Masculinity and Caliber Choice

mxgsfmdpx

WKR
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Oct 22, 2019
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Both shots broadside hit the shoulder and fragmented stopping under the shoulder with only a few fragments going into the rib cage. I had no signs of the bullets traveling through into the other shoulder.

As for ft-lbs I want enough to put shit down. There are to many variables to know how many it takes to get through the mighty elk shoulder. My preference is 1500lb.
This is absolute nonsense. Either illy misinformed or trolling
 

Maverick1

WKR
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Jun 1, 2013
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How many ft-lbs of energy at impact do you need to get through the mighty elk shoulder? Please be specific.
I have gone through an elk shoulder with 82 ft-lbs of energy before. A couple of times, actually. Probably a little different than what he was talking about, so I’ll let @MCS stick with his answer of 1500 ft-lbs if he chooses. Apparently my 82 isn’t enough, even though it was, is, and will continue to be sufficient for my needs. LOL.
 
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Awww man… now I want quiche. The bacon, the mushrooms, the cheese, the sausage!!! Shit…. I just drooled all over my t-shirt.
 

jimh406

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Feb 6, 2022
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Western MT
I have no idea how many hunters you talk to, but unless you tell someone, nobody is going to know your caliber choice. Even popular forums like this one represent a tiny percentage of the hunters.

As far as coolness as masculinity goes, this forum seems to be leaning more toward small calibers for coolness and masculinity. That could be there are more enlightened people here or simply people are making excuses for not being able to shoot more powerful calibers.

That being said, don’t use a caliber larger than you can shoot accurately. I don’t care if you are masculine or not. Missing faster with a larger bullet is never a good idea.
 
Joined
Jan 5, 2022
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I have no idea how many hunters you talk to, but unless you tell someone, nobody is going to know your caliber choice. Even popular forums like this one represent a tiny percentage of the hunters.

As far as coolness as masculinity goes, this forum seems to be leaning more toward small calibers for coolness and masculinity. That could be there are more enlightened people here or simply people are making excuses for not being able to shoot more powerful calibers.

That being said, don’t use a caliber larger than you can shoot accurately. I don’t care if you are masculine or not. Missing faster with a larger bullet is never a good

Calibers, bullets, rifles, scopes, shot placement, etc seems to dominate a lot of the hunting camp conversations I've been around. Likewise, when hunting with a group, there's a lot of assisting with game retrieval, wherein bullet performance can be examined first hand.

When hunting public ground, I get into a lot of conversations with guys about what they're using.
 

taskswap

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Oct 6, 2021
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I have no idea how many hunters you talk to, but unless you tell someone, nobody is going to know your caliber choice. Even popular forums like this one represent a tiny percentage of the hunters.
You ever met a hunter who didn't tell you his caliber without asking? Just in the course of campfire talk? :)

My dad was an airline pilot and had a joke about that. "At a party, how do you know you're talking to an airline pilot?" "Don't worry, he'll tell you."

I think hunters are the same. :D
 

LCV

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Mar 28, 2023
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SC
there’s no brain surgery required to see a 270 kills better than a 243, or a 300 mag kills better than a 270.
You sure? Cause I haven’t seen it. And SCDNR couldn’t see it when they studied it.

“During this study there were in excess of 20 different center-fire cartridges used to harvest deer. To reduce variability the various cartridges were group by their respective caliber. This resulted in the delineation of 5 caliber groups; .243 cal., .25 cal., .270 cal., .284 cal., and .30 cal.

In order to gain some objective measure of how these calibers performed on deer, we looked at the distance deer traveled. This included all animals regardless of whether they died in their tracks or ran. We found no significant difference in the performance of these caliber groups when comparing how deer reacted. Mean distances deer traveled varied between 14 and 40 yards but there was no apparent relationship with increasing or decreasing caliber size or the inherent differences in velocity or energy that is related to the different caliber groups.”
 

wyosam

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Because people latch onto whatever is cool in their mind. For some that means a 338 Lapua is the only thing capable of killing cous deer reliably. For others, anything more than a 223 for coastal brown bear is unnecessary recoil and a sure sign of a fudd. People like to justify their choice, whatever it may be through “effectiveness”. Look at cartridge threads in general- people obsess over minute changes and how they are a huge deal. I’d rather be honest and just say my cartridge choices are based on my desire to tinker and experiment. I’ve also learned the recoil level where I can consistently shoot effectively from field positions in a rifle I want to carry in the field. That helps a lot with cartridge choices.


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Joined
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So anyway…
Anybody else like simple quiche Lorraine’s, just eggs with bacon and cheese? Or is this more of a “throw a bunch of stuff in there as long as it’s not spinach” crowd? I feel like too many extras makes it watery.
 

180ls1

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Apr 19, 2020
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You sure? Cause I haven’t seen it. And SCDNR couldn’t see it when they studied it.

“During this study there were in excess of 20 different center-fire cartridges used to harvest deer. To reduce variability the various cartridges were group by their respective caliber. This resulted in the delineation of 5 caliber groups; .243 cal., .25 cal., .270 cal., .284 cal., and .30 cal.

In order to gain some objective measure of how these calibers performed on deer, we looked at the distance deer traveled. This included all animals regardless of whether they died in their tracks or ran. We found no significant difference in the performance of these caliber groups when comparing how deer reacted. Mean distances deer traveled varied between 14 and 40 yards but there was no apparent relationship with increasing or decreasing caliber size or the inherent differences in velocity or energy that is related to the different caliber groups.”



Interesting. I saw a study where larger calibers correlated to less distance traveled.
 
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Lyon County, NV
You sure? Cause I haven’t seen it. And SCDNR couldn’t see it when they studied it.

“During this study there were in excess of 20 different center-fire cartridges used to harvest deer. To reduce variability the various cartridges were group by their respective caliber. This resulted in the delineation of 5 caliber groups; .243 cal., .25 cal., .270 cal., .284 cal., and .30 cal.

In order to gain some objective measure of how these calibers performed on deer, we looked at the distance deer traveled. This included all animals regardless of whether they died in their tracks or ran. We found no significant difference in the performance of these caliber groups when comparing how deer reacted. Mean distances deer traveled varied between 14 and 40 yards but there was no apparent relationship with increasing or decreasing caliber size or the inherent differences in velocity or energy that is related to the different caliber groups.”



Painful truth for ballistics nerds: there's vanishingly little difference in performance between centerfire rifle cartridges below 300 yards. Most have to get beyond 400 for the meaningful differences to emerge.

Painful truth for gun nerds: Almost nobody with a deer tag is competent to shoot 10 for 10 in random, realistic field conditions beyond 300-400 yards with their deer rifle.

So, given that South Carolina rarely sees deer hunting shots beyond 300 yards, the quote above from SCDNR's data makes sense.

But I'd be much more interested in caliber and cartridge conversations if they went from this black-and-white "Doesn't work!"/"DOES WORK" tribalism to...

...what are the limitations of each?

If small calibers work so well, what's the lower limit on bullet quality for .223 to be viable out to 300yds? 62gr Fusion? 60gr V-Max? 40gr HPBT? What are the limits of this approach?

At what point or conditions does .223 77gr TMK start being less advisable than a heavier TMK out of a .243 or 6mm Creedmoor?

What's the starting point for a magnum to be more viable? None at all? I don't buy that. But you also don't need one for forest whitetails. But where do they start to shine?
 
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