Rifle Cartridge Selection

Measured Effectiveness or Individual Expression?

“Every gun buff and hunting enthusiast should be required to read this article.”

Tim Sundles, Buffalo Bore Ammunition

Part of my job for the various outlets I write for is to establish and detail the differences between cartridges and bullets. The content is partly driven by my interests, questions hunters and shooters are asking on the Internet, partly by questions I’ve received from readers, and to some extent by new products that are introduced. In many cases these differences are so minute they’ll only appear on paper or through empirical testing with extreme examination. This type of reporting has been going on in the gun and outdoor press for eons, and frankly it’s established some unsupported truths.

This is due in part because many reporting on the subject do not have a sufficient trove of experience to reference. To a lesser extent, it’s because of a seemingly pressured need to moderately embellish the effectiveness of new cartridges and bullets. Over the years, manufacturers and writers — me included — have negligently conditioned consumers to accept that terminal performance can be reduced to numbers, and that these numbers are definitive. We’ve all sourced data on velocity, energy, and trajectory, and found it measurable and repeatable. So, it seems only logical to assume the terminal effectiveness of various cartridges and bullets can be just as effectively categorized and repeated. But it can’t.

We can measure bullet upset and penetration depth, and weigh recovered bullets in an effort to establish some sort of lethality prediction, but these things are only indictors, not predictors. And terminal ballistics is a very muddy thing. For example, inside 100 yards a 30-30 Winchester firing a 150-grain Core-Lokt bullet will out penetrate a 308 Winchester firing a 150-grain Core-Lokt bullet. Why? Because the 30-30 bullet is less stressed, retains more weight, and does not over deform. The 308 Winchester bullet will likely damage more tissue but if it does not reach the vitals, you just end up with a bloody mess instead of a gut pile.

• More velocity means more bullet upset, but more importantly it means more reach.

Velocity

If a 30-30 Winchester will cleanly kill and elk at 50 yards – and it most certainly will – why would you need a 300 Magnum. Well, you might want to kill an elk at 250 yards, and at that distance the 300 will make the elk easier to hit and when it does hit it, it will kill it just like a 30-30 does at 50 yards. Reach is the true advantage velocity gives you, but how much reach do you need?