I you don't want to read a wall of text, then go to bolted part.
As some of you perhaps already know, I was planning to stay with my (already trusty) 12/70 pump action shotgun for every possible task where .243 is not enough. I was hunting for Wild Boars recently. And yes - this is perfectly doable, and quite often it is a lot of fun too.
However I've found also, at least in the same degree it can be frustrating either. You see... Basing on my own experience, to get reliable shot on Wild Boar (by with I mean double lung shot, preferebly even if projectile has to pass trough shoulder blade) I had to be within 40 meters. And for "regular" males (up to 165-170 kg and/or 600-750 score) this is perfectly fine - they are not that spooky. Problem starts with those bigger, "trophy" sized males. Risk of spooking them starts to be reality, and tracking them later on is a nightmare. If by any luck I catch up with them when they are somewhere still in the open, as long as they are still in wary state it is realy hard to close in for that 40 meters distance without spooking them again. I don't have to tell you haw fast they are also when trotting, and that they don't like to respond tou your calls when doing this. ;P
And while I adjusted to this 40 meter distance, it is not exactly my hunting style too... I prefer to be on safe side, keeping my distance. Maybe not exactly to the point of those "sniping" 150 and more distances, but lets say that I feel good between 75-100 meters if possible. There are of course animal-map combos where we are to some point forced to be closer than this, and then my shotgun is brilliant tool, I realy like it. But due to concerns described above I'm considering to buy a rifle after all.
Now...
I juddge them by couple of factors for game purpouses:
- "damage" (with translates to short blood trail),
- penetration over distance (double lung shot on "big"/tough game from about 75-100 meters; well, this is also associated with short blood trail
),- allowed for maximal number of species possible still fullfiling first two remarks.
- still relatively good trophy integrity.
We don't know too much about mechanics, but I assume that with "damage" part it is easy - bigger caliber, bigger "damage" - bigger wounds, more bleeding, faster drop down and so on.
But I don't know, how this go with penetration and balancing other factors. We have a chart for moose on the wiki, but I'm interested in yours field experiences as well. I've preselected three rifles:
- 9.3x62 Anschütz 1780 D FL Bolt Action Rifle,
- 8x57 IS Anschütz 1780 D FL Bolt Action Rifle,
- .300 Bolt Action Rifle.
I'm reffering mostly to those of you who have all of them and can compare them basing on own experience. I know that .300 is a "king" when it comes to penetration alone, but I would like to balance this against other factors I've mentioned (especially that we compare only up to 100 meters).
So I would realy appreciate your help.If you have some totaly different proposals please bring them up.
And of course for some smaller species, that .243 is allowed, I consider to use .243 rilfe whenever I find it enough reliable at given distance, and for better trophy integrity.
I don't know what to think about this? :/
