Sep 24, 2016 4 min read

Sometimes the answer to a question is little more than common sense.

If two cars leave point A at the same time and move at the exact same speed, they will arrive at point B at the same time, regardless of engine size, appearance and accessories. Common sense, right?

Much the same can be said about firearms. While most hunters and or shooters have favorite rounds or guns, many times a form of magic is added to the performance of one cartridge, making it superior to the others.

About 20 years ago, a big-name outdoors writer glorified the Wildcat .22 cartridge as the greatest long-range varmint round in existence. A friend decided to build a rifle for this hotshot round and asked me if I was going to join him and build the latest Wildcat.

I declined, saying the large volume of powder coupled with the .224 diameter bore meant a very short barrel life.

My friend showed me the article written by the acclaimed writer saying barrel life was reasonable because the cartridge utilized the .308 bench-rest casing, which used a smaller primer. So much for common sense.

Less than 300 shots later, my friend needed a new barrel. You burn a lot of powder in a small diameter bore and barrel life is shortened. Period!

Most shooters will admit the .243 and the 6mm Remington are very close to each other in performance. A slight edge favors the 6mm because it burns a bit more powder. The same could be said about the .260 and the 6.5 Creedmoor.

Why?

Like the .243 and 6mm, case capacity is almost the same and bullet diameter is the same.

A good case of common sense at the rifle range occurred to me a few years ago when I was chronographing hand-loads for my .270. I was getting ready to put my junk away when a young fellow at a bench to my left asked if I would chronograph one of the loads.

He was shooting a 7mm magnum with a 150-grain bullet. I had no problem with that and put a round downrange over the sky-screens. The instrument read 2,825. The rifle owner couldn’t believe the reading, so I shot again.

This time it showed 2,815. He was in shock.

The cartridge was supposed to be producing about 3,200 feet per seconds, so he said my chronograph must be off. My answer to that was logical: My old .270 was showing 2,950 with a 150-grain bullet. That is fast for a .270.

If the chronograph read his rifle slow, wouldn’t it do the same with my own? “Oh well,” he said. “The big-cased 7mm was better out west.”

I guess it was going to scare the beasts to death with its size. Common sense just went out the window.

I have heard the line more than once, the bullet from my rifle was moving so fast it passed through the animal without expanding, it just didn’t have time to expand.

Just the opposite is the reality of speed and expansion. Everything being equal, it is the faster-moving and faster-rotating bullet that will open quickly. In fact, sometimes a bullet can move too fast and expand too quickly and not penetrate.

I have heard this line many times and as a youngster, I believed it.

The .30-06 is a great cartridge but the .30-30 is better in the brush. Everyone accepted that line back then, but some of us know better.

You can tout the hardiness of the Winchester Carbine and even the smoothness of it coming to shoulder. But experiments have shown the .30-30 no better in the brush than the .270 or 30-06.

Don’t believe everything you hear. All deer don’t drop in their tracks when hit and all bullets are affected by gravity.

There might be situations where bigger is better, but this is not always true when dealing with firearms.

All too often bad shooting leads to a long chase and the cartridge is blamed. The hunter believes he needs a bigger gun when just the opposite might be true. It’s no disgrace to be recoil sensitive and moving down to a round like the .243 can result in quicker success.

Hitting them in the right place is more important than the size of the cartridge.

Of course, there are always those who think a deer is as big as a heifer and this is far from true. It really doesn’t take much penetration to down a buck for they are but about 8 to 10 inches rib cage to rib cage.

So when choosing a new deer rifle, base it on what you like and facts not some whimsical opinion you have heard. There is no magic.

George H. Block writes a Sunday Outdoors column for the Observer-Reporter.