My son is working on a project comparing different cartridges and ballistics. He has a few questions that I don't have a good answer for, so I thought this might be the best place to ask.
The question is; what do you think of as the range of the cartridge you're shooting? Not talking about hunting or shooting paper groups necessarily. Let's say you're shooting steel. Do you think in terms of where your bullet goes subsonic, or some function of that? Or where it has a certain mount of energy so you can spot misses. Or something else?
Thanks
The limit is how far the bullet will travel...black powder 45-70 500 loads tested to 3500 yds in 1879, then 2500 yds, then the government declared the average trooper effective range to 1900 yds in 1879, with the Springfield 45-70.
An Australian couple used a factory chambered 308 Win, in Rem 700 barreled action in an aluminum chassis to connect 2 out of 10 shots at 3000 on 24" steel...on video. They do this with a bunch of standard and magnum calibers. The results are sometimes surprising, as the big magnums, high BC don't always do better.
Ballistics are important and we all poor over the new components and ballistics programs to find an edge. But being able afford to shoot the cartridge of choice and find components, so you can actually shoot the new ballistics phenomenon you hope to purchase, is probably more important. Brass, powder, primers, & bullets are hard to get in many calibers ...availability and cost are important to consider. I shoot 6mm to 50BMG for LR...but the 6mms are hard to spot and harder to hear..use light sheet metal or ya wont hear the impact, but light recoil and lower cost. One of my favorites is a modernized 308 case, long action, 8 twist 30" barrel, 200 SMK gr to 230 SMK, or Atips, light recoil in heavy rifles, long barrel life, good velocity, easy to spot.