Well certainly you're entitled to your opinion, but my shoulder can definitely tell the difference. As soon as I load above 2400 fps with a 150-grain bullet in my .308, the recoil becomes noticeably uncomfortable, as in, no big deal for one or three shots, but I'm not going to sit there and shoot that all day at the range. Part of the reason is that my hunting rifles are 7 lbs. or less due to the fact that I usually hunt on my feet during gun season.
I've always used the 1K ft. lb. standard for deer as I think that provides more than enough margin for error, esp. on 100 lb. Texas Whitetails. Deer get quickly and humanely killed every year with much less, but 1K is my comfort level.
So in my handloads, my goal is to produce a load in my .308 that gives me 1K ft. lbs. at 300 yards. I'm not going to shoot past 300 yards, so there's no point in my mind in wasting the energy. And I'm not going to take a quick shot at 300, so I should have plenty of time to range the critter with my rangefinder, and know where to aim, negating the trajectory question.
Yugorpk, that's what I'm doing now and it certainly works. I bought the .308 for it's versatility and that's exactly what I got.
I'm just surprised that with all the bullet choices in .30 caliber, and for how long that caliber has been around, there isn't something in a "7.62x45-ish" round that found it's way into the deer hunting world.
I know the 7mm-08 has become a very popular round because it features a lot of these characteristics. Just surprised there's not something that offers a heavier bullet with a similar amount of recoil in a bolt gun.
If there was a good, accurate, rimless .30-30-ish bolt gun with factory pointed bullets, I would think it would sell. I mean, how many deer have been killed with a 30-30 by now? Just seems the obvious thing to me. Guess I'm just off base though.
