"Best caliber for (you fill in the blank)" arguments go on endlessly here in America and I'm amused to see they go on in the UK as well. As a person who has hunted all my life, and I'm not that young, perhaps I might be allowed a few random observations.
Some calibers preform better than the ballistic charts, would indicate. But, by all means check out the ballistics of anything you are looking at purchasing.
Observations on some of the calibers mentioned:
.22-250 Remington -- I have a friend in Arkansas that makes a clean kill every year on a deer with one. I own one myself, but consider it marginal, at best, for deer.
.257 Roberts -- Hard to find, even here, yet this is, in my opinion, one of the best deer cartridges ever. Light recoil, hard hitting, fairly good ballistics, great on deer.
.308 -- Was designed to replace the 30-06. Ballistically about the same as a 30-06, but inherently more accurate. One of the best "all-round" cartridges out there. Perhaps more than one needs for smaller deer.
6.5X55 -- great cartridge, fairly light recoil, inherently accurate. 6.5 cartridges penetrate better than most, due to the extremely long bullet compared to bullet diameter. Wonderful deer cartridge.
.270 -- The biggest argument around hunting campfires in America is which is best, the .270 or the 30-06? Never been settled yet. Never will be. I personally prefer it over a .30-06. It will not only kill everything in the UK, as stated above, it will kill everything in North America as well, although I certainly would not recommend it for the larger bears, such as the Grizzly. There are better cartridges out there for that.
Lastly, remember that by handloading, and careful choice of bullets and bullet weights, any calibers can be loaded up or down to suit the situation. A .308, for example can be loaded with a lighter bullet and a lower powder charge and take deer easily with little meat damage. Bullets vary greatly. Buy the best bullet that you can. Know why you are buying that particular bullet.
If you are new to hunting, here is one of the best pieces of advice anyone ever gave me: Put up a standard sized paper plate on a target backstop. Get out about 50 meters and fire 3 shots at it. If you hit it, (all three time!) back up another 50 meters and repeat. Continue to do this until you miss. Subtract 50 meters and whatever distance you come up with is YOUR maximum shooting distance. (A paper plate is approximately the same diameter as the kill zone of a deer.) If you can't keep all three bullets in that plate, you shouldn't take that shot on a deer. If you do this with a scoped rifle don't think you can duplicate it with open sights.
Happy hunting!
) and that this topic was only a small part of what interests most members. That comment was made since this was his second thread in that vein and he appeared to be under the impression that hunting was a major focus for the forum.
