ShootersNotes! Newsletter — March, 2014

We have improved the summary of Ideal Bullet Weight recommendations to make them more easily understood. Here is an extract from the landing page:

 A good way of thinking of what bullet weight is “ideal” is to consider the balance between one’s ability to hit the vital zone and the size of the bullet needed when it gets there. For the most part, this balance takes one to the lightest weight bullet for a caliber and that happens also to be heavy enough to routinely anchor reasonably well hit game.

The tables below present the lightest bullet of a design type suggested for each of six game weight classes. These bullet weights should create a wound channel big enough to cause the animal to faint within about ten seconds of being hit in the vital zone of the thorax. The odds of losing a wounded animal to a long and painful death increase dramatically as one drops below the recommended calibers and bullet weights for a given game species. Conversely, recoil from using significantly heavier than necessary bullets often results in poorly hit and lost animals. This is one of the problems that relatively inexperienced shooters unknowingly face when they go to a super-magnum caliber that is much more gun than is needed to reliably anchor their quarry.

Recommended Weights in the Imperial System

Go here for details describing the methodology: Defining Ideal Bullet Weight

Paired Rifles for Practice and Hunting

Or — How to practice for your shoulder crusher without crushing your shoulder!

How can our children learn to accurately shoot large caliber rifles? In the not too distant past, many of us had the luxury of putting hundreds, perhaps thousands, of rounds through one or more rifles in casual shooting during a typical year. Our experiences with this kind of shooting gave us an almost instinctive feel for where the sights should be centered and how far out we could reasonably expect to get a hit.

Far fewer of today’s hunters have the money and access to undeveloped land needed for this practice with full-power rifles. Indeed, most young folks in today’s world rarely get much time at the range, let alone a lot of informal shooting. The “Paired Rifles” discussion gives some ideas on how to get the requisite mid-range practice with less noisy and powerful ammunition.