ORIGINAL: bigbulls
HFF, look at what the rest of the world uses to hunt similar sized and tough animals (6.5X55mm, 7mm Mauser, .303 Britt, etc...)and you will quickly realize that Americans are about the only ones that are hung up on 'needing' magnums to kill animals.
An interesting disownment.
The United States sits at the forefront of firearm and cartridge development just as the Brits did before us early in the last century before the torch passed to us. No other country canmatch theU.S. firearms industry forsport hunting cartridge development; nor the total numbers of hunters; nor the total number of hunters who can afford to hunt big game world wide.
Some of the aforementioned folks fromother countries where firearm ownership is restrictedand hunting way be on the wanemay tend to justget by with what they've got or whats been handed down(like many in the USA even); however, as a group, the big game hunting contingent (notdeer)from America is pressing forward intothe new century. Theyvastly dominate the Big Game Huntingnumbers across the world. These hunters typically bring their "best game to the table" by utilizingrobust cartridges and capable rifles and quality optics and leavingthe more mediocre/"just get by"stuff at home.
Laggards frequently decry the changing of the times; however, the times are indeed a changing as polls show. The folks that once thought the 38-55 and 44-40 were the hot stink probably were all bent out of shape about the new fangled 30-06 (1906) and 375 H&H(1912) both of whichare now classic benchmarks.
For the most part the American hunters that are leaving the local deer patch to step uptheirlevel of playare also stepping up to more robust weaponry. IMHO, if you have witnessed the difference in the immediate "effect of bullet on impact"upon manyof thelarger game animals,then there is noneed to ponder why this very real trend is continuing.