What caused the Rokslide shift to smallest caliber and cartridges?

[Slick8]

Inside 500 yards if you're shooting for $, which of those rifles do you have best odds of hitting closest to your POA?

It's close but I'll go with the 7 SAUM mainly because I've been shooting it the longest and have lots of consistent data. I'll likely be there with the other two but the creed is a step behind in scope quality so would likely remain my 3rd option.

I'm still tinkering with the 30-28 but will be there soon.

 

[BjornF16]

What part of "and this applies to any cartridge/bullet combination" did you miss? Or did you take that as meaning only non-magnums?

P.S. I've never hunted with a magnum and all but one game animal has been killed with a cartridge with less recoil than the 6UM (That cartridge looks like it performs amazingly).

I missed that nuance given the opener on “small caliber”. Thought you were referring to match bullet vs bonded/monos.

 

[JGRaider]

You can always turn the channel. Gee whiz... You're starting a pi$$ing contest because you think you're a bigger bad ass killer? Frankly, I don't care if Form has killed 500 or 2,000, its likely at least 400 more than 99% of the guys on this site.

Knowing fact from fiction is valuable.....YMMV.

 

[Thegman]

I'm going to start by saying that I agree with what you are saying. All of the "small caliber" threads show a mountain of successful hunts with X bullet and Y cartridge at Z impact velocity. I know they are effective at killing game. What often doesn't get shown, and this applies to any cartridge/bullet combination, is the game that wasn't recovered, game that was recovered after the meat was bad or eaten by other animals, or game that was tracked an excessive distance before being found. We can get data from the last two if the hunter decides to post the results, it's that first one where there is no animal to examine, that we lose valuable data. I think most of us have seen enough sob stories to know the bullet likely didn't hit where the guy says it hit. But I think most of us have also experienced weird situations ourselves where it took longer to find than what the skinning process said it should have been and maybe another hunter wouldn't have found that animal.

Case in point with your thoughts: None of the deer I killed with the 77TMK took a step following the hit, but one tumbled down the mountain 100 or so yards, in fairly open county, but happened to stop in a fairly small, thick, low patch of willows. The deer was not visible even from a few feet. Was tough to find.

I was actually on my way back up the mountain to see if I could find a drop of blood somewhere to at least get an idea of the direction he was tumbling. I was only 20 or so yards from him at the time, and fortunately he was still able to move a little and I heard him in the willows.

At the time I was thinking a blood trail really would have helped a lot and I couldn't help but to think of some of the big blood trails I've had from my 30 caliber rifles. What I wasn't thinking about was the many times I've had no blood trails from my 30 caliber rifles and had similar issues finding animals after the shot.

I think we sometimes have to be aware of our confirmation bias regarding what we're using and the results we see. The only way to really be sure I guess is get enough personal experience and see if whatever it is, works well enough for you, or not.

I do agree with you that no one thing works for everyone, the way they want it to, in all cases. What I appreciate about all the anecdotes is that, for me anyway, it shows some things work way better than I would have ever expected, and come with definite advantages over other things I've used for years.

 

[jjohnsonElknewbie]

The “misses” are the ones that bother me. Not really the topic though, because it’s not really cartridge specific, maybe bullet specific if anything. It’s always bothered me when it’s always great shot placement, except occasionally it’s a clean miss. No one on the internet ever seems to gut shoot anything (or anything else that doesn’t lend to an easy to follow blood trail). If it doesn’t die, it’s either a clean miss, or a bullet failure, or a cartridge that was too small or too big. No one ever misses by a little. I’ve honestly only casually scrolled the various threads so maybe I’ve missed them, but I suspect those events are very underrepresented on social media.


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Actually, there are guys that post "I made a bad shot and lost the blood" type threads on here fairly regularly looking for recommendations.

 

[wyosam]

I missed that nuance given the opener on “small caliber”. Thought you were referring to match bullet vs bonded/monos.

That opener? Seems like looking for an argument where none exists.

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[Anschutz]

I missed that nuance given the opener on “small caliber”. Thought you were referring to match bullet vs bonded/monos.

Nah, the quotes were only really there because most of the kills in the .223, 6mm, .25, and 6.5 threads are whitetail or mule deer. It makes sense given that is the game most often hunted in the U.S. but 99% of hunters across any hunting forum would agree that a .243 and up is adequate for deer. Don't read into it too much. You're an F-16 pilot. We already know you're better than us.

 

[jjohnsonElknewbie]

For the 223 you can add 75, 80, 88 ELDM
Similar bullets in the 22/250 - 22 Creedmoor
243 - 6 mm Creedmoor 95 BT, Berger, TMK, 105 -108 ELDM, Berger are all very effective and pleasant to use

Don't forget the quarter bores!
25-06, 25-06AI, .257 Roberts, 25 Creed, 250 Savage, 25 SST- 90-135 grain NBTs, ELDMs, Bergers, Speer Gold Dots, etc...

 

[BjornF16]

Nah, the quotes were only really there because most of the kills in the .223, 6mm, .25, and 6.5 threads are whitetail or mule deer. It makes sense given that is the game most often hunted in the U.S. but 99% of hunters across any hunting forum would agree that a .243 and up is adequate for deer. Don't read into it too much. You're an F-16 pilot. We already know you're better than us.

Nah…I suck at shooting anything but 20mm

 

[Vern400]

I've hunted with people in both camps. One fellow hunted deer and hogs with a 300 Winchester magnum. I saw him shoot 190 lb boar hog in the neck just ahead of the shoulder, and blow the hogs eyeballs out. I asked him if he really needed to kill the hog and its spirit jokingly.

I also hunted with someone that started hunting hogs with his AR. He's a very accomplished Hunter, probably to the tune of 600 large animals. He was making head shots on hogs. After losing several animals with near perfect hits he changed to a 6.8 upper and has less trouble with bullets bouncing off the skull. Almost no losses with a little bit chunkier bullet.

I've always pretty much been in the middle of the road. I like it here. Only one time I have wished for a bigger rifle when I dang nearly got eaten. And if I shot a prairie dog town I might wish for a skeech smaller gun.

Right now there might be a few more people on the "not enough gun" side. I hope they're not wounding too many animals trying to figure out bullet selection and what shots they should pass up. Sure you can kill deer and hogs with a 22 magnum. I've done it. But there's a lot of shots that'll lose you an animal with it! When I was in high school and college the other problem was happening. One friend with a 7mm STW, and one with a 30-378. I never quite understood that either but both of them were terrifying to shoot for a lot of people and it didn't help their success any.

Not everything that's possible is prudent.

 

[9.3koolaid]

bullets bouncing off the skull

So 223 bounces off the skull and 22lr bounces around inside it?

 

[Vern400]

So 223 bounces off the skull and 22lr bounces around inside it?

I didn't say 22 lr. Not that that matters. But it's obviously a whole lot harder to kill one with a 22 magnum then with a 223. With the rimfire you pretty much got a drill one through the ear hole. Even an eyeball shot is not a guarantee with 22 magnum.

On state lands you're allowed to harvest hogs during small game season but you have to use a small game weapon. That's the only reason I did something that risky.

 

[Wacko]

I am on the side of shooting what you want...just to be clear.

However, in reading those threads as more and more examples come in you are seeing some "variable" performance. Animals running off, not dying very quickly, needing follow up shots etc.

I just think you use what you want with a good bullet. There will be times it doesn't go as planned every time.

I have listened to the S2H podcasts...the best way to increase velocity is "+p" or a larger case. I am leaning towards going to a bigger case, with a bigger bullet myself.....just because I want to and I feel it will give me the performance I want.

Hunt your own hunt.

 

[fwafwow]

It's a far cry from ego from where I stand, and I don't give a rip what anyone hunts with. Fact is when someone posts contradictory "facts" to Formid, he starts his rants about posting pics to back up what you say. If it's good for him, it's good for everyone else, right?

If this is what has happened and he genuinely deflected from your (or someone else's) facts, can you please point us to the exchange(s)?

I don't want pics, but if he's even close to 50 animals per year for a decade that's obviously 500 head, not "thousands, plural" of animals as he stated. Not even remotely close. Still not sure how a guy gets 20 elk tags every year either. He says " more than a hundred pics of dead animals on this board from me alone.".....once again a fraction of "thousands of animals I've killed, or seen killed beside me". Sorry, I'm calling BS on "thousands, plural".

I think he responded to this point in post 575 in this thread. Did you work out the math in that explanation and then choose not to acknowledge it? If you don't believe him - cool. No one but you cares.

 

[JGRaider]

If this is what has happened and he genuinely deflected from your (or someone else's) facts, can you please point us to the exchange(s)?

I think he responded to this point in post 575 in this thread. Did you work out the math in that explanation and then choose not to acknowledge it? If you don't believe him - cool. No one but you cares.

You obviously do. I haven't posted on this so as to honor what the moderator said. I assume you can read, go find it for yourself, and you must suck at math if you think #575 computes to "thousands, plural".

 

[fwafwow]

You obviously do. I haven't posted on this so as to honor what the moderator said. I assume you can read, go find it for yourself, and you must suck at math if you think #575 computes to "thousands, plural".

Maybe if he claimed to have killed thousands himself. But he didn’t.

 

[mt terry d]

... I feel ...

oh, boy.

I dare you to say "flier" too.

 

[ORJoe]

It's as though you're gaslighting people with,"Look, here's the gel data, here's the barrier blind performance, and retained weight information, these bullets will not work reliably. All the dead animals? A fluke, merely anecdotal, which the gel blocks clearly indicate is the case."

Saw that on another forum on this subject.
"Need 1500 ft-lbs to kill elk"
-"Here's a mountain of elk that were killed with 300 to 600 ft-lbs of bullets"
"Those guys were lucky"

 

[Marshfly]

I think it’s time for this to turn into a meme thread…


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[DJL2]

I've seen the deck before and I have a lot of respect for GKR... but damn those text walls! Some truly painful PPT there for anyone not enthused about the prospect of reading a short info paper chopped onto a few slides.

How would you correlate LE gel protocol to game animals?

I articulated it clearly-

Every ballistic research facility in the western world studies this. They all reach the same conclusion. For 5.56 on a large mammal, you need barrier blind, rapid but controlled expansion, rapid early upset (short neck length in the wound channel), 12-18 inches of straight line penetration, and retained weight around 80% to retain sufficient energy so that it penetrates.

That said, it likely doesn’t matter on a broadside lung shot on most animals as almost any modern bullet will work.

That’s not correct, or rather it misrepresents the spirit of the research. Enemy combatant != game animal. Suggesting that the same “barrier blind” protocol used for LE/mil testing applies to hunting is… a little silly. The weight retention you cite above is also contextually incorrect outside of ensuring penetration in scenarios with stand off between the intermediate barrier and the target and supposes a starting/retained mass.