Q: How would you rate what you consider popular calibres, including the ones you have used most and found effective?
Dare I ask: what’s the most impressive game bullet you’ve used on deer-sized game up to sambar and wapiti?
Bill Bonham
A: Here goes, but not without some misgivings. For varmints, the .204 Ruger accounted for the tightest groups I’ve ever fired with any calibre.
Simple country boy that I am, other favourites that I hate to leave out are:
- .220 Swift, which outperforms the .22-250 in velocity and accuracy;
- .257 Roberts — better than the .243 and 6mm Remington;
- .25-06 — the best all-around cartridge for Australian conditions;
- .270 Winchester — outperforms the 6.5 Creedmoor, 7mm-08, 7×57 and .280 Remington;
- .300 Weatherby Magnum — the belted .300 by which all others of its calibre are measured;
- the versatile .338 Win Mag, which shoots almost as flat as the big .30s and hits almost as hard as the .375 H&H;
- the .416 Ruger, just as effective as the .416 Rem Mag and .416 Rigby, less punishing to shoot than the .416 Weatherby, and it fits in a standard action.
I had great results on the game you mentioned with Nosler’s Partition Gold. It left the original Partition bullet for dead, delivering dramatic bullet expansion, deep penetration and devastating energy deposit with improved weight retention.
It proved an awesome deer and wapiti bullet.
Nosler appears to have dropped the Partition Gold, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they quietly cashiered the original design in favour of the better version. If they did so, then they’d really strike gold!
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