RE: Comparing ballistics
One must remember that the Taylor KO is a good way to compare one gun against another but in no way tells the whole story of performance on Game. Just doing a quick figure, the 45-70 with a 405 grain bullet at 1800 FPS would have a rating of about 47. A 300 RUM with a 1800 grain bullet at 3500 fps would have a taylor rating of 27. Which would you rather use for elk? The taylot KO is slanted toward heavy bullets. There is nothing wrong with the theory and heavy bullets even at low velocity are a viable option for big game hunting. However at first glance using this theory only, the 45-70 would be a much better elk rifle than the 300 RUM. TRUE? I don't think so. There is no way to rate all the factors involved in killing big game animals using any theory alone.
I place a pretty high value on the Taylor KO theory but there are to many factors involed to base your whole decission on it.