Discussion Forums

Scott Struif

When I discovered this website a year and a half ago, I realized how ignorant I was about terminal ballistics. That you can hit an 8” gong at a given distance doesn’t mean you can make an ethical shot. I had assumed my 30-06 was deadly as far as I could accurately place the shot. My personal best was a 450-yard shot on a pronghorn with a 150-grain cup-&-core at a pedestrian MV. I recovered the unexpanded bullet from the heart. (Nathan explained to me in another thread why that happened . . . low MV, low BC = low terminal velocity.) So all the hype about the 6.5 CM - how it cleaves to velocity, resists wind-drift, etc. - is just that. It’s a 300-yard deer caliber, irrespective of whether you can ring steel at 800 yards. I learned on this website that if I want to shoot animals past 300 yards, I’d better have a high-BC, frangible bullet, the bigger the caliber/cartridge the better.