re: Small caliber deer rifle recommendations?

7MM-08 Savage Axis. Inexpensive, accurate, and good to the shoulders of wimmensesses.

I've always wondered if you actually start to loose effectiveness on light game with big arse guns.

The idea is to chrono the bullet going in and coming out of ~12" of gel and seeing how much energy it puts into the gel vs how much it brings out of the other side. I'm thinking that at some point (just guessing around a 150gr .30-06) you'll start to taper off exponentially in the amount of energy you're putting on target and just drastically increase the amount you're sending out of the other side.

Now obviously there's tons of variables to consider like bone and shite, but I'm just curious. With standard loads there never seems to be a whole lot of difference than a deer shot with a 150gr .30-06 and a 150gr .300 mag to me. Both are always pretty much fricked up.

I haven't done a whole lot of thinking on the details, but I am very curious about the big magnum's effectiveness on something itty bitty like deer.

Just realized that's shitty wording. Theory is that the amount of energy a .300mag puts in a deer is marginally more than say a .3006

I am by no means saying it's less

Idk. I haven't ironed down the apparatus yet. I just know I need two chronies, some gel, and plenty of guns.

Yeaaaaaaa

Haven't quite figured out how I'm going to keep the bullet going straight out of the other side

Since kengal already said I can kill his, that'll cover a little while of shooting till we put a 7mag through the base

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Now of course I'm talking standard stuff you buy off the shelf to deer hunt with, like standard for caliber weight bullets that you see all the time at the deer camp, not 125gr .30's at 4000fps or anything.

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Im with you. Would be interesting. Would almost have to use the same bullet for each caliber though, ie youd have to use a remington core lokt for all calibers.

Downshift, Very interesting idea. I've never really considered that. I did a bunch of science fair projects w/ my son where we chronographed bullet penetration vs velocity w/ Nosler BT bullets shot in a 308 Win. If you have problems getting ballistic gel, you could instead use water soaked bundles of newspaper. One thing I know you'll find is that when shooting an expanding hunting bullet like the NBT (w/ the bullet weight constant) penetration will decrease as velocity increases. I remember the 125 NBT penetrated as much as 14" @ muzzle velocity of 2200 fps, but only 10" @ mv of 2650 fps.

If you handload or know someone who does, you could always load the muzzle velocity down so that you could shoot the target at 10 feet instead of 100 yards. For example if the bullet is velocity at 100 yards is 2700 fps, reduce the load so that your test round muzzle velocity is 2700 fps, then shoot the target at close range (10-15 feet or so).

A reduced load? That would defeat the entire purpose of your statement that “there are a lot of bullet traits that factor into it's lethality …”

For instance, let’s look at some more traits of a reduced load in a 308 compared to a standard 243 load. From Hodgdon's load data, a reduced load for the 308 is a 135 grain bullet being driven at 2,490 fps which gives a muzzle energy of 1,860 ft-lbs. I used this load to give your theory an edge. There are other reduced loads in the manual, but they have even less performance. Now, take a standard loaded 243 round with a 100 grain bullet being driven at 2,950 fps, which gives a muzzle energy of 1,950 ft-lbs.

Let's look at some other differences between your "reduced load" and a 243 standard load.
1. This guy might not reload, so being able to easily obtain ammunition that can be practiced with is of the utmost importance. If you can't hit it, you can't kill it.
2. The sectional density of a 100 grain 243 is around .242. A 308 in 135 grain is about a .20.

As far as I can tell, a reduced load 308 has no advantage over a standard 243 load. It has less velocity, less sectional density and less energy. I don’t think a deer will notice a difference of 0.06” in the diameter of the bullet when there is roughly an 8” diameter kill zone on it. So, if you want to buy a high performance car just to say you have a vehicle capable of high performance, then by all means spend your money on what you like to say you have, but it won't get you from point A to point B any faster if you impose speed limits on it.

About the 223 as a deer round. Personally, I was skeptical at first, but I learned the error in my ways. I went on a deer hunt one time with my nephew and he needed a rifle to use. I knew he could shoot my 223 accurately and he was comfortable with it, so I let him take it. He dropped an 8 point buck in its tracks at 100 yards with a lung shot. The next day he dropped a doe 80 yards out in it's tracks. Since then 2 other kids used that rifle and successfully dropped every deer they fired at with the same 70 grain Barnes TSX bullets. Every deer shot had an exit wound and did not take more than a step after being shot. Why? Because they could shoot plenty of cheap 223's for practice and save the good stuff for the deer. They knew how to shoot, where to put the bullet and were comfortable doing it with that rifle. That's what matters most. If you can't afford to practice, you will have dismal results at whatever you shoot at. Seeing what this 223 did to deer made a believer out of me, and it is all I use on my deer hunts now.

The 223 outshines every other deer caliber in one aspect which cannot be denied. It is the cheapest round suitable for deer to practice with. Practice rounds for the 223 can be had for around $6 for a box of 20. Even cheaper in bulk. It will cost that much to handload “reduced loads” for a 308, plus you will have to spend the time loading them. Anyone who doubts the 223 for deer hunting should get away from the computer sometime and actually go outside and try it for themselves.

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Buck_Rogers

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That's all well and good, but there's no need to shoot reduced power loads with the .308 and for damn sure not the 7mm08