sabinajiles,

I have read your post and while I agree wth a lot you have said i would like to add that I believe hunting deer in the east or south east is not the same in the west, espicially here in this part of Idaho. I guess your populations run higher than ours, we might be able to get to two tags per year on some occasions but that is not the norm. Further we do not have the wood lots or feeding plots that seem to be prevelant in the east. For me to hunt deer I have to spend a lot of time on Public Lands, basically Forest Service and Potlatch. I am hunting in and out of clearcuts, shooting across draws from one ridge to another. Yes, there are some 50 yard shots, but not always especially when hunting elk. I would like to go prepared to make that extended range shot if needed and have enough energy to humanely(sp) kill the animal I am after. During elk season and after the first few shots by people it is really tuff to get real close to our white tail or elk.

Because of these situations a lot of people believe they need those "magnum" charges, especially those newbies coming over to ML'ing from the bolt action centerfires. (that is exactly the reason that so many inlines are sold) Maybe I am wrong here, but I would prefer everyone out here hunted with a "magnum" ML instead of a "magnum" centerfire or any centerfire there would be a lot less game taken and hunting would return to somewhat of an art.

I have shot 150 grain loads (equivelant) on many different occasions, just experimenting never in a hunting situation, and I need to agree with bigcountry, I do not think there is a tremendous difference in recoil between the two loads. Remember that 3 t7 pellets is equal to 127.5 grains of Pryro crap or BP.

Us guys that just come over to ML are awlays thinking performance - performance - performance not to many of us understand the law of deminishing returns - "so" it must be necessary to get perfomance to load 150... And really you do get some added velocity, but at what price.... I shoot 100 grain loads and have not found the reason for the extra 50 but some folks do. You probably shoot 80 grains or less and wonder why I think I need 100 - you shoot rb - I shoot sabots, and it all comes down to matching our rifle with the conditions we hunt...

So this whole thing goes right back where you started "To each his own" - sorry for taking up time and space.



Matching you hunting weapon to the conditions you are hunting in is important