eagle rider

Cortland County, welcome to the 21st Century!!!! Its about time.

absolutely,.... still won't go after the North American Food Chain King of the Artic with a 222. On a Weatherby blog (I'm a big Mk V and Vanguard fan) the question went around the site a few weeks back that if a 300 Win or Weatherby Mag can anchor a Kodiak Bear, and they aren't super punishing on the shoulder for the work they are capable of (ditto for the 35 Whelen here as well, gotta through a plug in for he 30-06's big cousin). So if one can put a 1,000 + brownie into a taxidermy shop with that round, a 500 pound lion should be short work at best........ The bottom line is they all agreed, including those on that blog who hunt and guide on the Dark Contient. Still the sense is using a 375 H&H is the addded margin of absolute certianty that the job will get done even if the shot placement is little off perfect. I met this guy at the range who hunts all over the world, he has photos of real legit trophies, no BS. In fact in 2008 he took the record Costal Brown in Alaska. He's a 416 Rigby and 404 Jeffrey shooter, he told me the 416 dropped his moster bear no problem. His guide was carrying a 340 Wby Mag. The irony of the cleint out gunning the guide I thought was interesting, but in most cases the cleint will have a 300 Mag (WSM, Win or Wby, maybe even a Remmy' Ultra). So in the majority of cases the guide can put a followup shot on the bear of much greater stopping power with a bullet that is probably 250 grains or better. I don't know if you ever shot a 340 Wby Mag, it is among one of the most unpleaseant experiences one can have on a shooting bench. Its cousin the 338 Win Mag is only slightly better, but still a wrecking ball on the shooter. Not sure how we got here from singing the parises of the 30-06,.... but it is fun.

Moosemike, I'm sorry, it was India for Tiger, read the attached,.... about 1/2 way down. http://35whelen.blogspot.com/

me too,.... The Boers used to hunt elephant in Bushveldt with 7x57 Mauser. They would drive the herds towards "shooters' who would try to fire a solid into the base of the truck below the eyebrow ridge of the elephants. The idea being that the impact of their little 148 gr. solids would fracture the elephants skulls sending shards of bone through the elephants brain. It was said that many Boers lost their lives doing this. The Polar Bear is the ultimate NA Predator, I wouldn't use a 222, would you?... In fact the Federal Website doesn't even recommend anything less than 338 Win Mag for polar bear. Fast forwarding my Africa example, many countries set limits for allowable cartridges. For instance in Tanzania dangerous game cannot be hunted with anything less than 375 H&H Mag. I have no doubt that a lion can be handled with a 30-06 or better yet a 35 Whelen, or 338-06, or 300 to 338 Win Mag with the right bullet and a properly placed shot. But the regulation exists and I have recently read that it was made a law by pressures coming from the PH's outfitters running Safari's in that region. The reason being is they are looking to minimize risking the lives of their clinets and themselves by ensuring the right tool is used for the right job. PJ Turijillo, the famous NM Elk Guide, I'm told by two of his clients, doesn't allow anything lower than 300 Win, Wby or WSM Mag on his elk hunts with 180 gr. partition bullets. Reason being he hunts above 8,500 ft in the Taos Mtns. Altitude does weird things to peoples ability to keep oxygen getting into their brain (thinner air). He prefers clients using more of a light-hevy weight approach to anchoring the elk he hunts. He's legendary and has, I'm told, never lost an elk yet. Not every shot opportunity one gets is perfect and broadside, honestly how many raking or quartering shots have you taken on deer..... I have taken many and dropped most instantly. Then again, in my earlier example I took one perfect broadside shot with a lightweight bullet out of a 270 and had a horrible outcome because the weak link in that chain was the bullet itself. So I choose to reduce the risk of a poor outcome by taking the edge of SD in my favor. Hey but that's why their's 31 flavors at Bakin & Robbins Ice Cream. We all can't like the same thing.

LOL, shot placement is the key of course but all things being equal,.... it will come down to confidence. Ted Nugent, the Back Strap Asassin, shoot Ferral Hogs on his ranch with a 243. Big boars, 250-300 pounders. He head shoots them. In South Carolina, pigs are culled with 22-250's through the ear or the eye. The logic being you need to get one of those litle poison pills buzzing around the pigs brain box. I know the O'Connor and Keith arguments well. Yes, Jack was the champion of the 270 Win. Yet when he went to Africa, he took a 350 Rem Mag and only shot 250 gr. bullets. He was perplexed between that and a 36 Whelen, but chose the 350 in the end. I think in the case od ol Jack he knew he would be hunting Leopard and was seeking a big wound channel. The same logic can and for some does apply to deer as well. Would a hunter feel equally as confident in using a 243 with a 75 grain bullet on a black bear hunt????

unboubtidly, but in the world of physics, its harder to for someting with more mass at lower velocity to change direction. A volkswagon going 100 mph will hit a brick wall and fly apart into different directions no matter how stoutly it maybe constructed. A freight train going 40 miles an hour won't. The same logic applies to bullets, that's why SD's are such an important consideration in bullet selection. The equivalent logic would indicate that one can hunt deer with a 30-06 accelerator round, but is it the wise choice?????

Guys, its a balance and for that matter a .243 is deemed good for deer and anetlope as well. The 30 cal 130gr Barnes TSX has a SD of .196 and a BC of .340, the Nosler Ballistic Tip 150 gr has a SD of .226 and a BC of .435. That is a huge swing and frankly these low level SD and BC would scare me away from using those bullets in a deer rifle. The bullets just won't hold up long enough to penetrate causing the sever shock we need. Remeber velocity will never kill a deer, kinetic energy does. Kinetic is the combination of speed and mass. Its a balance issue. All the speed in the world aint gonna do it, you need mass to deliver the energy. I had a problem last year with a lightweight 130gr speed demon in a 270 Win using a Hornady SST. I nailed a big meat doe at 100 yards right in the pump station! She reared up did a face plant, then proceeded to rise like Lasirus and take off. We tracked shot glass size puddles of blood for 1/2 mile then it just stopped. I mean bright red blood. We spent the next morning looking for her, no deer. That night another guy from the club walking down an intersetcting trail found the deer. It was wasted, but we opened her up to see what happened. I was horrified. That little speed demon went in about three inches made a sharp right turn and went through the bottom of the lung through the diaphram and shattered the liver. A hunk of torn lung tissue plugged the entry wound. There was no exit wound and the bullet was in pieces between the liver and diaphram. I called Hornady and gave them my loading formula. The guy I spoke to said, "should of used a heavier weight bullet, you would've gotten better penetration and kept all of the bullets efforts in the deers lungs." Morale of the story, it ain't only speed, gotta carry the mail too. That takes mass. http://www.chuckhawks.com/hunting_bullet_guide1.htm

do you know the SD of the 125 gr bullet?

I arrowed one in Cortland Cty a couple of years ago. 250 pounds on the hoof. I could not believe it when it started rooting under my stand. It had small tusks but they were like razors.

the all have their place in the hunting woods,.... my preference for speed, comfort and stability is a ladder. There are times they can't work though, like there is no movment around the ladder, in that case a climber is great. Heavier, and noisey to set up. The climber fails if the tree canopy is too low or the trunk is wet or icy.

The more I read the replies, the more I believe the 30-06 is the one size fits all. Just be careful with the lighter bullets in 30 cal. You might get seome fragmentation even on deer. 150 gr is as low as I go and to tell you the truth, what I use in my 700, the others are 165 gr. The semi-auto is also prefers the 150's.

I wouldn't think there would be a problem, There are a lot of rounds out there that are more in my mind one-trick ponies. The 270 Wby, is a great round, not overly commercailly available, I think only Weatherby and Remington ever chambered it. It was designed to be a good outwest round for mulies through moose. It wouldn't likely be a back east typiacl loading, although I know a guy in Vermont who uses it in New England. The 243 is the lighter side of reality and will get upto deer size game but noting too much bigger, etically speaking. The 30-06 gets used across the board. Although lightweight for Brownies, its still got the SD to do the trick with 220 grain loadings all the way down to pronghorn and javelina and everyting in between on this continent.

LOL that was funny. Its the perfect round and you're right. All of those wildcats that are now legit, ... 25-06 Rem, 270 Win, 280 Rem, 35 Whelen. Cut it down and you get 308 Win, 7mm-08 Rem, and 243 Win. Now add in accelerator loadings,..... geeze. Good thing we won the war or this would all be in the metric system based on 8mm Mauser......

I hear you, if it makes you feel any better, I've been know to orint into sand hills 2' high and 2' left/right starting out,..... the funny part is that's after bore siting!!!!

Localqdm, that's not the spirit....... Gotta put time in on the bench. Printing three into one hole or even a nice tight clover leaf is better than,..... (fill in the blank your own way) LOL.

I think I will agree with that, a heavier bullet like a 180 will do better than a 150 in the brush. I think the 300 Savage is a nostalgia cartridge these days. The 30-06 has stood the test of time for more than a century now. In my ought six I like 150 and 165 grain bullets.

Well said. It was funny a eight years back I bout a new 700 30-06 and althought it is really acurate, it was not sexy enough a caliber to be intrigued about. So I started to do my homework and wound up buying a Weatherby Vanguard SubMOA rifle in 270 WSM. Much more of a modern screamer than any old 700 ought six. To the deer I don't thik it much matters. They'd rather avoid getting shot by either of them. I know in Northwestern VA (I hunt down there too in Winchester and Flint, Faqueer County) we shoot across cattle pasturers. The 270 WSM is perfect for that kind of shooting. We do take shots well beyond 300 yards at times. The drop is not too bad at all. The fact is with a little more windage the 30-06 will do just fine and is the choice preferred by the Virginians who hunt those ranches too. I think we do count angels on the heads of pins a lot, but like you said Pygmy, it keeps things intersting.

I would have to agree with that. It is a true jack of all trades. Its become the standard of comparison for just about every shooting discussion I have ever heard,.... "hey, how does the recoil on that compare to a 30-06?" Or handloaders benchmark some aspect of ballistic performance to a 30-06. I guess that's part of its legendary aclaim. I have a couple of rifles that I like better too. I am a huge fan of the 270 WSM. That to me is the ultimate medium to large hoofed game charmer. I shoot a 130 gr Sierra Game King at 3200 FPS. It makes soup out of deer lungs every time. For me ammo availability isn't an issue either since I handload that (and 30-06 for that matter). About the only thing I shoot commercial is the 35 Rem cause I can't do any better than those damm Hornady Leverevolutions. Anyway back to the 30-06, long vs. short action is never something I spent a ton of time worrying about. I like everyting in a 24" barrel anyways to really get the optimal performance out of what I am shooting.

You know the cartrige I love to hate but can't live without is a the 30-06 Springfield. I think it was what our Dad's used that we have this sense of love for it, it won two World Wars and made its way into deer camps as surplus military 1903's. Its just so perfect, it does it all. I was blogging with a guy in South Africa who uses it leopard control on his cattle ranch, its my November treestand rifle, a facebook friend uses her's to hunt Elk in Wyoming, another uses it for Moose in Finland and still one more in Nevada uses it for speed goats. Its potentail is limitless, its accuracy is daunting (see my Scary Accurate posting), it can put everything walking on four legs on earth into a taxidermy shop. You can buy ammo in Walmart for it while you're getting your tires rotated, borrow a couple of rounds from any farmer or shop keeper in deer country, or always seem to come up with half a box of old Core Lockt's at the bottom of your knapsack. Now they are even making recoil management loadings for it. There is more data on loading it than pages in Obama's "Stimulus Bill." Jesus, back in 1903, did they have any idea how big a can of worms they were openeing???? The 30-06 might have at this point contributed to more venison going into roasting pans than the 30-30 Winchester has. No matter where the whitetail is, cover, country, climate...... the aught-six will send him to the buck pole. You can have in a bolt, a single shot, a lever gun, a semi, a pump,..... you name it and they wrapped an action around it. Its like the perfect poison pill. Like I said I hate the thing for taking all of the guess work out of everything for deer hunting-wise, but we just can't live without it.

Thanks, good to know, or I would have tried to mimic my existing COAL.

Okay, I'm a believer, my local shop has them in 150 grain. I will head over there this weekend and load some up.

good point.

Thnaks, I might just try a box. I do see that theu make a 165 gr in 30 cal.

Antler restrictions in the 4's (more zones) is good. 2012 has an early muzzleloader in 2012,.... awesome.

What do the exit wounds look like?