1895, I think you hit the nail on the head there! Hunting terrain and conditions seem to get overlooked many times in the discussion of what cartridge is "best". Not to confuse matters but especially with Whitetails, which could weigh from 90 to 300 for a mature buck.

To answer your question, I like the 7mm and the 308 calibers. I have guns in those calibers as well as a 33 caliber.

What do you currently own and shoot well? Most of the people I know use a 270 Win or 30.06. They usually just use a premium bullet for elk that they might not use for deer.

Arizona Hunter wrote:

What do you currently own and shoot well? Most of the people I know use a 270 Win or 30.06. They usually just use a premium bullet for elk that they might not use for deer.

This is my situation. I will use a .270 Win with premium bullets for elk (130gr Hornady GMX, 130gr Barnes TSX, 150gr Win XP3). I think for the .30-06 to step it up to the next level and to maintain energy / flat trajectory at range like a .270, one needs to use 180gr bullets.

Arizona Hunter wrote:

What do you currently own and shoot well? Most of the people I know use a 270 Win or 30.06. They usually just use a premium bullet for elk that they might not use for deer.

My Browning x-bolt in 7mm rem mag loaded with 150grs Swift Scirrocco II shoots sub MOA. Im using a silencer so i dont have to use ear protection and the silencer reduces the recoil significantly.

Hauken, how different is your grouping between having the silencer on and off the barrel? Does the silencer shrink your group size?

I've shot 3 bull elks over the years and have used the /06 all three times with the first kill with a Nosler 180gr accubond and the last 2 elk with a 165gr accubond with IMR 4895 and IMR 4320. Neither one of the elk moved more than 25ft.

Whatever gets picked, make sure its a caliber with "staying power". Meaning there will still be ammo and support for it years down the road.

Ammo for my 7STW is getting rediculously hard to find and super expensive now that everyone is on the WSM / ULTRA bandwagon. IMO I dont see WSM calibers as being all that popular 20 years from now.


-DallanC

DallanC wrote:

now that everyone is on the WSM / ULTRA bandwagon. -DallanC

Yup. I agree on that, it seems every couple of years the required calibers to kill certain game have gone up. Last year one of the guys that hunts with us wanted to bring his father deer hunting for the first time again in many years. As we headed to the range last fall to make sure the guns were sighted in, we got talking about his father gun which was a brand new Remington chambered in 375 RUM.

I made the point of telling him that we are only going deer hunting and that his rifle was way overpowered for anything in North America save for grizzly or kodiak bear. He came back with the reply that he hunted many years ago with the 338 win mag and he considered it an underpowered cartridge for deer.

When we set up our targets at the range, I could see why he will probably buy a bigger rifle within a year or two because he flinches so much from the recoil. I told him try shooting a 243, 257 roberts, 308 and see how it goes. But he is set in his mind (70 years old) that bigger is better.

I tried to tell him BULLET PLACEMENT is more important than caliber size. It seems kinda humorous as we all came home with deer except him.

Oh yeah I did shoot it at the range, it kicks like 3 mules, and has a muzzle blast that will lay the daisies low.

it's more than 100 years old, it's a mite heavy for groundhogs and a mite lite for big bear, BUT, with the proper load and shot placement, it'll git the job done. 30.06

Funnily enough the thread starter is a human spammer.
He joins forums, makes three or four posts in a day with his spam link in his sig line then disappears. The links help the page ranking for whatever his masters are marketing.

30'06, .303 british,7.62x54R, .308, bow and arrows, .270, .280, 8mm, 7mm
so basically anyhigh power30 caliber [or close to it]

cougar98332 wrote:

30'06, .303 british,7.62x54R, .308, bow and arrows, .270, .280, 8mm, 7mm so basically anyhigh power30 caliber [or close to it]

It isn't a specific calibre you should look at but rather what you are hunting, do you have the ability to make a clean shot, what range are you shooting at, and finally what animal are you hunting. You need to have good shot placemet first and foremost, then you need to have a bullet that will dump its energy to create as much hydrostatic shock as possible to kill instantly if possible and secondly to limit the damage to edible meat. I have a friend that goes for head (brain) shots almost 100% of the time. He doesn't loose any meat and has instant or near instant kills. not everyone is capable of making these shots and then you go for the heart/lung shot as the go to shot. Bigger target area. A good book to get is the cartridge comparison guide, www.cartridgecomparisonguide.com.
This book will give you perimeters that you can choose to decide on a calibre/loads that would be the best choices. Personally I use a 788 Remington in .308 Win for all my hunting. Antelope, bear, whitetail deer, mule deer, elk and moose. My go to bullet is the nosler 165gr ballistic tip. When I buy my next rifle, it will most likely be a .30 calibre like 300 win mag, 300WSM and the only reason for that is that I hunt open country in Saskatchewan. But the fact still remains that I really don't need another big game rifle, I am proficient with my 788.

well said that man
well said indeed.

The best choice is whatever your favorite 30 caliber cartridge is - simply because there is such a wide range of 30 caliber bullets available. The other consideration is to choose a rifle with a fast enough twist rate to stabilize the heaviest / longest bullets that you plan to be shooting. A "too fast" twist rate for the lightest bullets will cost a bit of accuracy with them, but too slow and you won't be able to take advantage of the heavier ones.

This is one reason that the 30-06 has been such a popular and long-lasting cartridge.

On the other hand, it's FUN to own a lot of rifles (and handguns).