ORIGINAL: HEAD0001
Eldequello I was going to leave the 7mm post alone, but you are absolutely right to react to the post. I also do not believe that the long range hunting caliber is a 7mm. It is a good cartridge for paper punching at 1,000 yards-but it is being replaced by the 6.5 by alot of paper puncher's.
As far as long range hunting is concerned I also agree with you about the 30 caliber big boy's. I will go a step farther and say that the .338's are a far better choice than the 7mm's for long range hunting(not shooting). the .338's have the better B.C. and they have more weight. Tom.
You are absolutely correct about the .338's. If I were to contemplate shooting at elk that far away, I would need a .340 Weatherby, or better yet, a .338 Lapua. But I'm not sure I could stand the beating I'd get just doing the required practice with it. Actually, you'd need to shoot it alot at various ranges in order to acquire an instinctive feel for the trajectory of the load you'd be using, so you'd know where it was hitting at various ranges. Most people don't have any recognition at all of how far a bullet drops beyond 600 yards!
For example, IF you took that .338 Lapuafiring a .338", 250-grain bullet of high B.C. at 3000 FPS MV and zeroed it dead on at 600 yards, it would drop 22 inches at 700 yards, 51" at 800, and be 137 inches low at 1000 yards-from a 600 yard, dead-on zero! Not only that, it would be
23" HIGH at 300 yards, and
14" high at 500 yards-enough for a
serious overshoot at the shorter ranges. So much for "flat trajectory"!!
If you fired this round from a 10-pound rifle, the recoil energy will be 40 foot-pounds! It would be much worse if the gun was lighter-say 8 pounds:recoil = 50 foot/pounds! Yep. Lots of fun there, not to mention the COST of the ammo you'd have to fire to become proficient.