I actually typed this up for another forum where the rifle knowledge is novice at best but I thought with over 80,000 members here it may still be applicable and helpful to some of the members.
On just about every shooting forum in the rifle section especially nearing the fall and into winter undoubtedly people will start asking which caliber should I go with or is brand "X" better than brand "Y" and for what reasons?
Others will come back from the gun shop with their newly acquired rifles and snap a few quick photos (easy to do with today’s smartphones) and start a thread saying how great their new rifle is before they have even put the first rounds down range with it. I understand that excitement and to be honest I did the same thing a few short years ago, hell we all probably did. Whether on the internet in the public domain or showing a few friends around the house or camp. However, saying how great of a rifle you have just acquired with never having fired a shot to test its accuracy can be setting yourself up to eat crow later. It might look great but if it cannot deliver rounds on target consistently with accuracy and precision then really all you have is a nice show piece. I have seen people claim how great their new rifle is then upon shooting the rifle to sight it in they want to throw it in the field because they cannot get it on target. Sometimes this is not purely a rifle performance issue. Often times there are other reasons such as poor mounts and optics or that the optics and mounting hardware were installed incorrectly. Other reasons include the weapon was not designed to run optimally with the bullet type or bullet weight being fired. I will not go further into those areas as that could be a discussion by itself but know that just because the rifle will not shoot to your expectations; it may not be the rifle that is at fault.
Many times a TV personality or the Marketing Department of the rifle manufacture is truly who sold the rifle. The buyer was sitting in his comfy chair on Sunday watching one of the outdoor programs and his favorite outdoor hunting personality with their new XYZ rifle in a whizz-bang caliber just shot a monster. Then the following commercial with some great graphics and overzealous talk hype it up even more and instantly they are convinced that a new purchase next week is necessary. After all Grand Daddy’s old rifle that this new one is going to replace has only harvested more deer than a pickup truck can carry so it can’t be any good. The truth of the matter is that they just about all work. Even that old 30-30 but if everyone just bought one good rifle for life and learned how to use it, many manufactures would go bankrupt. So they spend thousands of dollars in marketing and advertising trying to convince us we need the latest and greatest model because the old one just won’t do it anymore. Even though the wall is lined with mounts and the freezer is full of meat that suggest otherwise.
Some examples of the above was when the BOSS system came out, "Man it makes it so that my ears bleed when I pull the trigger so it has to do more damage to the deer!" or "That new VTR has a TRIANGLE shaped barrel it has to shoot better!" (There is some sarcasm in that in case you didn’t get it).
So they go to the local gun shop and talk to one of the sales people behind the counter and the conversation usually goes something like this.
Buyer: Hey do you have that new XYZ rifle from (insert manufacturer) in stock?
Salesman: Sure what caliber are you looking for?
Buyer: I don’t know what do you have? Or I saw a guy on TV shoot one with a XYZ caliber and he dropped right there, do you have one in that caliber?
Salesman: I sure do here it is sir.
Buyer: Great I’ll take it! Do you have some ammo for it?
Salesman: Yes sir we have 3 options some Hornady, Federal or Remington which one would you like?
Buyer: Well I like Remington so give me 2 boxes of those please.
Now let me say for the vast majority of hunting in the southern and eastern United States the above WORKS! Why? Because the kill zone on a mature deer is generally about the size of a basketball. Just about any modern bolt action (and usually semiautomatic) rifle with modern ammunition and decent optics and mounts is capable of minute of basketball out to +/- 250 yards. (I have asked several guys what is the furthest distance you would feel comfortable taking a shot on a deer and most say 200, a few here and there will say 300). Out to those distances the difference in drop of "normal" center fired calibers (.243Win, .260Rem, 270Win, 7WSM, 7SAUM, 7RM, .308Win, 30-06, 300WM, 300WSM ect.) is fairly negligible. It is about a 5" difference from the worst to the best at 300 yards depending on your sight height and the distance you zeroed your rifle at. Now I realize that 5" could make or break a particular shot but it is not the gross differences in vertical you would see at 600 yards and further out. Again this article is not intended to be about ballistics but rather how to choose a rifle based off of your desired criteria so please let’s not try to pick this apart. (Although there is bound to be that guy).
Basically they chose the rifle make / model, then the caliber and finally arbitrarily choose a bullet. Below I will give an example which will describe why this is FUNDAMENTALLY BACKWARDS!
I hunted out west in the Rockies of Colorado three years during the mid to late 1990’s. I absolutely LOVED it but with life and work I had to quit going for a few years. By the time I could afford to go again the group that I used to go with all went their separate ways and the laws in the area we hunted changed to the point of it being nearly impossible for an out of state individual to get a tag. Three years ago I was asked by a good friend if I wanted to make a trip with them to a different area. I jumped at the chance to go along and this year will be my third trip with them. I had much of the necessary gear I would need but I did lack a rifle that I felt was in a caliber suitable for elk sized game and capable of the distances I may get a chance to shoot from. This gave me a great reason to tell the wife I needed to build another rifle.
Some quick background about me is that I already had 2 custom rifles built prior to starting this one so I generally knew what parts I would want for the build and what was involved in putting one together. I just needed to do some research on what calibers could meet my needs. I also shoot competitive rifle matches and practice often both live fire and dry fire so I feel comfortable taking shots at further distances than most people would feel capable. In order to take shots at further distances you need to know what you are doing, have the equipment to do so and the conditions have to be in your favor. Now I know people are going to argue what distance is ethical but again this is to show a decision making process not to argue maximum ethical range.
I wanted to be able to shoot out to 800 yards with a TOF (time of flight) at or under one second and still have enough energy to put down an elk. 1500 pound-feet of energy is generally the agreed upon requirement. I was going to choose a bullet with a high BC or Ballistic Coefficient to maintain velocity which would aid in minimizing drop and wind deflection while keeping high KE kinetic energy. The bullet would need to be pushed reasonably fast but not so fast that it would kill my shoulder or burn out the barrel in just a few hundred rounds.
To meet the energy requirements I knew that a heavier bullet would be advantageous so I immediately threw out the 6mm and 6.5mm calibers. Bullet manufactures typically will not offer as many 270 (.277dia) bullets as they will 7mm (.284dia) or 30 calibers (.308dia) so for that reason the 270 family was off the table as well. That left me with 30 caliber and 7mm. Larger calibers such as the .338 family are very effective but everything has to get bigger to support those calibers and thus heavier. I was going to be carrying this rifle with me all day so weight was a major consideration as well.
The 7mm bullets have a higher BC than a 30 caliber of the same weight. To match the BC of a 7mm in a 30 caliber you have to go with a heavier bullet. By going heavier you are also going to increase the recoil. So at this point I knew I wanted a 7mm offering. Berger is a bullet manufacture that has phenomenal BC’s of their bullets. Berger’s 7mm 180gr Hunting VLD came to the forefront as the clear winner. To meet my TOF (time of flight) requirements out to 800 yards I was going to need to get the muzzle velocity up to over 2900 fps. In order to do this without going to a wildcat caliber I knew of four calibers that could achieve this, the 7mm Remington Ultra Magnum, 7mm Remington Magnum, 7mm Remington Short Action Ultra Magnum and 7mm Winchester Short Magnum. I quickly dismissed the 7RUM as it would do it too good. With hand loads you can get a 180 going over 3200 fps but the barrel life will be short and the recoil will kill on my end of the rifle. So now I was down to 3. I decided that I would go with a short action originally so that eliminated the 7RM which is a long action based caliber. Now I was down to 2. The 7WSM vs. 7SAUM is almost neck and neck performance wise. The 7WSM has a little bit more case capacity and hence velocity than the 7SAUM but the brass from Winchester varies much more case to case. For shooting at distance it is important to have uniform cases so that the case volume and resulting case pressure will yield consistent MV or Muzzle Velocity. This will lead to smaller vertical dispersion at distance. If you have widely varying muzzle velocities you will see vertical stringing of your group sizes at distance. Nosler and Norma are known for very uniform and consistent brass cases. They both make 7SAUM brass which will produce more consistent MV’s and hence better accuracy at distance than the Winchester brass will in a 7WSM. Now you can weight sort the WSM and throw out the "bad" cases but I prefer to just buy better brass. For these reasons I now had my caliber, the 7SAUM.
Now if I were going to buy a factory gun I would have searched what gun manufacture’s offered a rifle in 7SAUM. I then would have decided which gun would have suited the 180 grain bullet best based on twist rate and what rifle would have given me the best MV based on barrel length.
I was going custom so I knew that to stabilize the 180 grain bullet I needed a barrel in the 1:9 to 1:8.5 twist rate range, and for the necessary velocity I was going to run a 26" barrel for the best speed possible without going so long that handling in the field would be compromised. I selected a custom action so that no truing of a factory action would be required as well as offering some enhancements of strength via an integral rail, integral lug and greater tenon contact length. I chose the trigger that I use in my completion rifle for familiarity and a brake to reduce felt recoil. McMillan offers a Game Scout stock that incorporates my preferred ergonomics while still being light. I chose hinged bottom metal so it would not catch or hang up on tree limbs or my clothing. Going custom there are no compromises to be made as you can build it to your specifications.
Terminal ballistics aside, when speaking external ballistics BC and MV are the only two numbers that matter, everything else is smoke and mirrors.
Notice I chose the TOF requirement of 800 yards in under 1 second with 1500+ lb-ft of energy. That dictated the bullet weight and BC I would need, which dictated the required speed it would need to be pushed, which dictated which calibers could achieve this. The bullet weight decided the necessary twist rate and the required speed decided the barrel length.
Requirement > Bullet > Speed > Caliber > Rifle NOT Rifle > Caliber > Bullet
I hope this helps someone.
On just about every shooting forum in the rifle section especially nearing the fall and into winter undoubtedly people will start asking which caliber should I go with or is brand "X" better than brand "Y" and for what reasons?
Others will come back from the gun shop with their newly acquired rifles and snap a few quick photos (easy to do with today’s smartphones) and start a thread saying how great their new rifle is before they have even put the first rounds down range with it. I understand that excitement and to be honest I did the same thing a few short years ago, hell we all probably did. Whether on the internet in the public domain or showing a few friends around the house or camp. However, saying how great of a rifle you have just acquired with never having fired a shot to test its accuracy can be setting yourself up to eat crow later. It might look great but if it cannot deliver rounds on target consistently with accuracy and precision then really all you have is a nice show piece. I have seen people claim how great their new rifle is then upon shooting the rifle to sight it in they want to throw it in the field because they cannot get it on target. Sometimes this is not purely a rifle performance issue. Often times there are other reasons such as poor mounts and optics or that the optics and mounting hardware were installed incorrectly. Other reasons include the weapon was not designed to run optimally with the bullet type or bullet weight being fired. I will not go further into those areas as that could be a discussion by itself but know that just because the rifle will not shoot to your expectations; it may not be the rifle that is at fault.
Many times a TV personality or the Marketing Department of the rifle manufacture is truly who sold the rifle. The buyer was sitting in his comfy chair on Sunday watching one of the outdoor programs and his favorite outdoor hunting personality with their new XYZ rifle in a whizz-bang caliber just shot a monster. Then the following commercial with some great graphics and overzealous talk hype it up even more and instantly they are convinced that a new purchase next week is necessary. After all Grand Daddy’s old rifle that this new one is going to replace has only harvested more deer than a pickup truck can carry so it can’t be any good. The truth of the matter is that they just about all work. Even that old 30-30 but if everyone just bought one good rifle for life and learned how to use it, many manufactures would go bankrupt. So they spend thousands of dollars in marketing and advertising trying to convince us we need the latest and greatest model because the old one just won’t do it anymore. Even though the wall is lined with mounts and the freezer is full of meat that suggest otherwise.
Some examples of the above was when the BOSS system came out, "Man it makes it so that my ears bleed when I pull the trigger so it has to do more damage to the deer!" or "That new VTR has a TRIANGLE shaped barrel it has to shoot better!" (There is some sarcasm in that in case you didn’t get it).
So they go to the local gun shop and talk to one of the sales people behind the counter and the conversation usually goes something like this.
Buyer: Hey do you have that new XYZ rifle from (insert manufacturer) in stock?
Salesman: Sure what caliber are you looking for?
Buyer: I don’t know what do you have? Or I saw a guy on TV shoot one with a XYZ caliber and he dropped right there, do you have one in that caliber?
Salesman: I sure do here it is sir.
Buyer: Great I’ll take it! Do you have some ammo for it?
Salesman: Yes sir we have 3 options some Hornady, Federal or Remington which one would you like?
Buyer: Well I like Remington so give me 2 boxes of those please.
Now let me say for the vast majority of hunting in the southern and eastern United States the above WORKS! Why? Because the kill zone on a mature deer is generally about the size of a basketball. Just about any modern bolt action (and usually semiautomatic) rifle with modern ammunition and decent optics and mounts is capable of minute of basketball out to +/- 250 yards. (I have asked several guys what is the furthest distance you would feel comfortable taking a shot on a deer and most say 200, a few here and there will say 300). Out to those distances the difference in drop of "normal" center fired calibers (.243Win, .260Rem, 270Win, 7WSM, 7SAUM, 7RM, .308Win, 30-06, 300WM, 300WSM ect.) is fairly negligible. It is about a 5" difference from the worst to the best at 300 yards depending on your sight height and the distance you zeroed your rifle at. Now I realize that 5" could make or break a particular shot but it is not the gross differences in vertical you would see at 600 yards and further out. Again this article is not intended to be about ballistics but rather how to choose a rifle based off of your desired criteria so please let’s not try to pick this apart. (Although there is bound to be that guy).
Basically they chose the rifle make / model, then the caliber and finally arbitrarily choose a bullet. Below I will give an example which will describe why this is FUNDAMENTALLY BACKWARDS!
I hunted out west in the Rockies of Colorado three years during the mid to late 1990’s. I absolutely LOVED it but with life and work I had to quit going for a few years. By the time I could afford to go again the group that I used to go with all went their separate ways and the laws in the area we hunted changed to the point of it being nearly impossible for an out of state individual to get a tag. Three years ago I was asked by a good friend if I wanted to make a trip with them to a different area. I jumped at the chance to go along and this year will be my third trip with them. I had much of the necessary gear I would need but I did lack a rifle that I felt was in a caliber suitable for elk sized game and capable of the distances I may get a chance to shoot from. This gave me a great reason to tell the wife I needed to build another rifle.
Some quick background about me is that I already had 2 custom rifles built prior to starting this one so I generally knew what parts I would want for the build and what was involved in putting one together. I just needed to do some research on what calibers could meet my needs. I also shoot competitive rifle matches and practice often both live fire and dry fire so I feel comfortable taking shots at further distances than most people would feel capable. In order to take shots at further distances you need to know what you are doing, have the equipment to do so and the conditions have to be in your favor. Now I know people are going to argue what distance is ethical but again this is to show a decision making process not to argue maximum ethical range.
I wanted to be able to shoot out to 800 yards with a TOF (time of flight) at or under one second and still have enough energy to put down an elk. 1500 pound-feet of energy is generally the agreed upon requirement. I was going to choose a bullet with a high BC or Ballistic Coefficient to maintain velocity which would aid in minimizing drop and wind deflection while keeping high KE kinetic energy. The bullet would need to be pushed reasonably fast but not so fast that it would kill my shoulder or burn out the barrel in just a few hundred rounds.
To meet the energy requirements I knew that a heavier bullet would be advantageous so I immediately threw out the 6mm and 6.5mm calibers. Bullet manufactures typically will not offer as many 270 (.277dia) bullets as they will 7mm (.284dia) or 30 calibers (.308dia) so for that reason the 270 family was off the table as well. That left me with 30 caliber and 7mm. Larger calibers such as the .338 family are very effective but everything has to get bigger to support those calibers and thus heavier. I was going to be carrying this rifle with me all day so weight was a major consideration as well.
The 7mm bullets have a higher BC than a 30 caliber of the same weight. To match the BC of a 7mm in a 30 caliber you have to go with a heavier bullet. By going heavier you are also going to increase the recoil. So at this point I knew I wanted a 7mm offering. Berger is a bullet manufacture that has phenomenal BC’s of their bullets. Berger’s 7mm 180gr Hunting VLD came to the forefront as the clear winner. To meet my TOF (time of flight) requirements out to 800 yards I was going to need to get the muzzle velocity up to over 2900 fps. In order to do this without going to a wildcat caliber I knew of four calibers that could achieve this, the 7mm Remington Ultra Magnum, 7mm Remington Magnum, 7mm Remington Short Action Ultra Magnum and 7mm Winchester Short Magnum. I quickly dismissed the 7RUM as it would do it too good. With hand loads you can get a 180 going over 3200 fps but the barrel life will be short and the recoil will kill on my end of the rifle. So now I was down to 3. I decided that I would go with a short action originally so that eliminated the 7RM which is a long action based caliber. Now I was down to 2. The 7WSM vs. 7SAUM is almost neck and neck performance wise. The 7WSM has a little bit more case capacity and hence velocity than the 7SAUM but the brass from Winchester varies much more case to case. For shooting at distance it is important to have uniform cases so that the case volume and resulting case pressure will yield consistent MV or Muzzle Velocity. This will lead to smaller vertical dispersion at distance. If you have widely varying muzzle velocities you will see vertical stringing of your group sizes at distance. Nosler and Norma are known for very uniform and consistent brass cases. They both make 7SAUM brass which will produce more consistent MV’s and hence better accuracy at distance than the Winchester brass will in a 7WSM. Now you can weight sort the WSM and throw out the "bad" cases but I prefer to just buy better brass. For these reasons I now had my caliber, the 7SAUM.
Now if I were going to buy a factory gun I would have searched what gun manufacture’s offered a rifle in 7SAUM. I then would have decided which gun would have suited the 180 grain bullet best based on twist rate and what rifle would have given me the best MV based on barrel length.
I was going custom so I knew that to stabilize the 180 grain bullet I needed a barrel in the 1:9 to 1:8.5 twist rate range, and for the necessary velocity I was going to run a 26" barrel for the best speed possible without going so long that handling in the field would be compromised. I selected a custom action so that no truing of a factory action would be required as well as offering some enhancements of strength via an integral rail, integral lug and greater tenon contact length. I chose the trigger that I use in my completion rifle for familiarity and a brake to reduce felt recoil. McMillan offers a Game Scout stock that incorporates my preferred ergonomics while still being light. I chose hinged bottom metal so it would not catch or hang up on tree limbs or my clothing. Going custom there are no compromises to be made as you can build it to your specifications.
Terminal ballistics aside, when speaking external ballistics BC and MV are the only two numbers that matter, everything else is smoke and mirrors.
Notice I chose the TOF requirement of 800 yards in under 1 second with 1500+ lb-ft of energy. That dictated the bullet weight and BC I would need, which dictated the required speed it would need to be pushed, which dictated which calibers could achieve this. The bullet weight decided the necessary twist rate and the required speed decided the barrel length.
Requirement > Bullet > Speed > Caliber > Rifle NOT Rifle > Caliber > Bullet
I hope this helps someone.
