LITTLE ROCK — In the current issue of Field & Stream, David Petzal endorsed the diminutive .22-250 Remington as a long-range deer hunting cartridge.
His article was about so-called “beanfield” rifles, those designed specifically for shooting deer at really long distances across the open expanses commonly found in the South. You know, beanfields, hence the name.
“The .243 and 6mm Remington are terrific,” Petzal wrote, “but possibly the best of all is the ancient .25-06.”
When we think of beanfield rifles in these parts, we traditionally think of fast, hard-hitting magnums like the 7mm Remington Mag., 300 Winchester Magnum or .257 Weatherby Magnum. A landowner who welcomed me on his property last year disapproved when I showed up with a .257 Roberts. He uses a 7mm Shooting Times Westerner, which shoots dead-onat 450 yards when sighted in 2 1 /2 inches high at 100 yards. But, man, does the 7mm STW kick!
On the other hand, small calibers have become acceptable for long-range deer hunting in recent years, and the reason is because we have better bullets. Perhaps the biggest development has been the all-copper bullet, popularized by Barnes. It does not have a lead core and copper jacket that shed mass as it travels through a target. Instead, it retains nearly 100 percent of its mass, even if it hits bone. Now, almost every major ammo manufacturer offers an all-copper option.
This stirs the “light and fast” vs. “hard and heavy” argument that big game hunters have waged for decades. The late Elmer Keith championed the hard-and-heavy argument with his famous exhortation to “use enough gun.” Bryce Towsley and Craig Boddington carry that banner today. They say terminal energy is the critical factor that kills game. The fast-and-light advocates insist that speed kills, and that a fast, small bullet is more effective because it causes deep, hydrostatic tissue destruction.
Perusing the Barnes Reloading Manual Number 4, I found a few more interesting nuggets. One was an entry by Sam Fadala, an outdoor writer who killed a cape buffalo with a .30-06 tipped with a .220-grain Barnes copper solid. Most people consider the .375 H&H the minimum cartridge acceptable for dangerous game. Using a .30-06 on capes is insane, isn’t it?
Consider this. Big-bore calibers are not known for accuracy. The idea is to hit an animal somewhere near the vitals and hope the impact power breaks down the animal. It usually doesn’t. Marginal shots often wound big animals, which then charge and endanger the hunter, the guide and porters.
A .30-06, in contrast, is a precision caliber. It hits where you aim it and at a very high speed, and a good bullet does the rest. Walter Bell was the greatest elephant hunter of all time. He killed 1,011 elephants with the venerable 7x57, which is slightly less powerful than the 7mm-08 Remington. His success rate was 1.5 shots per kill. He shot 300 more with a 6.5x54mm and about 200 with a .303 British.
In the Barnes Reloading Manual Number 4, Clair Rees and Tim Janzen wrote that “foot-pounds of energy is not a reliable guide to fatal results.” For example, a 180-grain, .30-caliber bullet traveling at 3,200 fps (.300 Win.Mag.) develops about 4,100 foot-pounds of energy. When two 280-pound linemen collide head-on at 15 mph, they generate roughly 4,200 footpounds of energy. When a pair of 280-pound, bighorn sheep rams collide, they generate 5,400 foot pounds of energy.Neither incident, repeated almost continuously, is fatal.
“It’s only when you combine it with other, more important factors - shot placement, bullet construction and animal physiology - that foot-pounds of energy mean very much,” the writers concluded.
In the same article, Randy Brooks, co-owner of Barnes, said: “Forget foot-pounds. If you fire a target bullet and an expanding bullet of the same weight and caliber at the same velocity, both will impact with the same foot-pounds of energy, but they won’t have the same effect on game. Most lead-core bullets stop after only partial penetration.More solidly constructed bullets typically pass completely through an animal to exit the other side.”
On light, thin-skinned animals like whitetailed deer, that’s not as important as it is on dangerous game until you try to shoot one at long range. Then, accuracy is paramount. You can shoot a light-recoiling caliber more accurately than a heavy, hard-kicking caliber. Firing a really fast cartridge, like a .220 Swift or a .25-06, you can direct a light bullet into the vital heart/lung area, which will dispatch a deer cleanly and quickly.
As Petzal suggested, better bullets make it acceptable to downsize our beanfield rifles.
Sports, Pages 18 on 07/29/2010