I've been following and reading along and I think the entire point of this discussion has been lost or missed or assimilated into other issues. Where does it say that to be THE ultimate NA cartridge that it has to be readily available in the corner market. What does availability have to do with ballistics? If one had to select only one cartridge I think it would be a given that one must handload that cartridge to cover all the potential different venues that NA hunting can throw at you. I don't believe any cartridge qualifies with the restriction of available factory ammo. This is just a red herring thrown in by the 30-06 crew to support their unsupportable position. Yes I agree all NA game could be and has been hunted with a 30-06, that just means that it's cheap and popular, not necessarily the best tool for the job. The 30-06 is the "crescent wrench" of the hunting rifle world, it'll do in a pinch but not the best at anything.
This is why I put forward my recommendation earlier of the 340 Wby and I have used one extensively, I think any time we have included dangerous game such as the big bears and bison it immediately assumes we must jump up to a medium bore. This just gives you a greater chance of survival if everything goes for sh!t and you find yourself blood trailing a big old coastal bear through the devils club and alders of the rain forest. I'd personally feel a whole lot better with a 340 in my hands with 275 gn Swifts or Woodleighs in the tube. Now I have probably hunted as much as anyone on this forum and I don't know how so many experienced hunters can keep on saying "you just gotta put the bullet in the right place" ya, well no sh!t, but I can tell you that bullet doesn't always go where it was intended and it doesn't always hit the right place for many different reasons. This my friends is where the 270, 308 and 30-06 versatility falls apart, and I'm going to burst an old myth right now that has persisted in the hunting world for decades, and it is just pure BS. It has been said many times that bigger calibers don't make up for poorly placed shots and an animal gut shot with a 300 RUM won't die any faster than one gut shot with a 243 or 308..........Well gentlemen this is utter horse sh!t and I speak from a fairly high experience base. An animal smashed in the hind end with a 340 and a 250 Part does not react the same as if hit there with a 130 gn 270. I have ripped animals right out of their tracks with an ass on shot with the 340 and I would never even attempted the same shot with a 308, 270 or 30-06. There is also an underlying premise here that needs to be part of this consideration, if one is hunting the NA29 then one is obviously trophy hunting and this changes everything in the way one hunts. Shots are taken that meat hunters wouldn't attempt or would turn down to save more meat, not so with trophy hunting, and so calibers and cartridges are different if one wishes to have a greater level of success.
Another consideration that I would like to address is that of recoil, and say here and now, that if a hunter isn't willing to put in the time and effort to desensitize oneself to a certain level of recoil then maybe they have no right going after animals that prudence says the appropriate cartridges and calibers for that animal has that much recoil. As we all know such things are legislated in many African countries and the bottom line is if you find the minimum caliber to have too much recoil then "tough noogies" you don't get to hunt those animals, it's just that simple. Possibly the same restrictions should apply to the biggest and ugliest of the NA29 as well, and do in the case of bison in some jurisdictions. Recoil is something that anyone can deal with unless there is an injury or other reason that one physically cannot overcome, then there are devices such as muzzle breaks and recoil reducers which are very effective and will allow an injured or physically challenged person to still use an appropriate cartridge for the job at hand.
Although Ardent didn't see fit to include it in the initial poll (everybody forgets the Weatherby cartridges) I believe he would tend to agree that the 340, 338 RUM and even the 338 WM to a lesser degree are pretty tough to beat as a "one gun, do it all" choice. I think the 8mm RM falls short due to lack of bullet weight (and it also happens to be obsolete) and it really does nothing one can't do with a 300 Mag of one form or another. The 358 NM is another wonderful cartridge that shines in this light, and I would feel very, very confident hunting anything NA can throw at me with the 358 NM and my own properly assembled handloads, from sheep, goats and antelope to the big bears and bison the old girl would shine brightly.
Then we come to the .375 bore cartridges that need no more praise here. They of course can do it all with great aplomb and with the new lighter and more ballistically shaped bullets even the sheep, goat and antelope hunters shouldn't feel handicapped in the least.
I personally believe the list should start with the 300 WM and go up from there in power levels, and nothing below the level of the 300 should even be considered as an all around cartridge for every big game animal NA has to offer. JMHO and YMMV
