- Location
- Somewhere on the Hudson Bay Coast
If your barrel is longish, you can shoot lighter bullets at a relatively high velocity, but if your rifle has a barrel shorter than say 22" heavier bullets give up less velocity when fired through the shorter tube. The higher the muzzle velocity, the higher the impact velocity at any given range, and when the impact velocity exceeds 2500 fps or so, a bullet with stouter construction should be chosen to resist failures such as extruded cores and jacket separation. That said, 150 gr .30 caliber bullets loaded to 2700 fps have been killing game up to a ton in weight, in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and here in North America for 100 years. The rifles that spit out that .30 bullet out might have been chambered for the .30/06, the .303 Brit, or the 7.62X54R early in the 20th Century, and for the .308 50 years later. These days, with the advent of modern bullet technology, bullet weight is less important than bullet construction. If you're deer hunting, a relatively fragile bullet like a Sierra Game King, or Remington, or Winchester bulk bullets, will perform superbly. But if you need a bullet for use on heavy or dangerous game, TSXs, Partitions, or A-Frames are better choices, as penetration rather than rapid expansion is the critical criteria. If you just want a single bullet to use across a wide spectrum of big game uses, a Nosler AB or a Swift Scirocco comes to mind, but years ago my go to bullet for the .30/06 was the modest Hornady 165 gr BTSP, and from the standpoint of accuracy, out to 500, and terminal performance, this one never let me down.
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) Great for killing the animal behind yours. They rule the roost for animals that you want to die somewhere else, or collecting tracking stories or watching things die up close. They are a great bullet for animals that make a moose look small. For everything else I prefer to leave the lead in my bullets.
