I don’t tend to pay much attention to efficency in powder consumption. Nothing wrong with it, it just seems not important. Like talking gas mileage at a car show.
The smaller cartridge with fragmenting “optimized” bullet works within its limitations, while the larger cartridge works with any run of the mill bullet resting on the shelves of every gun or hardware store. As a 12 year old I bought a cheap 270, topped it with cheap scope mounts and a cheap scope, shooting cheap factory ammo and killed everything with it out to 400 yards quite well. It just works and has for over 100 years, which is why it’s so popular.
More bullet damage photos have been circulated by small caliber guys trying to convince each other, than have ever been seen on computer screens. Fragmenting bullets do kill things and bloodshot a lot of meat in the process. That’s been true since the 22 Savage High Power came out. Nothing new about that, but it’s a conscious choice many meat hunters make to avoid it. I’ve hunted with a family where kids were specifically barred from using your “optimized” bullets because the parents were tired of throwing bloodshot meat away.
The fear mongering from small caliber proponents is strong - it gets repeated over and over that nobody can shoot anything larger than a 270 accurately, yet I see pre teens, teenagers, girls, and old lady’s shoot quite well. If you want to be a Tacticool shooter and free recoil shots, refuse to have separate training and hunting rifles, force yourself to train with a hunting cartridge, don’t want to spend even a minute learning to manage recoil, then yes that type of person needs to stick with a marginal small gun regardless of what’s a better hunting cartridge.
It all seemed like common sense to teenage me just watching animals get smacked and none of the experiences or information shared online since has changed my view on any of it.
Not everything has to be optimized so shoot what makes you happy. Having grown up with multiple rifles of all sizes, amazing elk hunting within a hour in one direction, deer an hour in another, antelope an hour east, huge prairie dog towns a hour north, coyotes everywhere, a free 450 yard range 5 minutes down the road, a community that essentially shuts down for the opening of hunting season, I feel bad for the one gun hunter who rarely gets field experience. It’s a myth that large cartridge fans only know large cartridges. We grow up with all sorts of guns and almost everyone I know started out taking their first game with a 243 and with actual real world experience tried different combinations friends had and moved up in size. We also shoot all sorts of quirky things because they are fun. Long range pistols, big revolvers, muzzleloaders, old obsolete guns, elephant guns, varmint guns - stay within their limitations and pick your shots carefully. My 243 has killed an elk hanging out by hay stacks, just as 100s of 243s have on ranches all over. Pops and his friends killed everything in Alaska except musk ox and polar bear with head shots from a .17 Remington when it came out in the 1970s because the challenge was fun. Plenty of guys shoot long range because it’s fun. Shoot small calibers if they are fun, but don’t blow smoke that they are just as deadly with just as few limitations as larger cartridges.
