Like i said , your biased.
99% of hunters dont reload.
The 250 and 257 bob are gone, and theres a reason for it.
As far as the weatherby, if i found one in the woods I would use it for fire wood. weatherby blows, never have I seen one shoot for crap.
james a deer wouldnt know the difference between a .243 or a 280 and everything in between. all these calibers are in the same class. want to talk superior then you have to move to a 30-06 a 7mag a 300 mag, now thats superior.

I still have my 25's they are not gone. I have reloaded everything since 1974. Not need to tell me how the calibers work on Mule deer I have used most all of them and I have seen it all first hand. Last Fall I shot four with the 25-06, two with the 308 and two with the 30-06. Year before I shot one with the 280, one with the 257 Roberts and one with the 250 Savage. Oh and one with the 50 caliber Muzzle loader. The year before I shot four with the 6.5x55. WE have a lot of Mule deer where I hunt. I could have bought 10 tags last year But just got eight. The whole family loves the meat. I am happy to bring it home. If I am biased its in favor of the eight or so rifles that I use all the time. And I am very biased against the 243 as a big game rifle. Won't deny that for a second. If I had to give them all up but one I wouild keep the 308 or the 6.5x55. Now those rifles drop deer. I gave up all the magnums. I had the 7MM Mag,300 Win Mag, 300 Weatherby Mag and the 338 and 416 Rem Mags.

I would have to keep my 7600 30-06 as well. Love my 7mm-08 and 45-70's too. Yup I must be Biased. With those and a few others like the 270, I don't need the little 24 for big game. The 243 is sure not up to taking on the 280 at anything.

Oh by the way if you find a 257 Weatherby in the woods, rather than burn it, the smarter thing might be to sell it. Thats just me though if you would rather burn it than get a few bucks for it, Light up.

James...it sounds like you need somebody to take a couple of them mulies out of yer hair I'll trade ya a couple of scrawny northern WV whitetails for em...lol.

Sounds like a pretty good trade. We sure have a lot of them these days. I don't know yet what the permit numbers will be like this year. I did my part to thin them out a bit. They have extended the season the last two years to reduce the doe herd.

yeah i was typing fast and didnt read my post before hittin post. should be reversed =)

Yes the .257 was standardized using IMR 3031, and a 100 grain round nose bullet, because they were the best combination at the time. Remington never changed the formula when Winchester came out with the .243. 20 years of draggin' their feet nearly killed the Bob (as you call it). Now they've got on board with the +P loading and made the .257 superior to any 6mm not wearing the Magnum monicker. Handloaders don't really care about what bullets are available in factory loads. [X(]

Thats for sure.

How could it not have been the top one.....I have yet to see a deer camp without one at least!!!

Still think all in all the 30-06 is and was the most popular for a all around cart. we will see. vangunsmith

exactlywhat i was going to say. when i read the origional post i had an overwhelming idea that the 30-06 would be at the top. if it hadn't i would've been extremely surprised. personally i think it's the most practical and most versatile of any cartridge imo.