What we mostly get with the wide selection of rifle cartridges is the opportunity to personalize your rifle and hunting experience, and both are important and satisfying. Though the paper ballistics-and real world performance-of the newer cartridges might be minimal, they all represent advancement in one way or another. It is not about which one is best, its about which one you like the most.
IMO paper ballistics are what sells new cartridges, and are yet one more tool of the marketing folks who try to convince us all that what we are currently using is no longer adequate. If most hunters are limited in their ability to cleanly take game at distances of no greater than 250-300~ yards max (I bet that most hunters are actually maxed out at 200), the truth of the matter is that only a handful of cartridges are necessary for just about any animal on the earth. Those cartridges have been long in existence (a fact that I bet the major manufacturers all dislike), and that fact has a major impact on my decisions about which weapons I will actually own, as a matter of keeping things simple and cost effective.
Your comparison of the 30-06 Springfield and 308 Winchester on actual game animals is spot-on. They are both simple cartridges, that when used with good bullets placed properly at reasonable ranges give good results. But that is something the manufacturers don’t want to hear. It doesn’t help sell new product.
What we mostly get with the wide selection of rifle cartridges is the opportunity to personalize your rifle and hunting experience, and both are important and satisfying. Though the paper ballistics-and real world performance-of the newer cartridges might be minimal, they all represent advancement in one way or another. It is not about which one is best, its about which one you like the most.
Thanks.
IMO paper ballistics are what sells new cartridges, and are yet one more tool of the marketing folks who try to convince us all that what we are currently using is no longer adequate. If most hunters are limited in their ability to cleanly take game at distances of no greater than 250-300~ yards max (I bet that most hunters are actually maxed out at 200), the truth of the matter is that only a handful of cartridges are necessary for just about any animal on the earth. Those cartridges have been long in existence (a fact that I bet the major manufacturers all dislike), and that fact has a major impact on my decisions about which weapons I will actually own, as a matter of keeping things simple and cost effective.
Your comparison of the 30-06 Springfield and 308 Winchester on actual game animals is spot-on. They are both simple cartridges, that when used with good bullets placed properly at reasonable ranges give good results. But that is something the manufacturers don’t want to hear. It doesn’t help sell new product.
Great article and well said! To many depend on and live by paper ballistics these days..