How do you determine how much gun is enough

[jtoews80]

There has been a few threads lately on which guns are suitable for WT deer and other game. What do you guys consider when selecting a round to use on a specific game??

There are some that work in optimum conditions and then the others that ruin half of your meat, lets hear bout them.

JT.

 

[Charlie-NY]

"ruining half your meat" is more about bullet choice than it is about the cartridge selected. We are fortunate enough to have hundreds of bullets available for the various hunting applications. Use an inappropriate bullet for the given cartridge, animal and conditions and you may get excessive terminal performance. You also may get other forms of unacceptable performance.

Choose you hunting bullets wisely.

 

[sask boy]

Any bullet I choose is about accuracy, because bullet placement is way more important than the size.
I will not be shooting anything but Accubonds or Partitions.
In my big game hunting rifles :lol:

 

[DrMike]

Charlie-NY is right. Bullet construction and velocity play a bigger role in damage to meat than does calibre. Shot placement is yet another issue. Many "big" calibres kill very effectively and damage little meat. Some smaller calibres--especially with lightly constructed bullets, with high impact velocity, cause significant damage to the game, and especially when the shot is on a shoulder or a hip, impacting the bone. While the animal is incapacitated, fragmentation and excessive hydrostatic shock work together to damage significant amounts of meat.

I almost always opt for a "premium" bullet, because I don't know what game I will encounter when going afield. Having said that, in my .358 or my 35 Whelan, I wouldn't hesitate to use a Sierra Gameking or similarly constructed bullet on bear and/or moose, as there is enough mass to bring the animal down.

Generally, in rifles from 270 WSM to 325 WSM, I stay with well-constructed bullets, such as E-Tip, TSX, AB, PT, A-Frame, etc. Hunting is too precious to me to risk losing game or to purposely destroy meat.

 

[JD338]

I agree, its all about bullet choice and velovity. A heavy bullet can behave nicely on game. Here is an exit wound on a WT buck that was shot with a 338 RUM and a 250 gr AB, impact velocity of 2900 fps.

JD338

 

[6mm Remington]

I agree 100% with Sask Boy. I use the most accuracte bullet in my rifle, and I believe bullet construction is critical. I also shoot nothing but Partitions, Accubonds, or as in the case of my son, the new E-tips. I have never had Nosler bullet let me down. Besides a good accurate bullet, it's all about placement!

 

[Guy Miner]

"What do you guys consider when selecting a round to use on a specific game??"

Experience teaches us that most any decent center fire cartridge can kill deer cleanly. Assuming there is enough bullet to get into the vitals, it's all about shot placement.

So... I try to select a rifle that will help me place the shot well, depending on the conditions. Something light and handy for quick reaction shooting in tight quarters, and something with excellent downrange accuracy for hunting the wide open spaces. With the longer-range rifle, I want it in a cartridge that carries some decent velocity and bullet weight downrange, out to 300 - 400+ yards. Also prefer a bullet that minimizes wind drift - a real problem in longish range shooting.

When it comes to deer, I'm the guy they made the Ballistic Tip for! Accurate, and very destructive. Adequate penetration, always reaches the vitals, sometimes penetrates completely through. Meat damage isn't really much of a factor for me. We eat the deer my sons and I kill, but if I lose a couple of pounds of meat from a mule deer, no big deal. Love the one-shot drops... Given the choice, mostly I'm a shoulder shooter.

I don't have much experience with critters larger than mule deer, but it seems reasonable that bigger, tougher game will require greater penetration. You guys who hunt Cape Buffalo and such ought to be able to confirm it, but I'm guessing you'd rather use your .416 instead of your .22 Hornet? :grin:

Regards, Guy

 

[JD338]

I have never had Nosler bullet let me down. Besides a good accurate bullet, it's all about placement!

Experience teaches us that most any decent center fire cartridge can kill deer cleanly. Assuming there is enough bullet to get into the vitals, it's all about shot placement.

You fellas are spot on......

This is exactly why we read so much about bullet failure. Unrecovered game is blamed on the bullet when in reality, it is operator error.
Its all about the bullet. The cartridge is the engine, it is what drives the bullet to X fps and X fpe. It doesn't really matter what the caliber is provided you have enough bullet weight and speed for the task at hand.
Put a bullet properly designed where it needs to go in the vitals and you will cleanly kill big game. I killed a lot of WT deer in my early years with a 30-06 and 180 gr Core Lokt bullets and they always resulted in 1 shot kills.
I have used Nosler bullets for almost 30 yrs now and never looked back.

JD338

 

[DrMike]

You guys who hunt Cape Buffalo and such ought to be able to confirm it, but I'm guessing you'd rather use your .416 instead of your .22 Hornet?

Yeah, putting that shot in the ear isn't always that easy! They keep twitching those ears. :roll:

 

[C.Smith]

Put one through both ears of the deer with a muzzle loader once, trying to make a head shot. The worst kill I Have ever done. Took me 6 years to be able to kill another deer.

Corey

 

[Powerstroke]

What caliber I hunt with during a given year generally boils down to pre-season trigger time. Which round I am feeling most confident with at the time. I have numerous Rem 700's basically all set up about the same way, but there is always that "one" that just feels good at the time.

Know your limits and stick to them per caliber. Put the bullet where it belongs and it's as good as steak in the freezer.

I shoot the smaller calibers much better ie .260, 7-08, .280 than I do my .300RUM. The RUM was purchased for a specific game area with normal high winds... it hasn't extended my comfortable range.

 

[FOTIS]

This qualifies...................





Ever get bored shooting at speed goats with regular (God's Chosen) cartridges? I did...again... so my 10 year old son Stephan wanted me to use the 416 WBY Mag for my third antelope tag, a doe tag. I was planning to use my 30-06 with 150 BT's but I said sure why not? Being a Crazy Greek explains it! :lol:
So my buddy Ray, Stephan and I headed west of Laramie Wyoming.
We located a mature doe 313 yards away. By the time I got set up for the shot she was 363 yards away. My 416 was stoked with BARNES X 300 grain with a stiff charge of H4350. Velocity at the muzzle is 3125 all day long as are the 1/2" groups at 100 yards.
I took the shot and the doe took off at a dead run. You can imagine my surprise! She ran 136 yards and dropped.
Upon closer examination turns out I hit her a little lower than I wanted. This is my fault due to the difference from 313 yards (initial reading) to 363 (when she stopped). Either way that 300 Barnes X did the job and beyond. Heart/lung--JELLO. Blood looked like it had been layed out with a pale!

Overall a great hunt!

PS: THE "BEE" STINGS!
entrance wound immediately behind front left leg

exit behind right leg far side---what a hole!

Doe --notice blood in backround!!

Stephan and I---Gorgeous Classicmark II

Ray and Stephan---Gorgeous Classicmark II

[/COLOR]

Another...

Well, after getting my order of .416 330gr HV bullets to Cheyenne WY in less than 2 weeks, all I had to do was work up the load and shoot the bullets. I tried 3 different loads and got less than 1.2" at 100 yds with 2 loads and the third load yielded the following results: 120 gr of RL 19 = 3080 fps and under .7" Thanx for making an awesome product.

The Hunt...

Great day yesterday. One buck and two does in the bag. Conditions were not that great. In fact it was very, very windy. I went out with my buddy Ray and my boy Stephan.

First doe fell to the 416 WBY (Heck it is a new gun with no "blood" on it and I could not wait to get to Africa in order to shoot it).
Shot was taken at 452 yds. Right behind the shoulder and out the other.

Second doe was at 277 yds. One spine hit and she was dead.

BTW... I am really impressed with the GS Custom performance. Even though antelope are small, frail creatures the 330 416 cal GS HV's expanded beautifully at those extended ranges as was evident by the interior trauma.

The Bullet

BTW you can add two BULL elk with the 378 WBY Mag. One in 1995 and one in 1996. I have a picture of the 1995 one only. Both were wel over 500 yards away.

 

[DrMike]

I dunno' POP. Those speed goats are mighty tough. Maybe you need more mass on those bullets, and a little more velocity wouldn't hurt anything either! :lol:

Truthfully, informative post. Thanks.

 

[Divernhunter]

If I get drawn this next year I have some 600gr and 647gr 50 cal barnes X bullets loades to 3200FPS in my 50bmg to try on those goats. I may get a chance to use them on wild boar first and evenyone knows they are tuff critters. Should be enough gun and bullet.

 

[FOTIS]

If I get drawn this next year I have some 600gr and 647gr 50 cal barnes X bullets loades to 3200FPS in my 50bmg to try on those goats. I may get a chance to use them on wild boar first and evenyone knows they are tuff critters. Should be enough gun and bullet.

You think? :lol:

 

[roysclockgun]

The question was asked : "There are some that work in optimum conditions and then the others that ruin half of your meat, lets hear bout them"

"ruin half the meat" is a bit of hype IMO. I have ruined a shoulder, here and there, but never have approached ruining one quarter of the meat with any shot made in over 50 years of hunting. I believe that worrying about ruining meat, should be way down the line, in terms of how one wants to take game. First on my list is to make a quick, clean kill, where there is minimal suffering on the part of the killee!
A surgeon, whom I introduced to hunting, shot a mule deer, through the heart/lung area. The deer took two paces and dropped over. By time we traversed the 150 yards to get to him, he was graveyard dead. As we field dressed the buck, I asked the doc to use his knowledge to explain to me what the buck may have felt, when he was hit. The doc explained, after again looking at where and how the bullet passed through the body, that the buck perhaps felt something akin to a bee sting, for about 30 seconds, before going into deep shock, and that he was dead within a minute, having felt very little pain. That buck suffered far less than the feeder cattle that we saw loaded on dry, dirty trucks that week. If anyone is worried about how an animal suffers, before becoming table fare, they should look to the commercial market and not at honorable hunters.
So, my way of selecting a cartridge/rifle combo, is to stick with what Robert Ruark said years ago; "Use enough gun!" That is pretty simple. No?
As someone else said, any centerfire rifle will kill deer and other game. But what the hunter should use ought to be a step up from what is adequate and should encompass what gives him the best chance of making a humane, quick kill. No matter what the caliber, or bullet speed, or angle of the shot, if the game is killed humanely and quickly, there will be meat to dine upon.
Steven A.

 

[JD338]

I have always subscribed to the thought of use enough gun. I also believe that there is no such thing as over kill.
I have learned through my own experience that the larger calibers with heavier bullets really deliver the energy down range. Couple this with the correct bullet and proper shot placement and you will kill game very fast. If there is a blood trail, it will be short.

JD338

 

[jtoews80]

what the hunter should use ought to be a step up from what is adequate and should encompass what gives him the best chance of making a humane, quick kill. No matter what the caliber, or bullet speed, or angle of the shot, if the game is killed humanely and quickly, there will be meat to dine upon.

This statement sums it up.

I agree with taking a step above adequate, I hunted this year with a 7mm STW and 160 grn accubonds.

Yeah, it was supposed to be my elk hunting load, but that plan fell thro and it was the gun that I had enough trigger time on to feel comfortable with.
THe buck I shot with it, fell and expired in his tracks. He will be good eating since he didn't run or get fevered from a poor hit.

Shot placement helped control meat damage, high shoulder into lung shot, bone chips from the shoulder blade destroyed 2 or 3 vertabrae, but overall, there was little damage to speak of.

Alot has been said about larger calibers compensating for a poor hit and allowing a followup shot or little tracking regardless. I think that perhaps this theory is flawed, With a larger caliber one must still take a good shot.

I have caught myself wanting to take shots that may not kill cleanly and or will hit an animal lengthwise causing alot of meat damage if the animal is a good trophy. However, there is not alot of glory in shooting a huge buck in the rear and having the coyotes claim the trophy. It is the greatest test of a hunter to wait for the proper shot, especially with trophies that have been pursued and scouted for a long time.

I have only taken that sort of shot once, but it was on a deer that was wounded by a poacher and was limping around my dad's alfalfa field.

JT.[/quote]

 

[jmad_81]

Well I have mixed feelings about a few things when it comes to "enough gun". Part of me loves shooting the biggest gun I can handle for whatever I'm hunting. I've shot a buck and two elk with a 375 R and 260 AB. you will have a very hard time convincing me that there is a better elk gun, or one that does not damage as much meat. The second bull was at 40 yards and hit him just infront of the close shoulder and exited the center of the off shoulder. I litterally had to look for the hole when I skinned him out. there was no bloodshot at all!

The other part of me thinks that I don't need that big of gun for deer and that there a better choice is out there. I'm working on the 270 WSM and 140 Ab, plenty for deer. It is flatter and faster. Flatter is very nice when hunting deer in open country, and faster usually means more meat loss. But a few pounds of meat loss for a clean kill is very exceptable in my eyes.

I shoot the AB when ever I can for several reasons. They have great BC, they don't explode if you get a very close shot with a mag., and they still open up at longer ranges. I have a good friend that swears by the BT and says it is the best bullet ever made. Well for his style of hunting it is. most of his shots are farther than I have ever shot at anything. At those ranges the BT will never explode. I tried the BT this year in my wifes 7-08 and have to say that damage was a little more than I am willing to except, but she shot her deer at under 150 yards and both right on the shoulder.

I guess my point is, from my point of very every body hunts differently. I think that the AB is as close as a person can come to the do it all bullet. When you start to get to where you are doing only one type of hunting then you can pick the bullet, and cartridge that make the most sence for you.

The thing that erks me is when somebody doesn't do their research, or put in their range time. A good friend of mine shoots his 300 WM five times a year, all in the same day about a day or two before deer season. Never cleans it. He shot a spike elk with it at 40 yards five times, and lost it. Came back telling me that the PT was a $hitty bullet! This is what happens no matter what bullet you use or how big your gun is. If YOU can't shoot it it won't do you any good!