444shooter said:
The great old 30/06 is all you will ever need. Just look at the one of the greatest moose masher of all time in Canada... the .303 British. More moose have been killed with this caliber than any other. And it is inferior to the 30/06 on paper!
Magnums are not really needed anywhere in Canada. Most standard calibers will do the job perfectly well, with less fuss and alot less powder and recoil.
Don't get all caught up with paper ballistics. Dead is dead
True, the 30/06 is all you'll ever need - which doesn't explain why I have three of them when I can only shoot one at a time.
Of course, the old .32 Special is all you'll ever need as well, given the range most moose are shot at. Pete Lum shot one or two moose a year with his rusty old .32 Special until he was a little over 90 years old. You wouldn't have had much luck telling Pete he needed more than a .32 Special... So let's just say Pete has proven that a .32 Special is all we'll ever need.
But wait! A .50 caliber muzzlestuffer is dirt cheap and will drop any moose that ever walked with a round ball if you put the ball in the same place you want to put that 30/06 bullet. So now we can tell people the ubiquitous .50 caliber muzzleloader with the plain old round ball is all they ever need.
Whoa! Hold on... there's archers every year that drop their moose with a bow with a 50 lb draw weight. The floor for "all we'll ever need" is now down to using a bow - no 30/06 or any other kind of rifle required; no PAL, no registration, etc.
What it comes down to, of course, is that whatever is "good enough for the job" is not necessarily what is better, or best, or what fits our hunting style, or gives us some wiggle room if things go Delta Sierra for some reason or other.
I haven't shot nearly as many moose as I have elk, so I can't lay claim to having tipped over dozens of them. But I've shot them with 30/06's and I've shot them with .358 Norma Magnums. They DO tip over faster when whacked by a high speed 250 grainer, even if "dead is dead". I like that - if it means they don't go quite far enough to die in the middle of a half frozen swamp, then I think I win. And bigger rifles are more comforting when you know there are probably grumbly bears snooping around in the area as well.
I mean, if you could see you were about to have bear trouble over a kill and one guy was offering you a 30/06 and the other was offering you a .358 Norma Magnum or similar caliber... which one would YOU take?
Would you say "No thank you, Magnums are not needed in Canada - I'd prefer the 30/06 please..."????
You might; I wouldn't.
Still, if you want more without going the "magnum" route, you can make expansion ratio work for you. The earlier mentioned .35 Whelan will do that for you, but perhaps the .358 Winchester is an even better example.
Depending on the powder, load, etc, somewhere between 57 and 60 grains of powder will get a 180 grain bullet going 2800 fps (or very close to that) in a 30/06.
In the .358 Winchester, 45 grains of several powders will launch a 180 grain bullet at somewhere around 2850 fps. Again, it depends on the rifle, but you're getting about an extra 50 fps (if that's important to you) with. More importantly, you're doing it with a lot less powder...
... meaning, a lot less recoil. Positively mild recoil.
The 300 Winchester will give you another 150 - 200 fps over the .358 of course - it just needs to consume 30 more grains of powder to do it. Teensy bit more recoil...
Of course, you can go with heavier bullets if moose is your game, or perhaps you want to play Dances With Bears In The Alders.
48 - 50 grains of powder will get you around 2575 fps using a 225 grain bullet in the .358.
55 - 56 grains of powder will give you about 2400 fps using a 220 grain bullet in the 30/06. More powder being burned; nearly 200 fps less velocity.
The .300 Winny will outperform the .358 with the heavies, of course. You can get around 2775 fps using a 220 grain bullet and 70 grains of a couple of different powders. The only thing is that extra 200 fps is going to require you to burn an extra 20 grains of powder - about 40% more powder than the .358 would be using, not to mention significantly more recoil.
Incidentally, just for giggles... the .35 Whelan will get around 2700 fps with a 225 grain bullet, and only require about 55 - 60 grains of powder to do it. So... at least 10 grains less powder being burned, only about 75 fps slower, and a slightly heavier bullet.
Once again, all the above are approximate. Results can vary due to individual rifles, powder and charge used, what the rifle likes, etc.
But the bottom line is, you CAN often get significantly improved results by going to a larger bore rifle. Whether that improvement is more speed or same speed with much less recoil, the facts are that expansion ratio is often your friend.
Having said all of that, I'd recommend a nice little .35 caliber rifle for anyone wanting to step up a little bit above the 30/06. Economical. Less recoil. As good or better performance with the mentioned bullet weights over the 30/06.
Or... you could just go and buy a bow...
