All purpose hunting thread

I am...sometimes. Although not lately.

Have two hunts coming up. A deer/hog hunt in a couple weeks and a deer hunt in the beginning of January. Can't wait.

Few pics

Yeah, he's nice. My only buck, the other few were all does like that one at the bottom.

It's in .270 Win. It's a toss up on whether that or the coyote rifle is the most accurate centerfire rifle I own.

As far as hunting goes between those 3 I feel that the differences in terminal ballistics would much of the time be vastly over-stated.

For a single do-it-all type hunting rifle that would double as a high powered informal target shooter I'd probably pick the 30-06 just based on grain weight if moose and brown bear were involved.

There's a large array of grain weights and power levels available for all three :
• With the .308 Win it's 100 gr. to 200 gr.
• With 30-06 it's 110 gr. to 220.
• With the .270 Win it's 90 gr. to 180 grains.

However outside of hand loading for the .270 Win it's mostly 120 gr to 150 gr for factory ammo. That's just what's usually on the shelves, I don't know if you do much hand loading.

So I'd give a slight edge to the 30-06 over the other two on grain weight and FPE. Will it probably make that much difference? No, probably not, but if you shoot the 3 equally well under stress might as well take that tiny advantage.

For a general purpose do-it-all rifle who's purpose for existing ranges from target shooting, to hunting coyotes, white tails and hog to brown bear and moose I'd probably choose the 30-06. For more of a target gun that occasionally gets pressed into service on hunts I'd probably pick the .308 Win just based on factory match grade ammo availability. For a flat shooting beanfield/plains/open field rifle mostly meant for white tails, the occasional hog, antelope, a little bit of varmint and a rare moose or bear hunt I'd probably choose .270 Win.

Jack O'Conner wandered all over North America with a .270 Win killing every species of animal that exists, so it's not like it can't be done. I suspect that's the reason the .270 Win is included as the minimum caliber for brown bear.

All three are capable calibers and I'd more focus on choosing one out of the three by looking at grain weights, ammo prices, seeing which of the lot you personally shoot the best, availability of factory match grade ammo if it's more going to be a target rifle with the occasional hunt rather than a hunting rifle with the occasional target and so on.

How come you ruled out .308 Win?

Due to the ammo selection for a bolt that's a hard caliber to beat.

For pure ballistics I've always liked 6.5, 6.8 (.277) and 7mm. My father built me a small ring Mauser in .257 Roberts, loved that gun. Many of the calibers in that range are awesome. .257 Roberts, 6.5 Swede, .260 Rem, .270 Win, 7mm-08, .280 Rem and 7x57 Mauser.

Sadly not one of them is as popular as the .308 Win or has the same ammo selection

For some reason I always went with .308's if they were going to be more target guns. I guess it was because of the ready availability of match grade ammo I guess. Hunting ammo prices aren't any different really between .308, .270 and 30-06.

I have a thing for slightly oddball cartridges. 6.8 SPC and 10mm's the oddest I have right now though. I've tried for the longest time to more stick with the common calibers. Most of the opportunities I got to shoot some unusual guns was growing up. My dad had a real thing for unusual cartridges. .257 Roberts Ackley Improved and. .30 Herret were two of his favorites.

In the late 70's and 80's he used to have to do some weird shit to fire form cases. Back then he used to fire form cases for the .257 Roberts AI he had by using a fast burning pistol powder, 10% of capacity, wadding it with toilet paper and using the rest filled with creme of wheat and then loading it in their rifles and blowing the case out to accept an even larger case capacity (reloading it for real) and getting more velocity out of the increased case capacity. There used to be a whole subculture of shooters fire-forming Ackley Improved calibers. The loads he made were like lasers and twice as accurate though. Last antelope he took in '87 was with that .257 Roberts AI.

Most of the oddball stuff and wide spectrum of calibers I shot was cause of him.

Back then the ideas were passed around in gun clubs/shooting groups and books and reloading pamphlets. There's still Ackley Improved reloading pamplets being sold even now.

People still bounced ideas off each other, it was just generally in person or in the written word with personal letters, pamplets and books.

If anything it was safer. Back then 'Fred' at the shooting club was unlikely to give 'Bob' (a new reloader) dangerous max load data or advocate a dangerous practice as if Bob blew up his rifle then everyone would know Fred was an asshole to be avoided.
Now the net is mostly anonymous so people talk about doing all kinds of screwy stuff that they might not urge someone to do if they knew that person for real. So yeah, lots of info now at the click of a keystroke but someone new to a certain area has to filter much of that.

I'll shut up now as this thread's supposed to be about hunting and I'm talking about the reloading practices of yesteryear.


Worth a look. :Shrug

I've found that locating and buying loaded match .308 Win ammo is the easiest/least expensive out of the ones you listed. If you're going to reload and roll your own disregard everything I said above though. It'll make less of a difference.