Anyone else powering down?

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I'll probably power up this year in the open country. I used a 7.62x39 last year to good effect but this year me and the mrs will probably use my 06,es. If I can find a box of 53 grn barnes tsx bullets I may use my retro ar15 in close terrain though
 
I've been using long, heavy, small caliber round nosed bullets with plenty of lead exposed at the tip, like those from Hornady. They are quite deadly if velocities are held down to 2200-2400 FPS. Because I like to stalk close and take shots under 150 yards, the small loss of trajectory makes no difference. Even large animals fall over right away when hit by 175 grain RN bullets from my 7x57. I am going to find a 6.5xsomething and try the 160 grain Hornady RN for the same thing. Recoil in either is non-existent.

My first and true love will always be the cannons, and they work just fine. But I can't claim they are necessary or even ideal.
 
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I knew a guy that took elk with a 25/06. It can be done.

For deer, I've never been big on big guns. I have been using my .308 last dozen years or so when I rifle hunt. But, last year I got the old .257 Roberts out and sighted it in. Actually, it just shot it. It's been sitting since I got that .308 and it's still spot on.

Love that .308, but I just wanna get the old .257 out for use. I may not hunt with it, will be bow hunting this year, handgun hunting, and maybe some trips with the Hawken front loader. The .257 or any rifle feels like cheating out where I'm hunting. 150 yards is a long shot on my land.

I've taken a few deer with a 7mm rem mag hunting out west. It's okay for shooting mulies across New Mexico canyons, but it just seems a bit much even for that. The .257 will shoot nearly as far and kill mulies just as dead, ditto the .308. But, I ain't sellin' the 7. It's fun to shoot, makes a big bang, increases testosterone production. LOL
 
Would going from a 7mm-08 to a .257 Roberts be considered "powering down"? :D
 
I'll be using my 300 Winchester MAGNUM (Oh God, I said the "M" word) this year for deer season. Might even take the 7mm Remington MAGNUM out once or twice too.:neener:

I don't NEED them to hunt deer, my .270 will do just as well, along with .223, 22 Magnum, etc. I just happen to fancy the belted magnums.
 
"Would going from a 7mm-08 to a .257 Roberts be considered "powering down"? "-bpl . More like a lateral movement with a slight downward tilt.
 
Personally, I think that this whole "Magnum" thing is mostly BS -- from both the pro- and anti-Magnum camps.:)

Handloaders get a bit more velocity than factory loads, but consider these generic factory specs for the sake of comparison.

.270 Winchester 130 grains @ 3060 FPS
.280 Remington 140 grains @ 3000 FPS
7mm Rem Mag 140 grains @ 3175 FPS

How different are these numbers? Not very. Less than 6% velocity difference between the non-magnum and Magnum 7mm Remington cartridges.

The word "Magnum" doesn't mean as much as people perceive.

"Powering down", whether or not someone has an injury or any other reason for it, can be a rational response to recognizing that a Magnum might just not be worth the cost and recoil when it doesn't really provide a huge jump in performance.:)

OTOH the idea that a 7mm Remington Magnum is "way too much gun" when a .270 is "perfect" isn't supported by the numbers.
 
I am really here nor there in the magnum camp. I have 1 mag rifle and haven't shot it yet. I am not above taking a game animal by any means legal, so long as I am adaquet with those means.
 
This was never meant to be a magnum vs standard caliber war. AGAIN, I have magnums and will use them when the situation warrants it. I don't reload, so ammunition cost is a factor. Why pay $80+ per 20 rounds of .300 Wby mag. When my .308 @<$20 per 20 rounds will do just as well? Why subject myself to jarring and potentially dangerous recoil when it isn't necessary? I was poking fun at myself with the original "magnumitis" comment. I didn't know it would take center stage in what I thought was a reasonable question.
 
Dude, you need a reloading press. :D Seriously, I wouldn't love the .257 Roberts so much if I didn't handload. I could get by with the .308, admittedly, without handloading and ditto the 7 mag. But, it also saves quite a bit of money allowing for more shooting. I really don't shoot the centerfires that much except for some of my milsurps, though. I shoot a lot with a .22 mag rimfire for practice, shoot my front loader quite a bit, and the milsurps are fun. I've still got about 1500 rounds of 7.62x39 mixed wolf and norinco that I've had for a while. So, I don't burn a lot of centerfire, but still, it's nice to be able to go load 50 rounds of .257 Roberts once in a while that beats anything I can buy over the counter hands down. I have several hundred rounds of .308 loaded up. I wouldn't wanna buy that over the counter at a buck a round.
 
I will probably have to start handloading for the .257 Roberts. Factory ammo is almost non-existant. I have found one brand for about 2 dollars a round ($42+shipping). I have enough ammo for everything else,except maybe the .280 Rem. but I don't plan on using it much.
 
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Wow, 25 years ago when .257 was having a little resurgence of popularity and Winchester came out with the +P silvertip stuff, you could find .257 on the shelf at Walmart. I guess it's back to obscurity for the old hoss again. No matter, can still get brass, bullets, powder, and primers if they ain't sold out. I haven't even looked for factory ammo in 25 years. I inherited the reloading dies and such from my grandpa and have reloaded .257 for since the late 60s, but I had a period there where I was living in apartments and moving a lot and didn't have a good place to mount the press. I had the press on a pickup tool box for a while and loaded in the back of my truck, LOL! I was desperate in college.
 
I hunted with a .338 Win Mag for about 20 years primarily because it was such an accurate rifle. I would use 250-300 gr. bullets for Elk and hand-load some milder 200 gr. for Deer and Hogs.

However, when I bought a 7mm-08 for my Daughter about 14 yrs. old, I absolutely fell in love with the cartridge. Plenty of energy for Whitetail, very soft recoil, very accurate.

Yeah, I've "powered down".
 
I've always sorta powered down...within reason, of course. By far, most of the rifles I've handloaded for produce the best accuracy...not to mention reduced battering on the gun and extended barrel life...with pressure and velocity levels a bit below top-end.

This doesn't always hold true, of course. I've seen a few boomsticks that didn't start to shoot until pressures were above what I'd consider sane...but these are the exception.

On the receiving end...I've yet to see a whitetail deer or a groundhog that could tell the difference in 50 fps plus or minus.

Higher velocities mainly serve to flatten trajectory. If the animal is well and solidly hit...it'll drop to 2900 fps as quickly as it'll drop to 3000.

The .257 Roberts is a fine old cartridge. So is the 7X57. Sad to see it fade, but in the Age of Magnums...I guess it was inevitible.
 
I'd been " '06-ing" for about 20 years when I bought my .243. Cute little cartridge. Worked great for the deer-culling I was doing at the old family place. Wasn't hunting, as such; just drive along in the jeep and shoot whatever doe or scraggle-horn buck I saw. Hey, the little critter worked just fine. I merely figured that it wasn't really the answer in Ma Bell country.

Since various witnesses were fond of yakking of having watched my father kill deer to 500 yards with his '06, I merely assumed that I was supposed to be able to do the same. And, out here in this wide-open desert-mountain country, it's a rational solution to the equation.

My legs have about quit on me, so I loaned the '06 to Justin to keep me in elk steaks. I got a 700 Ti in 7mm08 since I'll do a bunch more sitting than walking. I guess that's "powering down", but not enough to worry about.

You get right down to it, if you're in many-deer country and just want meat, all ya gotta do is imitate a stump for a long while and use a .32-20. :D
 
Yep...I have powered down I suppose. Last year I bought a CZ 6.5x55 Swede and it is my new go to deer rifle. I still have my 7Mag and 300Mag and will hunt with both but found that the 6.5 just is a lot more fun to shoot and it does a great job taking deer. It took me a few years to finally decide to power down simply because of the performance of the two rifles mentioned above. They shoot great so to just replace them took me a while to make up my mind to do so. I too finally gave in to physical issues. A seperated shoulder along with neck issues have made me think twice about shooting the big boomers.
 
The .257 Roberts is a fine old cartridge. So is the 7X57. Sad to see it fade, but in the Age of Magnums...I guess it was inevitible.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure it really is the "age of the magnums". Someone posted the top 10 hunting calibers somewhere in a thread. IIRC 7 mag and .300 WSM were the only ones in the top ten. The list was headed by the 06, of course. 7 mag, .308 were tied for fourth. IIRC, and this was for hunting large game supposedly, there was .243 in the top five and .22-250 was in the top 10 (very popular round in Texas for kids and the recoil shy).

I think it's the "age of the short magnum" as far as advertising hype goes, though, grant ya that. LOL I think other than the 7, belted mags seem to have fallen somewhat out of favor. 20 years ago it was all about the 8mm Rem Mag and the 7mm STW and such. It goes in spurts, I reckon.
 
Here in MS the only really big critters we have to hunt are hogs, but I'm not too interested in hunting them for some reason. My limited deer hunting has alway been with a 30-06. Only killed 2 over the years (I'm not a very active or knowledgeable hunter), but it worked very well both times.

For deer I'm going to give 6.8SPC a try this year if I get a chance. I'm also giving some thought to leaving the rifle at home and going at it with a .41 mag. revolver.
 
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