I was in a local gun store on my lunch hour a couple of years ago, in the used shotgun section. A college age kid asked me if I needed any help. I said, " no I was just looking around, and they didn't have what I was looking for at that particular time anyway". He asked what I was interested in, and I said I was really interested in a good used 45-70. He says, "We have one in the used rifles", I said I had just been over there and didn't see one, what brand was it? He says, "Weatherby". This peaked my interest a bit : ) I said, "Son, you show me a 45-70 Weatherby, and I will buy it right now!" We walked over to the used rifles, and he proudly handed me a Mark 5 in 300wby, I told him what it was, and he says, "Oh, well I knew it was a big one."
One of the best I ever heard was a few years ago at Christmas time, I was in another gun shop, and a very nicely dresssed lady was trying to buy a .22 for her son. The clerk was waiting for a call back from the NICS check, and apparently it was taking too long for the lady. She asked what the hold up was, and the clerk explained the NICS check was to make sure she didn't have any sort of a criminal back ground, she says "that's ridiculous, I'm and ATTORNEY!" There were a number of audible snickers from other customers.

Not at the range, but I was standing in a local sporting goods store on the weekend after the deer season opener talking with a clerk, when a gent comes in and starts telling us that he had been hunting that weekeend. The clerk politely asked if he had any luck. The "gent" answered that he had gotten a "sound shot". We were too stunned to respond.

Two guys were packing up three guns they had just finished sighting in preparation for upcoming deer seasons. Two were typical 30-06 or 7mm Mags and the other was one of the early Marlin(?) 45-70s.

He carefully explained that he got the 45-70 becuse with it he could just shoot a deer anywhere in the body and it would drop dead.

I learned to avoid discussions with idiots long ago so I just wished them luck and hoped with his abilities he would MISS altogether.

I used to sell guns,ammo etc. A couple weeks before hunting season..and sometimes during, we'd have idiots come in and ask "got any 30-06 ammo?"..when id ask what brand,weight etc...thier typical response would be " whatever is cheapest"....always made me shake my head.

I was on range duty a couple of years back and like to walk up and down checking out the shooters rifles. A guy put a new Weatherby 300 Mag on the bench, and I walked on. My range officer mate some time later says " that guy on bench 12, shooting the 300 Winnie can't shoot for shit".
I said "no, that guy is shooting a 300 Wthby"
My mate says " I just read the box of ammo, it's 300 Winnie".
We raced up and stopped him from shooting and when we questioned him about his ammo he said
"Weatherby ammo was too expensive so I bought this cheaper 300 ammo"
The 300 Winnie case just managed to seal the chamber when it was blown out to 300 Wthby.
Malcolm

I walked into a gun shop here in Darwin I no longer go to. I asked for some 7mm Mauser rounds. The guy behind the counter looks around for a bit and hands me a box of 7mm Rem Mag. "No" says I, "thats 7mm Rem Mag"
I point to a box that had 7x57 written on it. "Thats the one there". He said "I'll just ask the gunsmith" He calls the smith out and asks if 7mm Mauser was the same as 7x57. The smith says......wait for it....."what does the book say"

Bakes,

So tell us, is 7mm Mauser and 7X57 the same? We need to know!!!!

The posts so far sound typical to me.

Here are some classics I’ve heard

1.“You don’t need a 416 Rugby (I was shooting my Rigby) to kill a buffalo. I could do it with one well placed shot from my 6mm. Just got to slip the bullet in between the ribs and blow up the heart.â€

2.“The 270 is the greatest moose gun ever. I once saw a guy shoot a moose five times in the neck with a 300 H&H. The moose just stood there till my buddy went back to the car got his 270 and dropped it with one shotâ€

3.A 357 Magnum will shoot through an engine block.

4.A 45 ACP will shoot though an engine block.

5.If you shoot a man in the hand with a 45 ACP it will knock him down.

6.Any gun will knock anything down i.e. (a dude once told me that his 270 Weatherby hits deer so hard that it knocked a deer into a tree breaking its antlers). He tried to explain to me how kinetic energy works, relating it to getting hit by a bus some how (1,000 foot pounds equal 20 mph or something)…

7.Bullets rise out of the muzzle…

8.You can’t kill squirrels with a 22, you need a shotgun…

9.A clerk at a gun store once told me the he fires 500,000 rounds a year through his 45 ACP. 500,000 @ $0.20 =$100,000

10.And last but not least the long rangers… A guy once told me about an elk he killed @ 1200 yards with a model 70, 300 mag, with a 12x scope… He had a steady rest off a tree.

The shockers, the knockers, and the long rangers…..

The comments about the 7mmMag Vs the 270
win tickle my funny bone....

I had some joker telling me that a 7mmMag was "overkill"
on whitetails, well mabey at close range, but I kinda think of the 7mmMag as the 25-06's big brother... basically a better 120gr bullet tosser for those corn or beanfields that look like you are shooting at an interconental target even though from corner to corner the field is only 400-425yds

Then the guys who act like someone using a 30-06 on deer is some kinda terrorist.. "use a 308" or "use a 270, they'll tear up less meat"

Or someone telling me a 223 (loaded with 50gr barnes TSX)
won't kill a deer....if shooting an unalerted doe in the head with a 22LR will actually work... I know this from experience
I also know that the 223 is legal during hunting season in PA, while a 22LR isn't, though the fact that the 223 IS legal is a suprise to many hunters...

Yeah many states have either a 6mm or a "23-caliber" law, but PA doesn't.

Then there are the guys nay-saying that say "you can't shoot accurately enough... annoying a varmint shooter isn't wise.

Almost as funny is the guys right here on AR that insist that
only the heaviest bullet weights will penetrate the hide of a deer/elk/moose let alone penetrate through the vitals and beyond..., that amuses the hell out of me too, because I
never recovered a 100gr 257dia nosler partition from a deer (they all exited) yet somehow a 120gr 7mm bullet won't penetrate AS well, nor will a 150 or 165gr 30cal...
(Yes, I'm trolling to see what nibbles at this worm on a shiny hook

AD

Hey Allan here is a nibble! Will a 200gr Sierra Game King fired from a 300 Win mag at a muzzle velocity of 2900 fps pass through a cow elk? The shot is a perfect (or near perfect) broadside through the lungs range 120 to 170 yards.

How about shot through the spine ~ 8 inches behind the shoulder, same load and once again broadside. Range 190 yards.

Yes or no?

quote:

Originally posted by ScottS:
Hey Allan here is a nibble! Will a 200gr Sierra Game King fired from a 300 Win mag at a muzzle velocity of 2900 fps pass through a cow elk? The shot is a perfect (or near perfect) broadside through the lungs range 120 to 170 yards.

How about shot through the spine ~ 8 inches behind the shoulder, same load and once again broadside. Range 190 yards.

Yes or no?

Sorry, I'm not gonna give you a solid "yes" or "no".

Simply because I wouldn't know for several reasons:
1)I don't use sierra hunting bullets

2)I've never loaded a bullet heavier than 180gr into a 30cal for hunting (if I feel I "need" something heavier than a 180 for game I'll use a bigger bore (say... .338 or .358?) to fire it out of. I have expended a considerable quantity of 200gr semi-spitzers for fireforming cases and even more 190gr Lapua RBT match bullets against paper targets...

3)I never shot ANY animal with a 300mag (any 300mag)

4)haven't shot an elk, but aside from hyperbole to the contrary, an elk is merely a big deer.

In my opinion there is nothing magical about any animal excepting a unicorn and nobody here claims to have shot one of those either


Though I will say that I once had to shoot a "very agigated" mixed-breed (mostly hereford) bull with a 30-06 and the 165gr bullets, several of them (though any after the second were probably unnecissary) used seemed to penetrate very well through a 2500lb plus animal, so I doubt a cow elk would slow a bullet any better...

Do I think that makes me qualified to judge the stubborness of any wild animal? Nope, but flesh is flesh and absent and african animals wearing sunbaked mud on their hide flesh is STILL flesh
so bullets will penetrate about the same.
And bone is bone

I really have difficulty believing that a 200gr bullet is going to penetrate materially better
(in any animal) from a 30calMag than a similarly constructed 180gr bullet

One of those 165's penetrated more than four feet of pissed off bovine before it exited.
Of course if I had an actual choice I'd have used 180's but I needed the rifle FAST and 165's were what fell to hand first....

BTW if one of your hypothetical 200gr bullets strikes the spine you have probably reached "game over" conditions, as I've never seen any animal do anything other than obey newtons laws of gravitation and inertia after a spine hit.

I have seen a deer "run off" after breaking it's spine (and pelvis and both rear legs)
after hitting it with my pickup truck...
It's my belief that if you hit a sufficient number of deer with vehicles you'll see them do some odd things. to-date I've hit FOURTEEN deer
with various vehicles (the brush-bar on my truck isn't for brush :\ ) and I've been "stuck" one short of being a triple-ace for almost two years.


The other "dumb" one I read about all the time here is "bullet failures", when the animal was infact taken and only shot ONCE....

Now, I take it from your "tone" that your question isn't hypothetical that it comes from an experience you had and if the bullet "failed"
to penetrate enough to satisfy you that the weight wasn't at issue as much as the construction was.
From my limited experience with small bore sierra hunting bullets (6.5's and a few 30cal 165's) I have decided that if I'm looking for target bullets I'd buy sierra, if I were buying
varmint bullets I'd buy sierra, but not in preference to any other brand, but if I were buying hunting bullets I'd probably buy something else.... going to a heavier bullet to cover the construction inadequacies of a particular bullet is probably wasted effort.

so IF you had a problem with a 200gr Sierra a 180gr or even a 220gr likely would have performed no differently.

I'll freely admit that what I do is based mainly on preference, and it works for me.
I don't have a single bullet failure horror story to tell and it isn't through lack of experience poking holes in things.
If it's skill or talent it should continue
If OTOH it's luck I'll keep my fingers crossed that it holds up

But I try not to draw conclusions from insufficient data by applying inductive reasoning like many here seem willing to do.

AllanD

Allan,

None of the 200 gr pills exited the elk cows (5 to date). The bullets have all been found in the offside rib cage or under the offside hide.

Elk what I consider a "hard" target either, they seem to stop them thar bullets pretty well. Go figure.

quote:

Originally posted by Teat Hound:

quote:

Originally posted by Mike_Dettorre:

Oh the silly things we here from "experts at the range and behind the gun counter."

Well, if you want a real good laugh, and you ever pass through Bakersfield, stop by 2nd Amendment Sports and talk to the men behind their counters. A guy there told my buddy that a .45 was not a good "protection" caliber and that he should look for a 9mm instead.

They are classic for statements like that.

What do you expect from an $8 per hour "I wanna a be a gun guy" ??


Trophyman

quote:

Originally posted by Trophyman:

quote:

Originally posted by Teat Hound:

quote:

Originally posted by Mike_Dettorre:

Oh the silly things we here from "experts at the range and behind the gun counter."

Well, if you want a real good laugh, and you ever pass through Bakersfield, stop by 2nd Amendment Sports and talk to the men behind their counters. A guy there told my buddy that a .45 was not a good "protection" caliber and that he should look for a 9mm instead.

They are classic for statements like that.

What do you expect from an $8 per hour "I wanna a be a gun guy" ??


Trophyman

Very true!!

quote:

Originally posted by Teat Hound:
Well, if you want a real good laugh, and you ever pass through Bakersfield, stop by 2nd Amendment Sports and talk to the men behind their counters. A guy there told my buddy that a .45 was not a good "protection" caliber and that he should look for a 9mm instead.

They are classic for statements like that.

The second I read "2nd Amendment Sports" I knew something stupid would follow.

You can actually feel the low IQ just walking into that store.

quote:

Originally posted by Fjold:

quote:

Originally posted by Teat Hound:
Well, if you want a real good laugh, and you ever pass through Bakersfield, stop by 2nd Amendment Sports and talk to the men behind their counters. A guy there told my buddy that a .45 was not a good "protection" caliber and that he should look for a 9mm instead.

They are classic for statements like that.

The second I read "2nd Amendment Sports" I knew something stupid would follow.

You can actually feel the low IQ just walking into that store.

Today some clown there told my brother, on the 1st day of the fall sale, that 7 Rem Mag was not a popular caliber, which is why they never carry much ammo for it. Well, I speculate that their prices will drop once Bass Pro opens up on 99 & Hoskins in 2009!

The only future CA store that they have on their website is in Manteca. Where did you see 99 and Hoskins? Cabela's would be smart to move there and split the distance between BPS stores even though they're putting the store in Reno.

quote:

Originally posted by Fjold:
The only future CA store that they have on their website is in Manteca. Where did you see 99 and Hoskins? Cabela's would be smart to move there and split the distance between BPS stores even though they're putting the store in Reno.

Here is one reference:
http://fishingworld.com/News/Read.php?ArtID=000020749

We had a fella here that was really into reloading, we called him "dipper" cause when you ask him what the load was using he would say I dip the case in the powder and shake off enough to seat the bullet. What kinda powder do you use? I use ball powder cause the other has sharp corners and will wear the barrel out quicker.
This guy is still alive altho I have no idea why.

quote:

Originally posted by Teat Hound:

quote:

Originally posted by Fjold:
The only future CA store that they have on their website is in Manteca. Where did you see 99 and Hoskins? Cabela's would be smart to move there and split the distance between BPS stores even though they're putting the store in Reno.

Here is one reference:
http://fishingworld.com/News/Read.php?ArtID=000020749

Cool Beans, Thanks. Woohoo!

A guy walks in with a target from the local 100 yd range with a 5 shot group center mass of the target that is about 5.5 min. group. he tells me that the range is 300 yards. "I built the back stop its 107 by my tape". he proceeds to tell me all about his regular deer slaying at 500-600 yards. and that explaind alot about how faaaar the deer were when killed by him.sience he thinks 100 is 300 I think he realy does it by his measurement.

dude about 40 comes in and wants to know the best way to kill a deer at 600 yds from his elevated tree stand. I say get down and sneak 550 closer to him.he doesent like that and says they cross his pipeline right of way at the same spot every morning about 600 yards from him measureed with his buddys laser and he dont think he kan sneek em. I ask if he owns the land between him and the crossing spot he says he does. "I love this" when I ask why not move the stand closer and use the rifle he already owns he got this queer look like he had been bit on the ass by a serpant or gass pains or maybe a stroke had him for over a minute "I counted 60 no shit" . then he got this strange look like a baby wetting a diaper and the lights came on in there he had honestly never thought to just move the stand closer. He thought that I was the greatest guy in the world for not trying to sell him anything to solve his problem .He then bought a 300 wby fibermark 6.5x20 leupold 3 boxes of shells and left happy to try his 600yd deer.

some men you just cant reach!

From Montana:

I did not find the remark by the "Range Officer" to be a surprise. Frankly, I deem it a typical view from a chap from California! In our valley we have not figured out whether the greater threat to our way of life is the grasshoppers or the Californians!

I have heard my far share of stupid things at the range and stores. But what I seen the other day at gander mountain beat anything I ever heard. I was looking for a new pistol. Found what I wanted. Trouble was this new gun looked like someone dragged it through gravel. Well I now understand why. An employee comes out of the back with a shopping cart. She is stocking shelves with new guns. All the guns where stacked on each other no boxes cases or anything just loose in the cart. I have seen firewood handled better. I was at a lose for words I turned around and walked away. Yet another reason to not shop at gander mountain.