Eeets Alive!!! PT II

You've probably guessed most of the answers already.


Sorry, 270 Winchester never showed up. I'm not sure why. Ditto for the 250-3000.

30-06 never showed up. That was interesting in and of itself, so I decided to find out why. It took some doing. However I added a weighted system of ratings. If you figure in Energy at 100 yards, Dekker KOV, and drop at 100 yards, and then make the system search for the best balance of the 3, TADA! You get a result that 's a 30-06, with a 168 grain match bullet , loaded about 92 % of the published maximum. The bullet it picked was not a good deer bullet, but that's okay. There's probably a 165 grain deer bullet that does the same trick. The 30-06 is the best balance within those parameters.

The 270 Win probably has a similar set of parameters that make it the best, I just haven't had the time to find it yet. My guess is that it lies in distances greater than 100 yards.

If you are digging for the best Taylor TKO. The best one of the bunch you can get is 45-70 with a 405 grain load. Of course Taylor invented the TKO based on hunting elephant. It gets penalized dramatically if you penalize for drop at zero of 100 yards.

If you switch to digging for the best Dekker KOV-- (Taylor TKO with SD substituted for caliber) you get 35 Whelen with a 250 grain bullet. If you optimize for 150 yards, you get 358 WIN. If you lower the range to 100 yards, you get 35 Remington.

Now, if you figure in the Shamanic Ratio ( Dekker KOV / recoil energy) and do away with all other provisos, you get . . .envelope please . . .


280 REMINGTON
CASE: REMINGTON
BBL: 24"
PR: REMINGTON 9 1/2
TWIST: 1:10"
TRIM: 2.530"
140 GR. SIE SP
DIA: .284"
COL: 3.230"
SR 4759 29.0gr 2335fps 51,800 CUP


I don't have the data in front of me. I think it was a fairly light load-- about 8 % off maximum.

The only thing I could see against this round was that the drop at 100 yards was over 5.3" I would prefer a flatter round, so I added a penalty for drops of greater than 4" at 100 yards. I reran the scenario. The result was:

6.5 x 55 SWEDISH
CASE: REMINGTON
BBL: 24"
PR: REMINGTON 9 1/2
TWIST: 1:7.87"
TRIM: 2.155"
140 GR. SIE SPBT
DIA: .264"
COL: 3.000"
IMR 3031 34.5gr 2355fps 45,800 CUP

Again, the load was not a full-house load.


So what about the 300 Savage? The 30-30? The 300 Savage 180 grain load is the best round if you are looking for a 30 cal that optimizes for the Shamanic Ratio. If you penalize for recoil, you get a 30-30 with 150 grains.


The bottom line:

1) The past 100 years of deer hunting has a rational basis. What was figured out with sliderule and intuition a few generations ago still makes sense.

2) The last 10 years with all its Wizzums and SAUms are fine, but they're optimized for something other than the fundementals of shooting whitetail deer at under 200 yards.

3) There is something to be said for 260, 280, 308, 358 and 458 as a caliber for deer. However, each has its own set of provisos that make them preferable.

4) You really don't need to bust your shoulder to get a deer dead. Lighter-than-max loads do the job better than maxed-out loads.

5) 30-06 is a good balance, but never the best . It is just the "best all-around."

6) This is all done by a guy who's never hunted West of the Mississippi. There's an inherent bias there If you're looking for answers for ranges exceeding 200 yards, you'll have to weight until I get a larger database put together.