Agreed. That CZ527 is an ideal woods rifle.
I think most folks have been convinced that if 1000 ft. lbs. at 300 yards is good, then 1500 must be better. I also think most folks like to believe they are marksmen who can be accurate with their rifles beyond 300 or even 400 yards, so they look at those ballistics tables all the way out to the Right side.
In reality, most deer are killed inside 200 yards and probably the vast majority inside 100 yards. This is why we keep seeing exploded shoulders and bone fragments from lightweight bullets traveling 2800 fps at impact. It's also, I believe, why most hunters don't shoot more than they do. This is particularly true with today's budget rifles that are considerably lighter than their wood-stocked predecessors. We all know that even a .243 in a 7 lb. rifle kicks like a 9 lb. '06. Just imagine how much someone will want to shoot their shiny new Ruger American in 30-06. Probably not that much. Few, if any will buy 4, 5 or 6 brands of ammo and really test it until they find the most accurate one.
Not only are the rifle manufacturers missing the boat here, I think ammo manufacturers are too. If a person is able to realize 1000 ft. lbs. at 300 yards is all the deer rifle they will ever need, and they start shooting lighter rifles in calibers where recoil is not an issue, they will shoot them more.
I haven't spent the kind of time behind a rifle that many here have, being primarily a bowhunter for the past 35 years, but once I really began to examine the numbers and put the rifle on the bench at 300 yards, this pattern became very apparent to me.
The "holy grail" of accuracy for the typical deer hunter is 1 MOA, meaning most folks are NOT shooting that well but rather are pursuing that level of accuracy. So by deduction (and observation of many shooters at the range), that means the majority of deer hunters are satisfied with 1.5-2" groups at 100 yards, off a good rest. Those groups enlarge to 6-8" at 300 yards (if they can even see that well) and how many deer hunters have as solid a rest where they are hunting as they do at the gun range? Very few.
Add to this the fact that MOST deer hunters are shooting factory ammo that honestly isn't capable of much better than 1.5" at 100 yards or 6" at 300 anyway, and what you soon realize is that the majority of deer hunters can't realistically make a clean shot beyond about 200 yards. At 300, even if they do make a decent shot, most can't tell exactly where the animal was standing to be able to start tracking it - esp. in the woods.
So why have American hunters been sold this notion they need 500+ yard deer rifles? I have no idea. It's just not based in reality.
And before any other sensitive soul takes offense to these ideas, I fully realize that there are exceptional riflemen to whom these "rules of thumb" just don't apply. If you feel offended by anything I wrote above, it's probably because you are one of the exceptions and not the rule.
