Big bore Question

rodmkr

Temecula California
If this is too political please delete.
I am 85 years old.
The last deer I shot was with a 30/30 that belonged to a Uncle.
Distance about 115 yards.
Before that it was 125 yards with a 8x56R Steyr.
Now days it seems that you need a 338 Lapua or 50BMG to do the same thing or am I reading the posts here and on other forums
wrong
Is it because we have forgotten how to track or a case of have too or just because I have it.


Jim
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
Hard to say? A fair amount is because the hype from manufacturers is very effective. The gun rags don’t help.

Last 8-10 deer I shot were all with cast, only the 30-30 was going over 2000 FPS. Maybe I should read more ads and magazines?
 

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
Maybe that's why I quit reading the gun rags. Does seem there is no shortage of folks that believe nothing short of a 300 win mag could bring down those thick skinned hard charging dangerous Bambi's. An attitude I've always found perplexing.
 

CZ93X62

Official forum enigma
EVERY deer I have shot could have been taken with a 30/30 WCF. Three of them actually were, to include my first one at age 13. That deer was my longest shot taken, about 125 yards off the muzzle and uphill. The next-furthest shot was about half that distance, in 2006. 6.5 x 55 did the honors. The nature of the country I hunt most frequently (sage scrub) has a lot to do with that, as does my early years of shotgun-hunting that biases your approach toward getting up close.

There might be a place for those 338 Lapuas and the uber-magnums, but I haven't found a need for any of them.
 

waco

Springfield, Oregon
I am amazed at how many people I run into that shoot our blacktail deer with a 300 win mag. Overkill is an understatement.
 

waco

Springfield, Oregon
There might be a place for those 338 Lapuas and the uber-magnums, but I haven't found a need for any of them.
I love my 338 Lapua Magnum but it is a purpose built rifle that to date is only used for shooting steel targets at extreme distance.
A 16 pound rifle wouldn't be much fun to pack around on a hunt!:p
 

Hawk

North Central Texas
I think a lot of it goes to the gun rags.
A friend on my deer lease hunts with a Browning bolt gun chambered in 30-06. He has possible 300 yard shots, but most deer are killed at 100 or less.
He's not a very good shot and has ADD and gets pretty excited, buck fever. We have to trail all his deer. No big deal and we find them all.
He also has an AR10 in .308.
He asked me what I thought about a new barrel in 6.5 Creedmoor for his AR10, since he had read how powerful and flat shooting it was based on gun rag reports. He thought it would be much more powerful and flat shooting than his 30-06, so it would help him knock them DRT.
I tried to tell him his 30-06 was a better option, but he has been brain washed by magazine articles telling him the Creedmoor is a laser with howitzer power.
 
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Hawk

North Central Texas
That said, I do have a lot of toys that I really don't need, just cause they are fun. Such as the 7.62x40 Wilson Tactical.
 

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
Read an article by the forestry dept many years back on what caliber has taken more deer in this country than all others combined.

The 22 rimfire.

Article was based on estimated number of poached deer every year and the 22rf being the caliber of choice for many poachers due to less noise.
 

waco

Springfield, Oregon
I think a lot of people underestimate the effectiveness a 22lr can have when placed properly.
 

RicinYakima

High Steppes of Eastern Washington
Read an article by the forestry dept many years back on what caliber has taken more deer in this country than all others combined.

The 22 rimfire.

Article was based on estimated number of poached deer every year and the 22rf being the caliber of choice for many poachers due to less noise.
Before WA's Game Department became the WA Department of Fish and Wildlife, their last report from the mid-1980's was that 40% of all deer and elk killed were from "non-licensed" people. It was evenly split, they thought, between the 22LR and the 7..62X39.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
I am not a "deer hunter". I hunt deer sometimes, but it's more of a case of wanting to go walk around in the woods ona nice fall day. I'mjust as likely to get side tracked looking at trees or odd rock formations. That being said, I've killed hundreds of deer. I'd guess between 250 and 300, all car struck, at ranges from point blank to an excess of 75 yards. I could have killed any of them with my 32-20 rifle with it's ancient Weaver K4. Most the ones over 20 yards I would have been better off with the rifle too. I don't think I've ever even considered shooting at a deer much more than 100 yards away. I know people with the 30 and larger magnums with the 18 or 24X scopes, bi pods, etc that claim they "need" that type of rifle because they shoot at deer 400 plus yards away. I don't call that hunting. I call that a hail Mary shot. Every one of those guys also talks about the misses they swore were dead on. None of them practice at 4, 5, 600 yards. I don't believe any of them ever go and see if they even cut a hair either. They expect a DRT TV shot. I don't have a lot for use for those types.

IMO we'd be lot better off if deer hunters were limited to nothing larger than a 7x57 and a 2.5x scope.
 

Hawk

North Central Texas
I have a 7mm Rem Mag and a 300 Weatherby Mag, but all of my deer hunting is done with two Remington 700s chambered in .270 Winchester.
I don't have the luxury of walking out my back door and wandering around until I spook up a deer. We have a 1200 acre deer lease in east Texas in the Big Piney.
I have two wooden box stands. One on a pipeline and one on a tower line. Each has a possible 400 yard shot, either way.
Feeders are 100 and 200 yards out, because that's where the bottoms are and that's where the deer usually come out.
I have good rests on the window sills of my stands (2x4s) and we do a shoot a few times a year at the longer ranges, just to make sure scopes have not moved.
Sometimes we are lucky and get deer inside 100 yards, but you can't count on it all the time.
Actaully, most of my big deer have come on trails that are from 250 to 300 yards out.
Not a hard shot for me, resting on my window sill and both elbows anchored on parts of the stand. If I can't make the shot confidently, I don't pull the trigger.
I think you will find a lot of people on this forum that think 300 to 400 yards is not too far and certainly not a "Hail Mary" shot.
I just know my rifles and have good setups.
But I agree, each man need to know his limitations.
 

JWFilips

Well-Known Member
When I was in my teens I used to hunt Deer with my two brothers and two of their friends they worked with. (I never cared much for those two friends) My Brothers and I were very used to hunting that old PA Mountain ( Forkston-Dutch Mountain) ...heavy laurels and most shots were under 60 yds because it was thick!
My Choice was a Marlin 336 35 Remington ( My Dad had bought me ...I being the youngest child of a large family and also he never owing a rifle just a shot gun he wanted to get me a rifle)
My brothers both sported the Savage 99 in 300 Savage caliber. The were quite a bit older then I and were married and had jobs .

We were always successful with on shot kills on that mountain! But those "two friends"only succeed in missing or wounding deer ( almost every year!) What they decided on was they needed more "power" so the both of them started sporting 300 Win Mags about 3 years in to them joining us! These were loaded with the heaviest bullet offereings they could get!

That same year we all got shots at Buck the opening day The Family "Filipski" scored with on shot kills however those two magnum guys succeeded in wounding 3 deer . The shots were about 40 yards The one guy said the deer acted like it wasn't even hit! Those 3 deer all had hair clumps and some blood but no trail to track.

It is a real problem when the rifle & bullet are not matched to the distance , game and environment!

In my last few years of Deer hunting with center fire ( I think that was at age 25 years) I had switched to open farm land and a .243 Win with an 85 grain Sierra Hollow point boat tail Spitzer An shot to the heart/ lung area dropped a whitetail in it's tracks Seldom an exit wound! but the lung cavity was jelly!

After that all my Deer hunting was with Round Ball 18th century style flintlocks. In PA that is all you need
Jim
 

Hawk

North Central Texas
Different parts of the country definatly have different needs.
I'm really jealous of you guys that own property, can hunt right out of your back doors or just step off the steps and be in the woods.
 

JWFilips

Well-Known Member
Where I live In NEPA I have Deer, Turkey, Fox & God knows what in my back yard. I am however at the fringe of residential area ( the Moosic Mountains start a few hundred yards beyond my back yard) However I am still in "Town" so I have to be very carefull.
I do take Fox at Dusk Because I doubt that the shot can be traced..... now Turkeys and Deer; my darling wife tells me they are our friends!
The PA Dutch "Gundsows go wenever I get angry! Otherwise I trap them & take them to the top of the mountain! ( maybe better off dead!)
 

Hawk

North Central Texas
I understand about the wife and pets.
My inlays were town folks and would trap mice in the back yard and relocate them to fields outside of town.
 

JWFilips

Well-Known Member
FWIW:
An interesting Piece of Trivia: In North Eastern Pennsylvania There is the "Moosic" mountains These were named by the early Connecticut settlers that came to this part of Pennsylvania in 1762 ( First settlement before the "Pontiac Rebellion")

They claimed that the mountains seem to "move" because of the large amount of "Moos"
This term "Moos" was later bastardized to mean "Moose" in the local histories !
I had always challenged that and after much research received this scholarly reply that "MOOS were actually ELK: a creature more devoted to mountain tops instead of Moose which prefer Lows swamp lands. That also explains why one of our mountains is called Elk Mountain!

Many old photos from the late 1800's show locals on Elk Hunts!
And to top this off the PA Game Commission now allows us a lottery to hunt Elk! They are bringing them back!
 

Missionary

Well-Known Member
Greetings
Good for Pennsylvania. Indiana introduced elk near 20 years ago on the large military tracts. Now they are scattering even to east Illinois in the southern areas.