Edward R Southgate
Component Hoarder Extraordiniare
I need enough juice to leave a good hole on both sides to let blood out and cold air in on soft tissue shots. On a shoulder shot I want to break both shoulders . I'm of the Keith school .
No matter where we hit em we need to allow for a bit of bad luck. Sometimes shit just happens. I prefer to have enough gun to overcome those eventualities.
With cast a 30-30 is the smallest I would want to hunt deer with. Shot a single buck with mine and the 165 RD bullet. No exit, bullet lodged in offside knee knuckle. Deer ran 25-50 yards before going down. MV was around 2000 fps and alloy was essentially WW+1% Sn. Never did recover the bullet. Solid chest shot at 30-40 yards.
To me a 35 Win or 35 Whelen is ideal with cast for deer. Plenty of bullet weight and diameter and decent downrange ballistics. Best 150 yard cast deer gun I own is a 375 H&H. A 265 gr cast at 2000 fps is mild on shoulder and shoots great. Plenty of punch down range too. That bullet is seen in our banner.
I'm with Brad, you need a little extra performance in case of mistakes. This is not a call for magnums or more velocity necessarily, but rather be sure your bullet will enter, do some damage, and reliably exit. Diameter has a lot to do with it... Elmer was not out of line asking for bigger rifles, but he stated that most could not handle them or shoot them well.
[/QUOTE
I think that's where a lot of shooters,( I won't call then "hunters" since most are not hunting at all, but rather shooting at game), are at today. I see it all the time up here when Bubba gets his new MAGNUM of whatever caliber. He takes 2 or 3 shots at a beer can at the sandpit and is so traumatized he will do almost anything to avoid shooting the rifle again...short of admitting he bought a mistake and seeking out something he can handle. No, it's not every shooter, but it's enough. They'd be a lot better off with an effective rifle they aren't scared of. Around here if your gun isn't a magnum of some sort your manhood and wisdom are called into question. And if it's an old standby like the 45/70, 32 Special, 7x57, 250 Savage, that just makes it worse! It's a pet peeve of mine, sorry for the rant.
Killed by my youngest son last week. Neck Shot x1 with Charter Bulldog and 245 gr Keith 429421 cast hard and 7.5 gr Unique. Broke the neck and off shoulder. He is in the stand 15 yds from the deer so the shot was roughly 20 yds. View attachment 2501
Chris,Nice going Ed, congratulations to your boy. Hopefully many more to come!