analog_peninsula
AH fanatic
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2022
- Messages
- 598
- Reaction score
- 1,506
- Location
- Republic of Texas
- Media
- 4
- Member of
- DSC, NRA, SCI, HSCF
- Hunted
- South Africa, Namibia, Wyoming, Texas, Idaho, Mexico
Not to sound insufferably cynical, but I used to get excited every time a shiny new cartridge extolled by the bought-and-paid-for press was released to the market. I was one of the poor souls who bought a 7mm SAUM, a 7mm WSM, a 300 SAUM, 224 Valkyrie, 28 Nosler, and any number of other pumped and dumped new cartridges that were abandoned by the manufacturer five years after release.
It took a while to sink in, but I've come to realize that the ability to pick up a box of ammo at the local Walmart is worth more than another 75 fps of velocity. Splitting hairs online is fun, but is there really that much real world difference between shooting 90% of the cartridges within a given velocity/power band? The .30 Blaser is a great example of a cartridge that was dynamite on paper and ideally suited to its targeted niche, but is now remarkably painful to feed, at least for the owners in the continental US. Owners who had simply bought rifles in 8x57jrs can still buy cheap ammo on demand, and I seriously doubt any pig shot at 50 meters can tell the difference. Does it really kill the average deer any better at 225 meters than the easy to feed 7x65r?
Now I've given serious thought to buying a 7mm Backcountry, so you can see what kind of confirmed sucker I really am, and I don't believe that anyone can accuse me of being sensible when it comes to purchasing firearms, but at some point the inability to buy common supplies for reasonable money just becomes tedious. Especially when there's little or no actual benefit in the field.
Anyway, just a thought.
It took a while to sink in, but I've come to realize that the ability to pick up a box of ammo at the local Walmart is worth more than another 75 fps of velocity. Splitting hairs online is fun, but is there really that much real world difference between shooting 90% of the cartridges within a given velocity/power band? The .30 Blaser is a great example of a cartridge that was dynamite on paper and ideally suited to its targeted niche, but is now remarkably painful to feed, at least for the owners in the continental US. Owners who had simply bought rifles in 8x57jrs can still buy cheap ammo on demand, and I seriously doubt any pig shot at 50 meters can tell the difference. Does it really kill the average deer any better at 225 meters than the easy to feed 7x65r?
Now I've given serious thought to buying a 7mm Backcountry, so you can see what kind of confirmed sucker I really am, and I don't believe that anyone can accuse me of being sensible when it comes to purchasing firearms, but at some point the inability to buy common supplies for reasonable money just becomes tedious. Especially when there's little or no actual benefit in the field.
Anyway, just a thought.
