Big and slow VS Small and fast = Knockdown Power

I'm not big and slow; the opposite actually. But I'd rather shoot big and slow; horns make thin soup, and throwing the bloodshot jellied meat from around the wound to the cats just seems wasteful.
And 30 + years of working Oil rigs has damaged my hearing enough, the fast movers are too sharp and loud. Big Ole 375 doesn't leave them ringing.
Someday I'll be too old to carry the heavy rifle...but I ain't there yet. :)
 
The unpredictability of a deflection is extremely predictable, you simply cannot, it isn't a snooker table.

Have a clear shot at an animals vitals , use whatever is legal and practical and you will have supper.

A brush gun , is a gun that HANDLES and CARRIES comfortable in the brush, if you want to brush bust , use a Stihl.

Back to doglegs post , quite simply , it is as simply put as one can get.
 
When guys quote some of the old time gun writers, they often pick a few lines that they like and ignore the rest. Taylor was known for his KO factor, but that was never meant to apply to anything other than head shooting elephants and missing the brain. People tend to forget that he was enormously impressed by the 300 H&H with light frangible bullets, and firmly believed that bullets that stayed in killed faster. Consider too, that a shot over 200 yards may as well have been on the other side of the moon for him.

Keith is trotted out by the slow and heavy crowd, but he spent much of his life making those bullets go faster, not slower.
 
theshootist said:
Why not use something in the middle, between the two camps? I know it isn't fancy, but the boring 308 can do a heck of a lot.
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They all fall somewhere on the "X/Y" axis... 99.9% of the time there is something lighter/faster and heavier/slower...

In .30 cal and down, I prefer mid-weight for cal bullets, but the larger the bore the heavier I go on a ratio of "weight to bore diameter."
 
Use what you got handy
A 22 LR will work on everything in north America it's all about distance and shot placement .
What's more important is a lightweight rifle gets more use then a heavy one
My preference is lightweight short-barreled Rifles but I hunt mostly in thick bush and clear cuts I don't think I have shoot anything past 200 yards
 
There must be some reason that when you start hunting in grizz country you migrate to the slow and heavy side of the gun rack.
When it needs to go down now I head north of the .30's.
If hunting under and up to 300yd shots, not much merit to fast and light except more damaged meat.
 
effective at killing big game ? well, what are the average calibers that the majority of hunters use to take big game ?.. from what i see the fancy pantsy 6 dollar a shot, heavy magnums are very rare .. as are the small oddball fast calibers

the majority must be using something effective ... otherwise they wouldn't


brush busting to me ... is a short barrel rifle with iron sights
 
Dogleg said:
Use small, light, fast and soft bullets on small, light, fast and soft animals.

Use big, heavy, slow and hard bullets on big, heavy, slow and hard animals.
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Pretty much sig line worthy.......what book did you read that in? lol

The entire big slow vs small fast.....which deflects least in the bush>>>>>am i missing something here>>>>>>i shoot the animal and not branches.

Both sides have merit, but these types of extremes are not seen today. Only a few of the black powder designated calibers survive. More importantly one should match the impact velocity/bullet toughness/game animal. One simply does not need a premium bullet and anything headstamped with magnum in the name for a area with short shots and small whitetail.

The so called long range bullets may disintegrate if hitting major bone, resulting in shallow wide wounds, if impact is at close range and hyper velocity. On the flip side, a tough bullet at long range may lack the velocity to open properly resulting in pencil wounding and animals running off with a fatal wound and not being recovered.

Simply ask yourself, what animal and distance would cover 90+% of your hunting in a area. I recently moved to a area with little blacktail and large black bear. In the interior, i have had some hair raising encounters with Grizzlie. Moose is mostly LEH draw, so for the game animals a 243 would work, but for something that wants to eat you, only a caliber you can walk down with a cowboy hat seems large enough.

My south province gun is a 30-06, my favorite caliber is 338 wm, and for the North Peace, my 375 Rum.
 
This whole thread is nothing but conjecture without any scientific basis. The only true statement is that it is impossible to predict what any given bullet will do when encountering an object which lies in front of the target. There are too many variables to overcome, to even attempt a scientific approach..........So this, and every thread like it, comes down to each person's preference of cartridge and caliber for the type of hunting they do. There is no verifiable advantage to either end of the scale when attempting to shoot through a screen of limbs and leaves, sometimes one gets lucky and sometimes they don't, that is all it comes down to.........High velocity, with a properly constructed bullet, has no disadvantages as such, whereas low velocity and heavy for caliber bullets limit one's maximum effective range.
This is precisely why in my sojourn to Haida Gwaii last fall I took my 300 WSM ultra light and weather proof rifle. One because I had heard that the islands have huge and quite aggressive black bears and Two because shots can come anywhere from a few feet in the rain forest to 400 mtrs in the clear cuts, and Three because the weather there can be notoriously wet and ugly.
I base my firearm and cartridge choice on several factors when I decide to go hunting, but their respective ability to shoot through trees and limbs and leaves just isn't part of the equation. Unless of course it is heavy dangerous game in Africa or foot hunting coastal grizzly in the rain forest, and then it's a "no brainer".......it WILL be my .470 NE double.
 
Accuracy beats out velocity & mass & a Taylor knockout value every time. If you can't hit shate because the recoil is too harsh or you can't figure the trajectory of that 400 gr. softball you just launched; your using the wrong rifle. Jack & Elmer sold a lot of rags about this crap & I don't think they we're ever really interested in solving the debate...

Bullet construction with relation to velocity & game intended to be used on is more the factor than "speed versus weight".
 
When it comes to the calibre debates, I've read everything I can get my hands on from Elmer Keith and Jack O'Connor. What I have determined is that I like Keith's stories better and O'Connor's journalistic musings are best read on the crapper.

As far as real world advice, I'm going to listen to c-fbmi.
 
There's probably more merit trying to figure if a good shot is taken when the animal inhales or exhales... Has had a fresh dump or just is saving it for a hunter to mess with...
 
redruns said:
When it comes to the calibre debates, I've read everything I can get my hands on from Elmer Keith and Jack O'Connor. What I have determined is that I like Keith's stories better and O'Connor's journalistic musings are best read on the crapper.

As far as real world advice, I'm going to listen to c-fbmi.
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This isn't necessarily a caliber debate... for any given caliber one can shoot a fairly wide range of bullet weights... with the lightest bullets you are shooting significantly faster than with the heaviest bulley weights. In .30 cal you can shoot from 100 grain to 225 gr and more... this argument holds more credibility when comparing different weight loads out of the same rifle.
 
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