Allot of questions are asked regarding best caliber for various kinds of game, and I'm trying to evaluate this from a quantitative perspective. I'm committed to the Humane Kill, so that puts bullet energy and accuracy at the top of the priority list.
I have found Berger Bullets to be very accurate in my match shooting and they have been recommended for hunting so I emailed Brian Litz of Berger Bullets to see what he thought and he responded with this;
There are a lot of variables involved in terminal ballistic performance, sothere are very few hard and fast rules that apply. A few rules of thumb are: you need at least 1000 ft-lb of kinetic energy to kill deer sized game, and Berger VLD's typically require an impact velocity of at least 1800 fps to fully and properly expand. What you want to do is find the bullet that gets the farthest downrange while satisfying both the velocity and kinetic energy requirements.
For example:
A 105 grain 6mm bullet needs to be going 2072 fps to hit with 1000 ft-lb.
A 168 grain 7mm bullet needs to be going 1638 fps to hit with 1000 ft-lb.
A 190 grain .30 cal bullet needs to be going 1540 fps to hit with 1000ft-lb.
These are just 3 arbitrary examples, you'll have to run the trajectories for the bullets and calibers you're considering, but that's how to do the analysis. Hope this helps,
-Bryan
After reading Brians Advice, I went to Quickload and Quicktarget to see what might work. I found that the 6.5/47 Lapua cartridge loaded with the Berger 130g VLD had a max range of 750ish yards and still maintain the 1000lb bullet energy and min. 1800 FPS. The 6mmXC cartridge provided slightly less range using the Berger 115g VLD.
Considering the prime directive of Accuracy & Terminal Energy/Velocity being paramont, has anyone else worked with this approach.
Thanks
Mark
I have found Berger Bullets to be very accurate in my match shooting and they have been recommended for hunting so I emailed Brian Litz of Berger Bullets to see what he thought and he responded with this;
There are a lot of variables involved in terminal ballistic performance, sothere are very few hard and fast rules that apply. A few rules of thumb are: you need at least 1000 ft-lb of kinetic energy to kill deer sized game, and Berger VLD's typically require an impact velocity of at least 1800 fps to fully and properly expand. What you want to do is find the bullet that gets the farthest downrange while satisfying both the velocity and kinetic energy requirements.
For example:
A 105 grain 6mm bullet needs to be going 2072 fps to hit with 1000 ft-lb.
A 168 grain 7mm bullet needs to be going 1638 fps to hit with 1000 ft-lb.
A 190 grain .30 cal bullet needs to be going 1540 fps to hit with 1000ft-lb.
These are just 3 arbitrary examples, you'll have to run the trajectories for the bullets and calibers you're considering, but that's how to do the analysis. Hope this helps,
-Bryan
After reading Brians Advice, I went to Quickload and Quicktarget to see what might work. I found that the 6.5/47 Lapua cartridge loaded with the Berger 130g VLD had a max range of 750ish yards and still maintain the 1000lb bullet energy and min. 1800 FPS. The 6mmXC cartridge provided slightly less range using the Berger 115g VLD.
Considering the prime directive of Accuracy & Terminal Energy/Velocity being paramont, has anyone else worked with this approach.
Thanks
Mark
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