I'm by no means a "magnum hater" either. Unfortunately, I routinely see guys at the range with big rifles cussing up a storm about "their gunsmith this" and "their scope that", when all one has to do is watch them shoot to know why they're not hitting what they want to. Who knows, maybe they'd flinch with a smaller rifle, too. I used to flinch severly when shooting Dad's .30-06, but I was 12 years old at the time.

No question, formal marksmanship training makes all the difference.

I dusted off my .300 Wby this fall intending to take it elk hunting (work conflicted and couldn't go), and it's every bit as accurate as my "go-to".30-06, maybe moreso. But, I've been fortunate to grow up in a family that DID shoot and DID train me, then reinforced that in the military. Yeah, magnums do recoil (ascan lightweight standards), but if I'm hunting, my objective is putting one bullet into a vital area and I've never noticed it.

If there's a chance I'm going to gut-shoot an animal, I'm not going to take the shot, regardless of what I'm carrying. I don't buy the argument at all that a magnum is better than a standard under those circumstances, and hunters should think before they intentionally wound an animal, even if it'll die in the end. Guess I haven't been all that impressed with the tracking skills I've seen in the field, nor the number of dead (usually respectable) bucks I've found "lost" by another hunter.

I kill deer just fine with a .243. I'm perfectly comfortable with the .30-06 on elk, caribou, or moose. I have a .300 Weatherby just because it was cheap, synthetic, and I don't worry about beating it up in the thick timber or up in the rocks. And, a .375 H&H just because I thought I had to have one. They've all been "blooded" on one species or another, and all performed just as I expected them to. Obviously, I had to play my part well, too.

My concern about "magnums" is simply that they're not something one picks up at the sporting goods store and becomes an expert with by reading magazines and forum postings. If it's your FIRST rifle and you have no rifleshooting experience, pick somethingsmaller and/or get a .22 along with it and find a qualified teacher/instructor. I think that we, as a community, owe a lot to that diminutive little rimfire and what it can do for us. I cringe when someone here obviously is looking for a start and all the posts that ensue insisting that magnums are the only way to go. I'm expecting to seen yet another tyro at the range cussing the rifle, when it's really more a casethat he can't shoot it or is afraid of it.