Hunting rifles and cartridges: a complex issue? Or is it?

[someguy2800]

You and Nature Boy both sort of sound like my hunting partner, only he has gear fidelity issues. He will build or buy a new rifle in some new caliber, hunt with it two or three times, sell it, and start over. He does the same with optics as well. Some of it has been amazing. Some has been rather problematic. The thing is, I never know what he will show up with and sometimes it is more than one rifle for a given hunt.

I keep thinking that he is searching for the ultimate combination to get the job done, but have now realized that I was being naive. He doesn't keep the last best rifle until it is bested. He will sell it off in a heartbeat if something new or interesting comes along.

I just like to experiment with different calibers and rifles and deer hunting is an outlet for me to put that experimentation into affect. I am not really concerned about finding something better, more so just something different. Gives me something to do for a few of the 51 weeks a year that it isn't deer season here. My primary interest is in the firearms and making my own food. Hunting is really just a product of those two interests for me. If I had to use someone else's gun or couldn't keep the meat I wouldn't even want to go.

 

[9x56MS]

I am in the habit of building a new hunting rifle and working up a load for it every year to keep it fun. That's a habit I think I need to curtail because I have about 10 rifles still waiting to go hunting and its getting a bit ridiculous. One year I brought 7 guns to deer camp lol.

I always start with 2 and change after taking a deer. If the hunting gods are smiling on me sometimes I get to 3. One year they were especially generous and I got to 4 but that was too much to hope for again. I too load up special loads especially for different game stouter bullets for hogs and stouter loads and bullets for bear. Keeps life interesting.

 

[someguy2800]

I always start with 2 and change after taking a deer. If the hunting gods are smiling on me sometimes I get to 3. One year they were especially generous and I got to 4 but that was too much to hope for again. I too load up special loads especially for different game stouter bullets for hogs and stouter loads and bullets for bear. Keeps life interesting.

Sometimes I change it up depending on which stand I want to sit in or the weather. A few years ago I brought the contender handgun in my avatar, a krag that I had worked on for most of the year to get ready to hunt with, and a 7.62x39 AR15 which I hastely loaded some hunting ammo for a week before the season to bring along as a backup. I had planned to hunt the whole season with the contender and krag. I got a doe on opening morning with the contender but after that it snowed and rained the whole rest of the season and I didn't want to sit with my krag in the rain. I hunted the whole rest of the season with the AR15 and got 3 more deer.

 

[Offfhand]

This has been a fun thread to watch because it has reminded me of a hunting article I read back in the 1950’s when I was a schoolboy. It was about African hunting and showed Roy Weatherby and Herb Klein (A Texas oil millionaire who bankrolled Weatherby.) taking their ease outside their safari tent. What most impressed me about the picture was the multitude of rifles propped around their camp chairs and tables. There looked to be a dozen or more, all glistening custom Weatherby’s. Wow! Was my reaction, that’s the way to go to Africa, with a different rifle and caliber for every species of game.
It must have made a big impression on me because a few decades later, when I was packing my first safari, I figured I needed at least three rifles of different calibers: the heavy, a .458 Win Mag for the “Big Five”, a light caliber for smaller, deer sized animals, and a mid-size magnum for the larger in-between species. As it turned out the .458 was the right stuff for elephant, buffs and lion, but my light caliber, a .280 Rem, turned out to be plenty good for about everything else. Only one animal was bagged with the medium magnum, which I gave to my PH.
Since then I’ve taken no more than two rifles to Africa, including a heavy when big stuff was on the menu, but more often only one rifle, either a light or a medium caliber like the .338 Win Mag. Except when I also took along a light 7x57 for my wife. There is good sense in the old saying “Beware the man with only one rifle, because he’ll know how to use.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

It was about African hunting and showed Roy Weatherby and Herb Klein (A Texas oil millionaire who bankrolled Weatherby.) taking their ease outside their safari tent. What most impressed me about the picture was the multitude of rifles propped around their camp chairs and tables. There looked to be a dozen or more, all glistening custom Weatherby’s. Wow! Was my reaction, that’s the way to go to Africa, with a different rifle and caliber for every species of game.

"We" (when I worked for the Dallas Museum of Natural History) had Klein's gun collection, or at least part of it, including one or two serial #2 Weatherby's...which came as a result, as you noted, of Klein providing Weatherby with much needed funds.

 

[Dogleg7]

When it comes to hunting there are no bad calibers, just bad shooters!

 

[Mike J]

This thread reminded me of a paint foreman I used to work around a lot years ago. He told me this story about his weekend at the hunting club. He had killed a deer Saturday morning. So he went back to camp with it on the back of his truck. There was another fellow at the club that had gotten a deer the same morning. So back at camp they decided to walk out to the trucks & look at each others deer. The other fellow asked Tommy what he rifle/caliber he was using. Tommy told him. The other guy told Tommy he used to use that caliber but had switched. The new caliber he was using was so much better & more effective, etc. etc. etc. Tommy tried to let it go & get away but the guy just kept going on & on. Finally Tommy said he looked the fellow dead in the eye & told him "Yep, you're right. I can tell just by looking at them that yours is deader than mine."

 

[Dogleg7]

Many years ago a good friend of mine (he still is) tried to get me to stop using Hornady, Speer and Sierra bullets. Said I needed to shoot the new and improved premium bullets. They were better at this and greatly improved at that. Finally one day I had heard about all I wanted to hear about his premium bullets. Told him "last hunting season I shot 8 bullets and killed 8 deer so how am I going to improve on that?" Didn't hear anything else about premium bullets.

 

[High Plains]

I keep track of the locations where my hunting groups and I have taken deer. The vast majority of White tail and Mule deer have fallen to hand loaded Hornady and Sierra bullets. Lately, Swift bullets have come into the mix. Some factory ammo has been used, but not much (and even less in the future). I couldn’t care less if the bullet is recovered from the animal. All I want is a bang-flop action. A .24 caliber bullet in the right place mashes the pump station as a fast-moving .30 cal so getting hung up on a deer rifle vs a pronghorn or elk rifle isn’t an issue. Use what you shoot well and shot placement matters so practice practice practice.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Many years ago a good friend of mine (he still is) tried to get me to stop using Hornady, Speer and Sierra bullets. Said I needed to shoot the new and improved premium bullets. They were better at this and greatly improved at that. Finally one day I had heard about all I wanted to hear about his premium bullets. Told him "last hunting season I shot 8 bullets and killed 8 deer so how am I going to improve on that?" Didn't hear anything else about premium bullets.

I have the opposite problem, hunting with people that don't want to shoot good bullets at bad hogs. So they find the cheapest stuff they can and then proclaim hogs to be super tough when they don't go down.

Seriously, it is a bit of an interesting pattern. Some folks will spend the time and effort properly zeroing their hunting rifles, but then will bring a rifle hog hunting with whatever ammo they could find loose in the truck box and be "ready to hunt," satisfied that it will be at least "minute of hog" and that is good enough.

 

[LoonWulf]

I have the opposite problem, hunting with people that don't want to shoot good bullets at bad hogs. So they find the cheapest stuff they can and then proclaim hogs to be super tough when they don't go down.

Seriously, it is a bit of an interesting pattern. Some folks will spend the time and effort properly zeroing their hunting rifles, but then will bring a rifle hog hunting with whatever ammo they could find loose in the truck box and be "ready to hunt," satisfied that it will be at least "minute of hog" and that is good enough.

Cause why waste the good stuff on that mangy, dirty, good fer nuffin hawg?

.....i tend to be pretty accepting when it comes to peoples opinions that differ from mine, but the "man its just a xyz, so gimme that cheap crap and if it runs off i dun care" gets my goat......


And to be clear im not talking about Winchester or Remington bargain ammo....i mean like....." i found it in the ashtray of uncle dickies 78 bronco...in 78"....or american eagle fmjs that im gunna dump into guts of some unlucky critter......yeah i know those guys...

 

[9x56MS]

I know some of those guys but I won't hunt with any of them.