hunting caliber recommendations

pothier33

pothier33

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Location
Ottawa
situation: I'm moving to San Diego for work next summer, going to be there for 3-4 years.

my main hunting focus here in Ontario has been deer with one lucky year going for elk around Bancroft. So while most of my gear is setup for wooded deer hunting, like all the rest of your gunnuts, i own enough different calibers to hunt western but intend to leave a few behind for when i return and/or if i find time to fly back for a November Ontario deer hunt.

without tipping my hand as to what i own, if you were moving to California, and had access to hunting in the south western states ( id say as far north as Colorado and as east as Texas), what would you bring for 1-2 guns and what species would you look to hunt.

cheers
 
Bergmann’s rule.

Whatever you’ve been using up here should be fine for down there. Personally, if I were moving to San Diego, I’d be looking more towards 45acp… ;-)
 
I think like others said what you have is most likely good enough for down there! But I think I would go with 280AI just cause I heard great things about the caliber!! I would also bring a 20gauge for birds!
 
If the plan was to mainly hunt California, then I'd buy something that can sling "light to mid-weight for caliber" bullets at high speeds. Being stuck with non-lead projectiles, I'd like to make sure to keep the speeds up out to the 300ish yard range to ensure maximum penetration and expansion. A 7mm Remington Magnum in whatever flavour of rifle fits you best, shooting 140ish grain bullets would likely cover most situations you run into not only in California but in neighboring states as well.
 
Regular game and cartridge/caliber combinations from varmints to elk, plus exotics such as audad and gemsbok (New Mexico), fallow deer, axis deer, mouflon and blackbuck (Texas), plus shotgun(s) for waterfowl and gamebirds.
Take your favourites, or use this as your reason for a new battery to have in the States.
 
I would buy one down there in whatever caliber you can find ammo for locally. 6.5PRC / Creed something along those lines.
 
pothier33 said:
...
if you were moving to California, and had access to hunting in the south western states ( id say as far north as Colorado and as east as Texas), what would you bring for 1-2 guns and what species would you look to hunt.

cheers
Click to expand...

Might be helpful if we knew what species and type of country you like to hunt. Do you like to walk? Open country? High country?
 
iron cat said:
I would buy a rifle once I got down there ...
Click to expand...

Cat's got it here.

But as for the chambering, as always I have to ask the OP the question: "Why wouldn't you use a 30-06?"

Not the rest of you guys, I know you've got a bazillion reasons. But the OP's answer will help us give him better recommendations.
 
Great discussions for sure.

I have up here the normal stable filled with 243/30-30/35 rem/308/7mmRM.

I would imagine most hunting scenarios down there will be spot and stock ( which is fine). I'm thinking I'll primarily want to take advantage of the easy hunts like Hogs, and try and find better hunts like mule deer, elk and there's something about pronghorn that's very appealing to me.

I'm not sure how easy it will be for me to purchase a firearm when living down there, and honestly haven't looked ahead yet as to how hard it will be to bring mine into the US. I guess that's why I'm not looking at bringing everything, just a couple. I don't really small game or upland bird around here, so i don't see myself doing it there either.
 
Deer and elk in the west drop to the same cartridges used in the east. Be sure to dig into county and state laws as some locations may have quirky regulations regarding the type of action, calibre, and cartridge.
 
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