The Best Rifle Caliber To Hunt Big Game

This has been a debate for many years and will continue to be a debate among hunters for all eternity. There’s many different calibers of rifles to choose from. The most popular being the.270 and 30.06. More recently the 7mm and.300 have started to become mainstream rifles to take big game hunting. Most will agree it all depends on what type of animal you’re hunting. Obviously using a.270 with a low grain cartridge for a full grown bull moose is not the best option. While some will argue it’s ok if your shot placement is spot on.

5 months before my first big game hunt my father bought me my first Remington.270 bolt action. I loved that Remington.270 cause it was the rifle I shot and killed my first mule deer with, a beautiful 4-point buck. However when I started hunting elk I upgraded to a Remington 30.06 bolt action on my father’s recommendation. I can still remember him saying “elk are very strong animals and are very hard to put down.” That statement has stuck with me for many years and always comes to my mind when I’m elk hunting.

I can still remember the first elk I shot and killed. The area I hunt is spike only so that makes my options easy. I spotted him 2 days into the hunt about 450 yards away from my position. He was a big majestic spike. He had to be two years old due to the size of his body and his antlers or his father was a great big bull. Anyway the first shot that hit him went straight through his vitals, which didn’t stop him from moving downhill and I proceeded to put two more rounds into him finally bringing him down. I was in awe at the shear strength and power that these animals have. My father was definitely right.

My father uses a.300 semi-auto Browning which is a beautiful rifle and has a lot of knock down power. I sighted the scope in for him and ended up with a big ole bruise on my shoulder the next day.

For the last 10 years I’ve been using my Remington 30.06 to hunt mule deer and elk and that caliber seems to be the best for me.

When it comes to which rifle to use I recommend bigger is better and using the highest grain cartridge possible. The worst thing for a hunter is wounding an animal and not being able to find it. A lot of us can relate a story or two regarding that. Nothing makes a hunter feel worse than that. I make sure when I hit an animal it’s going down. Another recommendation is to make sure you’re practicing all year with your rifle, it is very true that a well placed shot from almost any rifle will put down a big game animal.

May all your hunting trips be good ones.

James Fackrell
http://www.TheKnivesStore.com

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A Look At Rifle Stocks

Recently I took out my Winchester.315 Self loading rifle from its case. I assembled the dismantled gun pieces and was witness to a beautiful weapon. What caught my eye was the stock of walnut wood. It looked wonderful and added to the aura of the guns beauty. This is in effect one of the uses of the stock on your gun.

The gun as is well known follows Newton’s third law of motion, which states that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Thus when you fire the rifle or gun the bullet that leaves the barrel at a certain speed has a recoil effect and the gun exerts a pressure on the shoulder. As the gun or rifle nestles between the hollow of the shoulder the recoil is greatly lessened if the gun is held firmly. The stock or the butt of the rifle helps in cushioning the recoil effect. Thus in addition to the looks the stock has the primary purpose of cushioning the recoil or kick back. It must be noted that the heavier the gun greater the recoil.

Stocks for rifles and guns earlier were only made of wood. Those were the golden times and the stocks were generally all hand crafted and invariably made of teak, walnut or sheesham. Many types of wood were used and the price of the stock accordingly varied with the quality of wood used. Some stocks also were engraved with designs and these added a personal touch to the weapon. If required there were stock manufactures that would for a price make a stock as per your specifications and engrave any design you wanted.

But with the passage of time and with greater commercial exploitation and mass scale manufacture the individual stock seems to be going out of fashion. In addition new materials like carbon and Bakelite are showing up as stock material. These have their advantage that they are much lighter than wooden stocks but the individual stamp is difficult to maintain.

The modern synthetic stocks do not appeal to a lot many shooters. Perhaps these are now in abundance because of the high price and scarcity of good wood but the fact is that most fire arms in the United Sates are offered with synthetic stocks.

Things are a little better in India where the private gun manufacturers in Jammu and Bihar still use good wood like walnut for the stocks. The Jammu gunsmiths will also engrave any particular design or motif you want on your stock. But bear in mind that they only manufacture shot guns.

There is no doubt that a stock made of man made material can be produced a lot cheaper than a product made of wood. But again a lot many gun owners will still prefer the good old wooden stock for their guns and rifles. Let us hope they do not fade away.

Article Source:http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Madan_G_Singh