Ya'll have really entertained me with this discussion. There seems to be a lot of knowledge and experience to draw on here. So, how important is length of bullet in the class of cartridges being discussed in this thread??
Back in the 1960s Jack O'Connor once wrote that the 06 was the best all-around cartridge for North America, and also described the .375 H&H as the best all-around African round. Apparently, not much has changed in a half Century.
In my mind when we play with improving on the 06 for North America we are having fun thinking about low-probability events rather than those most common circumstances when we usually make meat. At least that's the case with my hunting style.
The 06 has served me well and has accounted for most of my deer and elk. I've never lost a wounded animal with the 06, but I did once have to work hard to find a mortally wounded elk that wasn't leaving a blood trail. I'd hit the rag horn high through the lungs shooting up a very steep mountainside in deep snow. About an hour later I found it with its head hanging down in heavy timber about 200 yards from where I first connected.
Blood gushed out of the body cavity when I opened it up revealing that it had just about bled to death internally. The 180 grain Nosler Par. was just under the bull's hide. After that I decided I wanted an exit wound to reduce the probability of losing a wounded animal in the future.
The next couple of years I fed my African fantasies hauling a big heavy and beautiful .375 H&H around the Montana mountains, but never got a shot at an elk while I was carrying that Model 70.
Now I'm again thinking about increasing a the probability of an exit wound, but preferably with a lighter handier short action rifle. Guys I've talked to who are currently execising the .325 WSM in featherweight rifles describe its recoil as being a the brutal side fun when testing handloads at the range.
So fellers, I'd appreciate if you'd weigh in on this one, but from a little different perspective than this thread has travelled so far.
What's it going to take take to have a high probability of an exit wound on an elk when shooting across the body cavity? Can we get there consitently with bullets in the 200-to-250 grain range? How much of an advantage is a longer bullet with higher ballistic coefficient than a relatively shorter fatter bullet? Can .308-based cartridge such as the .338 Federal or the .358 Winchester efficiently handle a long enough bullet for optimal (pass-through) penetration and down-range energy for those low-probability long shots?
It seems like much of the discussion about the .338 Federal and .358 Winchester have focused on bullet weight without consideration of bullet length. Remember that when Bell shot all those elephants with a 7 mm Mauser he was shootling long-heavy 7mm bullets not short high-velocity 7 mm bullets. Bullet length and penetration have traditionally been considered for heavy dangerous game in Africa.
Isn't the biggest disadvantage of the new short fat cartridges designed for short actions -- that they aren't designed to load long bullets as was that first H&H family of magnum cartridges?
Will we eventually go full circle back to longer cartrides in longer actions so that we can load long-enough bullets for the best performance in both heavy-bodied animals and longer shots?
What say ye sages of the range? What kind of size matters most -- length or diameter or weight? What's the smallest optimal combination of length, diameter, and bullet weight for consistently blowing a hole out the far side of an elk? Can a sane man get there with a 6 1/2 pound short-action rifle?
