for larger deer and game larger than deer.

It just needs to be held to it's limits. Two of my best trophies were taken with it when I was a beginner.

As to the 7 REM MAG-

dogzapper explained that the 7 REM MAG with heavier, stout bullets penciled through elk and that 150 Hornadies into the lungs anchored them. He saw it repeatedly and examined the animals, so it was not speculation.

That's what I saw and that was my experience.

No, I sould not retract a single word. I've killed a crapload of elk and seen another hundred+++ more killed. That's just the way it is.

Back to deep, deep, deep lurkdom.

Steve

Well guy, maybe you need to hold yourself to your limits like you did when you were a youngster. I've never lost an animal with the 243 Win .You need to load 100 gr Hornady SP flatbase and get out your knife cause your gonna need it, if you can hit what you shoot at. Don't mean to be critical but I've heard that statement like a mantra from people who have never owned one, so that establishes its value to me. Good day Magnum_Man

Good to see you Steve.

I'm assuming proper shot placement, because we have to start somewhere and if everyone has a circlejerk about shot placement we won't have room to discuss anything else.

As to bullet construction, if I wanted to talk about the merits of particular bullets, that would be the subject of this thread. Rather, assume that bullets appropriate for the game and cartridge are used.

Point of fact, I believe that part of the reason cartridges in the 2500-2900 fps class have a reputation for excellent performance in the real world is entirely related to bullet selection, in that some people are not capable of selecting the proper bullets.

But my overarching point is that we think too much, and care too much about velocity.

Inkjet

Sigh.....

Huuuummmm. What to say, what to say.

I guess for me, I've seen several animals shot with 7mm Rem Mag with various bullet weights and I've never seen one drop, even with good shot placement. Most shots were not long. But they all died just fine. Just no DRT.

This said, I've seen deer and elk shot with a 308s, 30-06s, 270s and all were dumped on the spot. Strange. I think coincidence.

I saw a leaping caribou hit with a 7RM and it balled up so hard on the landing I think the jaw was broken. High marks on that one from me, but an inconsequential sampling.

Back to the .243, I sure had my doubts, but when setting my 11 year old up this year with a tikka .243 for his first deer hunt, we loaded up some 80 grain TTSX, I looked at that little bullet and thought to myself, boy, sure looks small, I wasn't too sure about it on our big whitetails. Well at about 50 yards, it dropped a 5pt pronto and left a golf ball sized hole on through, opened my eyes quite a bit to the .243....it just might be ok..

Magnum Man

The 243 is what I would use for youngsters and field shots where you could see the animal fall. I dead centered lungs with it and animals usually continued on about 25 to 40 yards. It can be for people who are uncomfortable with recoil. I know more people who used it and then moved up to something like a 270 and then moved right back with the 243 because of recoil. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that choice. It took me years personally to move up to the comfort level with the recoil of larger cartridges and then, heavy boomers.

It performed OK with the animals I harvested but there are better cartridges for more difficult angles, larger animals, and extended ranges.

To BobinNH on the 7 Rem Mag which I used in the West,

Double sigh back at ya

250 Savage

NOW you've done it!

If you do not have high expectations you will not be greatly disappointed.

I would agree that the 250 Savage doesn't kill as well as the book would suggest -it kills much, much better than the book would suggest.

Amen Mr. ScottyB. This thread has turned into a .243 lovefest and fantastic stories about 22lr, 222, etc. kills. The flipside of this anecdotal posting is what we are hearing is postive because few people like to discuss bad experiences. I would be the first to tell you that I have had some bad experiences with the .224 calibers and have seen plenty of other individuals experience the same and with .243 and 6mm. Having said that...now go ahead and accuse me of being a bad shot. It was me not the cartridge or bullet. I expect that from the defenders of the aforementioned calibers.

These calibers shoot bigger than what they are...I hear that rhetoric ad nauseum. Well here is a little anectdotal piece for you. I have hunted the same private land patch of Wisconsin woods the first two days of the nine day season for the past 40 years. Private property on three sides with several thousand acres public land on the other. This patch of woods does not hold many deer year around, however when the blaze orange army starts shooting on all sides of me there is a sudden population explosion of deer. There has been only one or two years in that time period that a hunter has not come by our tree stands trailing a wounded deer. With a few exceptions, those hunters were packing 222, 223, 22/250, 243 and 6mms. Toss in a dandy this year...a guy from Illinois drove his ATV across my hayfield in hot pursuit with a 32/20. My son shot the 10 pointer near his treestand, let the guy tag it then called the County Sheriff on his cellphone...trespasser. I would not say the 32/20 was shooting bigger than it was.

Hi roundoak,

We have the same guys in France or in Europe, they tell stories about their success but never on the failures. For me there's only one response: with good shot placement use enough gun, adapted to the game you hunt and more than that use enough "bullet". There's no glory in using the smallest weakest caliber to hunt game. Hunting ain't no survival.

Dom

I believe that one's opinions of the suitability of certain cartridges are dependent on any number of factors related to our own experience and requirements. If one is hunting under conditions which you describe on smaller woodlots or thick brush or forested conditions (probably such as previous poster Alabama Ed does) you would be more inclined to use a cartridge somewhat more likely to produce a DRT kill. I would, for example use my .270 or 7x57 for that.

I have personally never hunted anywhere East of Wyoming and generally hunt in pretty open terrain. If I shoot a deer with my 250 Savage and he wanders off 50 or 100 yards before he decides it's time to lay down I am not going to be overly concerned about it. I've never even come close to losing one.

Now Mr. Atkinson relates how he prefers a pretty stout cartridge for his elk hunting because he likes to hunt the dark timber and doesn't want one wandering into a deep canyon or blowdown jungle. Very legitimate. I, on the other hand, when I lived on the West Slope in Colorado, never used anything bigger than my 7x57 and had no problems -it was somewhat open country I hunted.
At the same time if you had asked Ray's Dad if he thought his 250 Savage was enough gun for elk he would have looked at you as if you had two heads!

Lots of different experiences and requirements determine which cartridges we all prefer but one thing is for certain -put a good bullet in the right place and then grab your knife because the fun is over and the work begins!

Dom, you made my point in a few choice words, sorry it took me
more than a few.

I find no sport in limiting my chances to humanely harvest a game animal. I want to stack the odds in my favor and will seek out every advantage possible....no roll of the dice for me.

An interesting phenomenon is occuring in my neck of the deer woods. Farms with good deer habitat are being sold and in some cases carved up into smaller parcels.
Neighbors used to hunt each others land and there was always respect for each other. I scratch your back, you scratch mine. Now many private lands are posted and have become mini-hunting preserves. It is getting so that if you shoot a deer on your property you had better make sure it does not leave that property, because the guy across the fence may claim it or will not allow access.

There is a lot of competion on public land also because less and less private land is available to hunt and if you shoot a deer it better not travel to far or you will likely find a gut pile at the end of the trail or worse yet get in an argument over the deer.

So whats my point here? Many hunters I know that were shooting the light calibers for years are moving up to heavier fire power to improve there success in dropping or anchoring a deer. Increasing their odds...

I've spent far more time tracking elk, deer and blackbears shot with 30 cal and above then with below 30 cal rounds.
If a remotely correct bullet is used it always comes down to shot placement. A 338 in the guts is still a gut shot, if a varmint bullet makes it to the boiler room the fight is all over. I mostly hunt with 6.5 to 30 cal firearms but it really doesn't matter.

Roundoak I can definitely see that. I think if I were hunting under the conditions you describe I would probably be carrying my 7x57 with 160 or 175 grain partitions and attempting to take that shoulder shot which in my experience is a combination that tends to settle things right then and there. Not the proper situation for 223, 243, or 250 and the heart/lung shot. Some day, God willing, I will hunt the upper Midwest and find out for myself!

To Mr. Rogue: I think you are probably correct in what you say. The best hunters and the best game shots I have been around in my 40 plus years of hunting have all shot 243's, 250's, 270's, 280's and 30-06's. And they did not spend much if any time tracking wounded game. I think quite a few magnum caliber rifles get purchased by inexperienced and unfortunately misguided fellows who adopt a "bigger is better" philosophy. They then have the rifle bore sighted and proceed forth to the hunting fields maybe having fired the rifle just enough to develop a flinch. I have seen a few of these guys in action over the years and the results are not great.

When I was about 15 my Dad and I were in Utah on opening day of Deer Season. I had situated myself on the sidehill of an aspen filled draw leading up the mountain from a big alfalfa field. This was before I had saved the money to buy my very own 270 and I was hunting with my cousin's Savage Model 340 30-30 with open sights. Anyway at first light along come a string of Does followed by a real nice 4x5 buck -certainly the biggest I had ever seen on the hoof. I was waiting until he got closer as he was heading right up the draw toward me when a shot rang out and he hit the deck like a sack of potatoes. A hunter had been below and down the draw from me and I had never known he was there. In any case I was quite diasappointed but trundled on down to help him with the Buck. As it turns out he was a Marine just home from his tour of duty in Viet Nam (this was about 1967) and he had shot that Buck right in the heart with a 222. I was shocked as I had never even heard of using such a round on Deer let alone a monster buck such as the one he had downed. But he had put that bullet right in the heart and that big old Buck's heart was pulverized. I learned a very valuable lesson about shot placement that day. It might have even been valuable enough to be worth having that big Buck shot out from under me. Well almost anyway! Incidentally my rifle-money saving plan got real intense after that experience and I never hunted with that open sight 30-30 again. I bought my 270 and scoped it and determined that next time I would shoot the Buck as soon as possible!

I'm after sort of a trifecta of terminal performance from my deer cartridge. I tend to hunt in the rain, an the ranges I shoot them at tend to range fron very close to very very close <grin>. This year's buck was at maybe 10 yards. The doe, maybe 20 yards. I blew a chance the night before on a doe that was about 8 feet away at one point.

Anyway, the trifecta is: I want it to put the animal down fast. I want a red carpet of blood, if it doesn't. And I want this with minimal bloodshot. I try not to shoot "meat" but sometimes that's the angle you get...

The .358 has been VERY impressive in delivering this trifecta on deer for me. I would say it whacks them out of proportion to it's "mere" .308 parent case size.

Elk are a different hunt. More open country, much bigger critter, etc. There, I'm thinking in terms of putting the animal down ASAP, but I'm not real worried about bloodshot since ranges are longer and there's so much more meat. All I can really say there is I've been impressed by how "mid-premium" bullets (Accubonds mostly) from large cartridges have performed.

What consistantly boggles my mind- in the context of how much guys like us overthink this stuff, is how much some guys completely ignore it! I'll pick on my own brother. He was a poor college student, I was flush (oh, to be flush again... sigh... grin...) so I bought him a 30-06 and put a Leupold on it. I dinked around handloading for it, but in the end, found that it just loved 165-gn factory Corelokt. Fine. I'll make him use something else for elk but there's his deer load. I tell him this over... and over.. give him an empty box of the stuff for reference. So next season, he shows up with... ta da! A couple fresh boxes of 150-gn Winchester ammo. Not through testing or research mind you; just because that's what they sold him...

I'm sure the Win 150's would zap any deer walking but point is, he was extremely casual about the whole thing, and I guess that's typical for a large proportion of hunters.

Most guys don't give a rip. Truth is that 150 power point/corelokt/interlock will kill any deer from even very steep angles from the 3006. It'll work pretty effectively on elk as well.

I don't recall ever hearing or reading a negative remark on the 358 Winchester, especially for anchoring them in the thick stuff-not throught thick stuff as in your experiments.

I've an uncle that claims the worst blood shot deer he ever killed was from a 358 out of a mdl 99. Know idea what bullet, he usually shoots handloads. He has been known to tell a yarn so how really knows. Wouldn't be suprised if it was a pistol bullet going 3000.

The .338's and .300 mags I've seen used killed no better than a 30-06. That's good of course, but the they didn't seem to provide any extra "killing power."

M1 Carbine stoked with ball ammo. In high school a friend took down a nice 4X3 buck, the buck took 4 or 5 hits in the chest before he went down in a hail of gunfire (semi-auto rapid fire mode)after taking one in the head. The buck died, but it was not text book by any means.

Another one is the 38 special, on a sow black bear by a houndsman friend. The bullets richochet'd off the poor bear's skull, a 30-30 put her down for good.

MtnHtr