is that a good gun for em' things

Uh yeah, probably the best.

It is a good calibre for anything! :-)

I shot a moose with my .375 last year, and yes, the moose did indeed expire as expected.

jpb

The .375 is mostly perfect for moose. You will have power enough to knock the big bulls down, and the large wounds will make tracking easier if they quite unexpected would disappear into the bush.

This is a adequate gun for moose - much better than 6,5x55 or similar.

Fritz

The .375 is a great moose gun, but I would stay away from Nosler Partitions and go with some other premium bullet that holds its weight and makes a bigger wound channel. The Noslers will do the job, but not as quick.

Moose are not hard to kill. If you hit the heart/lungs area they usually drop pretty fast. I have only had one moose that walked 25 yards after the shot, and the rest have dropped on the spot, or just a step or two after the shot. A friend of mine uses his .30-30 within 150 yards, and I use a .338 Magnum. The farthest I have killed moose has been 300 yards, and since then, between 100 and 200 yards. He has killed moose at close range just as fast I have killed mine.

Ray,Alaska,

Does he use flat nose bullets in his 30-30? Adequate velocity with good shock/expansion vs high velocity (I'm theorising a bit as I don't know bullet types, weights or velocities). I wonder what the respective entry and exit wounds are like? Do you shoot at the same bit of the animal? Is this over an extended period of time?

I would be fascinated to know the answers, I really do wonder if we sometimes judge killing power on the wrong end of the gun ie our shoulder.

Now that I think about it, it seems funny that this guy buys the cheapest .30-30 ammo he can find, such as the Federal 170-grain Hi-Shock Round Nose. I could be wrong of course, but I believe that a .30-30 up close can do lots of damage. I don't know how fast these bullets are, but as far as I remember I haven't seen many exit wounds from his shots on moose. I have hunted moose approximately seven years, but he has hunted moose for many years in Alaska. He, along a couple of friends, introduced me to moose hunting when I retired from the military a few years back. The first thing I learned from them was moose anatomy, specially the heart's location, and also bear anatomy (we hunt in bear country).

I believe "he knows" the animal he hunts, specially its anatomy and habits. That may be the reason why he does so well. I have heard that lots of Alaska natives have been using small caliber guns to kill bears and moose, and perhaps they too have learned enough about the animals they hunt. For example, I have heard that bears have a thin bone area, between the eye and the ear, and some native hunters use accurate small guns to shoot bears on that spot. I met a guy a few years back, and he was showing me pictures of two brown bears he has killed with his .223. He said that he uses a high-power scope, because he does not want to get close to the bears. He places the scope's crosshair at the base of the ear and fires one time.

The way we usually hunt may be the reason why he uses a .30-30. For example, we sit at our respective hunting spots, and stay there out of view for hours waiting for moose. The field he watches is much smaller than mine, and sometimes it takes days before moose appear. When they do, we usually have time to wait until we can take a good shot.

For some reason, round nose bullets seem to kill just as well as the fast and pointed ones. In my view, a relatively soft bullet traveling at a moderate speed can penetrate or kill just as well as a fast and stout one. The last issue of "American Hunter" (NRA's magazine) has an excellent article about the killing power of round-nose bullets for the .454 Casull. Perhaps the flat nose starts doing its work even before it has time to expand, and that's the advantage over a Spitzer. A "too fast" (at close range) Spitzer could break apart or fail to penetrate enough if it expands too soon.

There is a book titled "Some Bears Kill," and this book (written by Larry Kaniut) contains a series of true accounts of human/bear confrontations. This book is about those humans who were lucky enough to avoid an encounter, or somehow repelled or killed bears that charged them. These humans were survivors, and several used very small guns, knives, and other weapons.

I believe that to attain gun proficiency takes time, and the easy way out is to use the biggest gun we can shoot. Perhaps most of us don't have the means (money, time, etc.) to "get to know" or become proficient enough with our gun (or guns) and to know the animal we hunt. Firearm proficiency and "knowing" the prey could make a difference under a stressful situation, regardless of gun size. To stay "cool headed" and know exactly what to do under stress should be very difficult. I haven't experienced moments such as those when hunting.

[This message has been edited by Ray, Alaska (edited 06-01-2001).]