re: Help choosing a rilfe

You're going to need a sample of hundreds if not thousands of animals in order to make those observations valid.

I've had similar experience as you but with the .270 verses the 30-06. I've never shot a deer with a .270 that did not run at least some distance. And that includes heart shot and double lunged deer. On the other hand, I've never shot a deer with a 30-06 that took another step. They all died right there in their tracks.

Now, I know that that is only a comparison of about 20 or 30 deer and lots of people have been using the .270 for a long time and consider it a great deer gun. And intellectually, I know there is no reason it should be that much less of a gun than the 30-06, so I can only conclude my sample size isn't large enough.

I killed my first deer ever with a bow 10 years ago. She did not go 20 yards before she died. Does that mean by bow had more killing power than my 7 mag? The last deer to die from it ran about 30 yards.

Yeah, I don't have a problem with power when your option is one gun for multiple tasks. The OP is talking about hunting in areas where this happens on a regular basis.



Never have had a problem with too much power. If you hit them in the right place, they drop as dead with a .243 or a .338. If needed, the extra pop is very very nice.

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bullet kills by damaging tissue

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There I fixed that for you.

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There is no one gun for everything you just asked about.

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Agree. IF you have to choose one, since few people I know pack two rifles when hunting, you have to narrow your criteria down. Which is what the thread is about.

I am also in the two rifle club. My suggestion would be for anything under 300# a 7mm X 08 and for anything over 300# and a 7mm mag.

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Alright, not trying to be arguementative but you don't understand the principle of foot/lbs of energy.

You hit someone with a bat the energy is spread over a larger area. Foot/lbs of energy of a bullet is a small area that as the bullet mushrooms creates a shock in the tissue surrounding the wound. The heavier and faster the bullet is traveling the greater the shock/damage to surrounding tissue.

Let me also add that I am a firm believer in shot placement is is the most critical aspect of hunting, but if the same animal shot in the same place one with a .30-30 and a .338 the one hit with the .338 will succumb faster simply because of the shock to the surrounding tissue

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I understand it very well. And yes, you are being stupidly argumentative because if you bother to read my actual posts you will see that I said if you want a significant increase in killing power over the 30-06 you needed to move up in caliber to AT LEAST A .338.

If you want increase killing power you need to increase the diameter of your bullet more than anything.

Listen you can sit here and talk about theoretical transfers of energy all day, I'm just going to tell you that if you want to increase killing power, bullet diamter is the biggest factor.

You're not going to see that much difference with bullets of the same calbier by adding a a few hundred fps. I think it takes about 300 fps for a projectile to reliably penetrate human skin. So, an increase by that much, despite whatever the ballistic tables say about energy, is in reality not that significant.

Shock alone does not kill animals. Even extreme shock. Tissue damage does. And increased energy does not reliably translate to increased tissue damage. For instance, a 150 grain bullet in a 30-06 is always more lethal to a deer sized animal than a 180 even though the 180 has more energy. For that matter, a hundred grain .25 caliber at 3200 fps may be more deadly yet even though it has far less energy than the 150 or 180 from a 30-06.

It is about bullet performance far more than energy. The new TSX bullets prove that. They stay together, mushroom reliably, and damage the most tissue.

So, if you want the biggest and the baddest, there is nothing wrong with that. But a 300 WSM is not a death ray compared to a 30-06. All things being equal, their performance on game will be very similar. And a 250 grain .366 bullet shot at a modest 2,700 fps from a 9.3x62 will out perform them both on larger game.

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You are making my case for me by saying a 150gr bullet from a 30-06 outperforms a 180gr bullet. The 150 gr bullet has more energy at 200 yards than the 180gr due to velocity.

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Yeah, but you missed the most important part of the post. Your focus on energy alone is misplaced. What the bullet does with that energy is way more important.

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If you want to discount science then so be it.

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You're the one doing that.

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You are making my case for me by saying a 150gr bullet from a 30-06 outperforms a 180gr bullet. The 150 gr bullet has more energy at 200 yards than the 180gr due to velocity.

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So, then according to you, a 150 from a 30-06 should do better against a bear than a 180 from a 30-06 because it has more energy, right?