I'm posting here a table that is apparently the result of Scandinavian alg kills against caliber and number of shots. (This table was posted by writer John Barsness on another forum.)

I have a few questions, if anyone is able to help.

Cartridge	Animals	# of Shots	Moose Travel*
6.5x55 	          2,792	   1.57	             43
7mm Rem. Mag. 	    107	   1.32	             40
.308 WCF	  1,314	   1.67	             41
.30-06 	          2,829	   1.57	             47
.300 Win. Mag. 	     27	   1.83	             16
8x57 	            575	   1.53	             57
.338 Win. Mag. 	     83	   1.20	             31
.358 Norma 	    219	   1.16	             19
9.3x57	            134	   1.50	             41
9.3x62 	            449	   1.50	             34
.375 H&H 	    211	   1.33	             31

*how far moose went after first shot	

1. Does anyone know if this study has been translated into English?
2. Are there other such studies? I understand there was both a Swedish as well as a Norwegian survey/study, though I don't know if both results are included in these results.
3. Can someone help me understand the apparent illogicality of the 6.5x55 achieving the same results as those of the 30-06?
4. Were animals that were hit and lost excluded from these results?

Thank you,
Jaywalker

What are the issues with logic in the table ?

Do you seriously think that 6.5mm bullets are inferior to 7.62mm ones, given that they are well placed or as the table shows, the moose receiving in both cases 1.57 hits on average ?

Jaywalker, You can contact John at 24hourcampfire (ask the gunwriters forum) and get the answers directly from him.

GBF, please note that I said, "apparent illogic," not that I ascribe to it. The "apparent" portion comes from the fact that the 7.62 is larger and likely heavier than the 6.5, and given similar velocities and sectional densities, will deliver greater energy. OTOH, I think the results of the survey are very compelling, and I would like to understand the protocols under which the study was performed; thus my questions.

Joe and others, please note the thread at Scandinavian Elk Survey. In that thread you will find many people who believe "bigger is better." I used to believe that, but the elk survey is shaking my belief; again, thus my questions. John B was involved, and his response cited the greater ability of a larger bullet to break heavy bones. That doesn't explain the similarity of results in the elk survey, however.

I'm not discounting the beliefs of people who have killed more game than I have seen, but I do wish there were more facts in the matter and less faith, so I'd like to understand the elk survey better.

Jaywalker

I would bet the "distance travelled" was just a guess, and was not accurately measured, not that it matters. IMO, the data just shows that all the calibers used were adequate to the task.
Where the animal was hit, bullet construction, and numerous other issues are not mentioned. No reasonable conclusion is possible regarding "comparative effectiveness", other than that all seemed effective.

This "study" has been much debated in sweden and the consensus seems to be to take it for what it is.
The distance the animal moved after the first shot is probably all guesstimates.
Avarage number of shots fired is not the same thing as number of shots needed.
You need to know how many animals were shot with a certain caliber to know if tha data is valid as statistics and so on.
If you carefully study the data you can see a trend that "bigger is better" but better is in the animal moving 40 meters instead of 50 before going down..

snowhound,

Were animals that were hit but lost excluded from this study?

Jaywalker

I think this survey tells us what we already know: hit a beast in the chest with any reasonable round between 6.5x55 and 30/06 and it will die in short order.

I think it also tells us we need to take a substantial step up in bullet/power size to get a significantly quicker kill than that provided by our normal deer rounds.

quote:

Were animals that were hit but lost excluded from this study?

Jaywalker

A valid question!
I don't no for certain bit I suspect that an animal that did not recieve a deadly hit was not included. It would sqew the data and would not say anything about the caliber used.
If one animal walked 1000 meters it would take 20 brainshots to make an avarage of 50 meters.
In Sweden an animal is almost never lost.
The law requires that you have a TRAINED tracker dog on site within 2 hours and the animal is tracked until it is found or pronounced uninjured. This may mean tracking for several kilometers without any signs that the animal may not be completely healthy.

Here is a link to (I think) tha data:
https://www.finnskogenalg.nu/kaliber9097.pdf
The columns translate as caliber-number of moose-%-number of shots-average range-distance travelled after first shot.

460 weatherby seems absolutely worthless - until you discover that the data is based on only 3 animals...

snowhound:

quote:

In Sweden an animal is almost never lost.
The law requires that you have a TRAINED tracker dog on site within 2 hours and the animal is tracked until it is found or pronounced uninjured. This may mean tracking for several kilometers without any signs that the animal may not be completely healthy.

That is an excellent point - I had not considered the presence of tracking dogs. (An odd oversight, given that I own a Verein Deutsch Drahthaar that I have trained to track.) Much of the US forbids the use of dogs for any purpose in deer and elk (wapiti) hunting.

Thank you for the link. It includes information I did not have previously - "average range."

Jaywalker

To clarify for some , alg [elg] = moose. Hjort = wapiti.In a past posting about which cartridges are used for scandinavian moose the responses were that the great majority used 308 or 30-06 and relatively few used the 6.5x55. The 6.5x55 was the minimum permissible and only with certain loads.The scandinavian moose is smaller than ours.That survey seems to indicate that the 6.5 is much more popular.

Jaywalker
You can se why Swedes consider 200 meters a long shot!
This may be off topic but do you have any estimate of how many deer/moose are lost in NA?

Sorry, but I don't know. I have not heard of anyone attempting to collect that data. I don't know how one would go about it, either - ethically, we would follow a blood trail as long as possible, but without a dog to "tell" us, sometimes there might be a trail of which we're unaware, or it might fade out.

Jaywalker

It has been stated below and I will add to it even further, the "study" shows some statistics that was gathered to sustain the need for us Swedes to still be allowed to hunt mooose/Älg with the 6,5x55.

I will admitt that the official reason for the gathering of this info was not the reason I stated above but still the same that was a large part of it.

Jaywalker you had som Q:s.

1. No the stuyd is only as far as I now of avaliable in Swedish and Norweigan.

2. There are other studies like it that has been done in Europe, dont have them on hand, they where about wildboar and hunting them.

3. There is no illogic between the results of the 6,5x44 and 30-06.

Most Sweish moose is hunted as still hunt, a smaller part as slow driven hunt and then some with dogs that "stay" the moose for the dog handler to advance to and shoot.

All in all, most shots at moose here in Sweden are taken at ranges under 80 meters, the average in one surwey, strictly a volontary deal through the swedish hunters association pointed to the fact that 46 meters ie 49 yards was the avarage distance.

At 50 meters or 80 meters there is enough monentum, energy in both cals 6,5 and 7,62 that they will deliver good swift kills, however as people tend to shoot better with rifles with less recoil in then I do belive that the 6,5 shooters have been slightly better at placing there bullets correctly.

The diff is what 7 meters of travel and the average of rounds are the same.

4. In sweden we generaly dont hit and loose animals, we are obliged by law to make "eftersök" a term with a broader meaning then blodtrailing, with the help of a trained dog.

Sure it does happen that a moose or so gets shot at and doesn´t fall at once however the meat has such high value to the hunters that we spend a lot of time recovering animals.

The results are according to my knowledge not such as that they exclude shot at and lost animals.

Due note the * how far mooose went after first shot.

A typical moose shot here in sweden is taken at a moose in slow trott or walk at short ranges, the shooter will continue to shoot until moose falls or can´t be shot again due to the terrain.

I wonder if it´s common knowledge in the US that to qualify for moose hunt and large boar rifles one has to shoot at the running moose range and make at least 4/4 shots hit the vital zone and at least 3/4 with in the scoring area.

I hope that I in some way has been helpfull.

Best regards Chris

quote:

Originally posted by Jaywalker:
I'm posting here a table that is apparently the result of Scandinavian alg kills against caliber and number of shots. (This table was posted by writer John Barsness on another forum.)

I have a few questions, if anyone is able to help.

Cartridge	Animals	# of Shots	Moose Travel*
6.5x55 	          2,792	   1.57	             43
7mm Rem. Mag. 	    107	   1.32	             40
.308 WCF	  1,314	   1.67	             41
.30-06 	          2,829	   1.57	             47
.300 Win. Mag. 	     27	   1.83	             16
8x57 	            575	   1.53	             57
.338 Win. Mag. 	     83	   1.20	             31
.358 Norma 	    219	   1.16	             19
9.3x57	            134	   1.50	             41
9.3x62 	            449	   1.50	             34
.375 H&H 	    211	   1.33	             31

*how far moose went after first shot	

1. Does anyone know if this study has been translated into English?
2. Are there other such studies? I understand there was both a Swedish as well as a Norwegian survey/study, though I don't know if both results are included in these results.
3. Can someone help me understand the apparent illogicality of the 6.5x55 achieving the same results as those of the 30-06?
4. Were animals that were hit and lost excluded from these results?

Thank you,
Jaywalker

Thank you, Chris. I appreciate your clarifying the issues.

Yes, most of us on AR are aware of the testing requirements for Euro hunters and the resulting high level of skill.

Less common over here is the understanding of the ownership of the meat of a hunted animal. In the US, at least, the hunter owns the meat. (As a side note, that makes for some interesting comparisons in the animals' sizes. Euro hunters remove everything possible before weighing the animal and paying for it, while US hunters many times use the less-precise "by guess and by God" method of animal weighing. After dragging my deer, or carrying my wapiti quarters for a few miles, my animals' reported weights tend to get heavier; go figure.)

I would iagine that most US hunters' shots are under 100 meters, also, though many of us do tend to prepare for the longest shot we can imagine. (Given that we have no real limit on the numbers of rifles we may own, those of us on AR who like rifles will tend to have on for many specialties.) Others own a single rifle and get along fine - perhaps better than we "specialists" who distract ourselves with multiple rifles. Possibly.

Jaywalker

In Sweden there is wery little public land, there are some in the north, however all hunting taken place on a private land has to be after permission by the landowner or the holder of the hunting rights on the land.

Any and all game shot are the property of the holder of the hunting rights. To get acces to a hunting lease usualy there are a few hunters that join in a hunting team.

When hunting for small game the shooter are almost always keeping the kill, regarding red deer and or other deer and wildboar there are usualy rules within each team how to share the meat, in my team one keeps the first red dear of the season and shares the following, same for all other game and shooters.

Moose is being hunting by tags and and tha tags are being distributed/given by the moose handling program board in each county, on my lease we have one adult every two years and one calf every year.


The ideas of weighing an paying for the meat as is the norm in some parts in Europe is not to common here in Sweden however there are som places ranches and others that "grow" deer and wildboar, to hunt the you pay both to hunt and for the kill if one is made.

Regarding guns just to give you all a taste of a not so common "vapengarderob" here in Sweden, i own a Sako P75 .22 Hornet with a Helia 8x56 nr 1 , a Sako Varmint 308 Win with a 4-16 AO Weaver duplex, a Belgian hammer shotgun 16 gauge from 1896, a Merkel drilling 12/70+7x57R with a red dot, 1960 vintage, a Ds O/u in 9,3x74R with a Scmidt and Bender 1,1-4, nr 2 in claw rings, being at the gun smith right now, the Ds has a pair of 20 gauge shot barrels also, and finaly a Husqvarna hammer cape gun in 16/65 and 9,3x57R/360 from 1890.

The Ds took the place of a FN made M98 from Husqvarna in 9,3x62 with a 1,5-6x42 with nr 4 in Talley QD-mounts.

In Swede the Norma ammo plant gives us good but expensiva ammo and some decent bullets, I have a liking for Woodleighs and have just gotten interested in Nort Fork Bullets.

Lenghty but hopefully of some interest.

Best regards Chris

This is a scan of a graph of the same topic, maybe even from the same data:



In meters of course.

Desperately trying to work out the correlation between calibre/velocity/bullet weight - that ends up showing the most popular calibres as being the most 'ineffective'!

Puzzling.

Rgds Ian

Agree, find that data pretty puzzling aswell. My personal experience is 30-06 and .338 on Scandinavian moose where the 70 meters is pretty truthful for 30-06. Got two kills with the .338 but they both where neck shots so...

Guys!! This is not a controlled study from which ANY meaningful conclusions can be reached!! The moose were not all hit in the same body place, or with the same constructed bullet, or even all headed uphill or downhill. Its a crap shoot.

Hmm, at least the chart was printed in Swedens largest hunting magazine, published by the largest hunters organisation here, and they are not known for being haphazard about facts. If I recall correctly, the data was compiled on voluntary reports from the actual shooters, the most probable error lies with them, but I'm pretty sure they differentiated between a heart or a gut shot in the compiling of data.

Göran, so they did however the testresults are flawed just by the sheer fact that there was one like some 8 mooses shot with the 458 Win, they all died at once.

Really all that list shows is the popularity of different cals with the Swedish moose hunters, the 308 is the most common with 30-06 and 6,5x55 close by.

There are a lot of moose shot with these cals and the moose will sometimes travel quite a bit even though they are letaly hit.

Just let things bee, a hit with a 6,5-7,62 cal bullet 150 grains and upp will kill a moose with a good hit.

9,3-11,45 cal bullets starting with 232 grains will do the job faster but at a higher cost for the shooter in terms of recoil.

All in all the study is a exercise in futility.

Best regards Christian