Most Underappreciated Rifle Caliber

I'd say the 8x57 Mauser

But don't tell the deer it's not a 30-06 they'll laugh you out of the woods! Last deer I took must have been on PCP I had to call in air support and nap the bastard to finish it off after all that it tasted funny and I had to feed it to my dog.

I'd have to go with the .303 British. I shoot it a lot and I have the Enfield bug bad. I have hunted with it for over twenty years and have taken Moose and Elk with it.

6.5x55
but really any 6.5 appears to be striking the 'synergy' that makes them perform better than expected

Beetle Bailey:

You attack harmless milk jugs and pumpkins?
Yesterday I walked down a slippery, high muddy river bank to hang a large plastic 'kitty litter' container from a tree limb, using a strong metal wire to hold it.

After three shots from seventy-eighty feet with my new Mosin Nagant, the wire was cut and the nice target fell into the river!
Maybe I shot too high, but otherwise aiming ok?
Maybe two wires or cords should support a target.
Redundancy needed, to be like you pro plinkers out there?

You attack harmless milk jugs and pumpkins?

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Well, I was trying to harvest the pumpkins for Thanksgiving, but unfortunately for me, the 6.5x55 left me with no edible meat! But let me ask you this: How am I supposed to catch a pumpkin without shooting it first?

As for the milk jugs, well, those were communist milk jugs. After I'm done drinking the milk, I fill the empty jugs with water (some add red food coloring to aid in target ID and for spectacular effect) and take them out for practice. With a high velocity round, the jugs simply explode when the bullet passes thru since water cannot be compressed; it has to go somewhere. Then when I am done, I make sure to clean up my mess before I leave. However, since a pumpkin is biodegradable, I just leave those out there as a warning to the rest.

Now, with regards to shooting the kitty litter container, it might be possible that you shot too high and hit the wire. But, I've noticed that even when shooting an empty container, you can knock it around a lot and "make it dance." So it's quite possible that you hit the container so hard that the wire either snapped, became loosened, or even cut thru the plastic. If I were to try to rig something like that, I'd use two metal chains.

New here to these forums, but I just had to chime in on this topic.

I have owned and hunted for over 20 years with a Rem. M700 Mountain Rifle chambered in .280 Rem. I consider this as the most all around caliber and rifle there is. I reload for my rifle with Hornady 139gr. SPBT and H4831SC and am very pleased with what they do. I have dropped a coyote pup at 480 yards with this round (it did take a few rounds but I was tickled when he finally dropped. My best shot EVER in my life!) Last year I took a 5 X 5 bull elk at about 120 yards and he never took another step. I have killed alot of whitetails and muleys with this gun as well over the last 20 years. The only major changes I have made to this gun was to put a kevlar stock on it and to lighten my trigger pull. I have never put the trigger on a scale but it is very light. I used the old addage of adjusting it too light and hitting the stock hard to make it go off, then increasing the poundage until it would not misfire. I check it a couple times a year to make sure there are no chances of a misfire. Maybe a gunsmith can school on me if this was a safe way to adjust trigger pull or not. The only other thing I feel helps with my accurracy is that my OAL on my rounds is as long as I can get and still be able to close the bolt without forcing it. My groups increased drastically at 150 yards by doing this step. Well, I am sure most of you guys are tired of hearing about my bragging but I wanted to put another good punch in for the .280 Rem.!!!

There's a lot of good candidates (I don't *think* I've replied to this thread before.... ).

.22 lr
.22 mag
6.5x55 swede
.257 Roberts
.280 Rem (yup)
7x57 mauser
.303 Brit
.35 Whelen
.45 Colt
.357 Mag
.30 Carbine
.358 Win
20 ga

A lot of these will "git er done" in a rifle a lot better, and under a lot more circumstances, than most people realize.

.280 british. a great round, not adopted by the military in the 40's, and never made a sporting round either.

.338 federal. another great round, good accuracy. nobody cares. (that i know)

348 win with the 250 grain bullet. Only good at 30-30 ranges but it hit like a bus and I would have no trepidation about carrying the old 71 Win in bear country.

two that come to mind is the 264 win mag and 350 rem mag they seem to be fading of late

7.5 Swiss
7.92 Mauser
16 Gauge

and ANYTHING that attracts as much hatred as 5.56 is okay in my book If it was really as bad as they claim, it wouldn't be THE number one seller on Earth.

I think I'll go buy some more.

.22 Hornet

8mm Mauser
.260 Rem
.35 Rem
.30/30
.303 British
7.62x54R
.22 Mag

Crazy Diversity

But . . . I add the .243 Winchester. 6mm prowess is no joke: easy to aim; easy to recover, for the next round of devastation if required. No known animal just shakes off a direct hit from a 100 grain super-speed missile. Primarily a 300 yard downer, a .243 Winnie works well at even 100 yards. I favor the 100 grain Speer Grand Slam @ 3100 fps. Alliant Reloder 22 produces this velocity and more from a 24" barrel. I've considered 6.5mm, but find it stagnant with 6mm premium offerings. I hope Swift Bullets will SOON offer a 100 grain bullet that can surpass the fantastic Nosler Partition and Speer Grand Slam in 100 grain .243 caliber slap-down value. cliffy

6.5 - 06 Called the "Hammer of Thor" . Great bullet, neck down and turn .30 -06 brass, what a great shooter!

.260 Rem ... sigh.

.260 Rem this one's waking up!
.280 Rem only lacking factory variety
.35 Whelen what could be done w/this if it became popular...sigh...
8MM Rem Mag
9.3 X 62 Memorize this if you aren't familiar w/ it...someday the USA will wake up to this proven European!

Rim-fire : .22 short, long and long rifle.

Centerfire : 30-30

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completely agree!!

xd, I tend to agree with you as well. Everyone takes both the 30-30 win and 22LR for granted. As a result they are underappreciated.

Other good calibers/rounds that are not appreciated these days are:
5mm
257 Roberts
22 Hornet
35 Whelen
222 Rem

220 Swift
.264 Win Mag
8mm Remington Mag
38-55

My choices are:

280 Remington-extremely versatile

8x57 Mauser-Quite potent when loaded to full potential

NCsmitty

That the 7.62x54R isn't a more popular round doesn't surprise me much; it is after all a rimmed cartridge, and is basically a .30-06 equivalent... so why not just use the .30-06? Still, the 7.62x54R is my favorite rifle cartridge.

Black Snowman brought up something that I've been thinking about.... why hasn't the .454 Casull been used more, specifically for lever-guns?

.20 Practical. Necking down the .223 to shoot your 20 caliber pills doesn't get any easier.

I guess I'd have to say the .223 and especially the .243.

Just a plain old .22 short. I like shooting it because I don't have to wear ear protection and it doesn't scare new shooters. And often times its more accurate!

It feeds happily out of my henry!