Ep. 268 | The Best Cartridge for Whitetails?

they actually threw Rotten Tomatoes at night wherever they're listening to it like they're Dash if they're in the car like it's covered with Rotten Tomatoes right now oh I'm gonna get some letters [Music] all right what is up everybody we are gathered here today and by we myself and Mr Ryan muckenhern who sits across from me to answer a question to uh to make a decision and and if you make a choice Ryan if you know anything about me in 200 some odd episodes of the podcast here uh indecisive hate making decisions and also have a million caveats to each decision that I possibly make and then flip-flop at the end of it anyway the question at hand what is the best Whitetail cartridge the best Whitetail cartridge so Ryan we've got to look at this in a silo of whitetail hunting I would say in its uh across the spectrum of whitetail hunting which it varies you know from region to region but I'd say also primarily thinking of I I guess you know from a distance perspective the common distances in which you will encounter or have to take a shot at a whitetail now I'm already thinking of exceptions to the rule there are things like cow's deer yes there are Western whitetails The Dakotas things like this where you know at first glance you're like I don't need a you know a quotation mark long range cartridge right um but maybe you do it's possible I uh all right so I don't want to uh I also don't want to uh what a spoiler alert or like you give like the conclusion and then nobody has a reason to listen but hopefully we have enough why behind our reasons for picking are in our opinion the best Whitetail cartridge quotation mark I think we should say it at the same time I think we should like one two three and then we say it it's like one two three shoot or one two shoot okay like one two three blank okay blanks are a very ineffective Whitetail cartridge yeah you don't want to shoot blanks um also this is also what Ryan and I just did here that's probably a good exercise to figure out if you guys are if you're ever in a hunting scenario where you're trying to uh you have two opportunities that have presented themselves simultaneously and you're trying to take advantage of uh doubling up now I've got my opinions on that though I don't really like the one two three and then because I feel like it makes you uh not make not make a good trigger press you know what I like to do I would wait I I will on the gun I will wait for the report of the gun and then send right boom now you've run the risk though of uh but if you send it fast enough though it ought to get there before anything bad happens for yeah yeah that's a that's an exercise you practice with your hunting partner you see the one two three works sometimes though so sometimes not though I've done some one two threes on some some jump shoots on waterfall one two three go that makes sense yeah that makes sense also it depends on um the person in the Heat of the Moment because three might actually happen on one all right one bang yep seen that this is all uh what do we say I digress did we digress it's because I don't want to make a decision Ryan I don't want to say what I'm gonna say Mark I was flip-flopping on my way here I'm going to tell you something about this it doesn't matter what we say whatever we say whatever conclusion we come to is not the correct answer somewhere admittedly yeah there are a lot of really good answers yeah oh yeah yeah oh yeah a little Minnesota oh yeah I I catch myself quite a bit Now with uh a little Scania yeah it comes out oh yeah I dropped that quite a bit now um okay so one here we go okay are you doing the countdown I'll do the countdown okay oh God whenever you're ready mark one two three you're such a fool [Laughter] you just ruined it oh God right now I'm blushing I'm embarrassed I know I'm embarrassed for you can I change my answer that's it ladies and gentlemen thank you for turning tuning into this episode of The Vortex station podcast in which Mark States definitively his position on Center fire rifle cartridges the whitetails that's right the six five Creedmoor they actually threw Rotten Tomatoes at night wherever they're listening to it like they're Dash if they're in the car like man it's covered with Rotten Tomatoes right now oh gosh I'm gonna get some letters i it's not a bad answer let's unpack it a little okay would you do yours first and then I'll do mine second yes okay so can I make one more caveat yeah I think that Mark's answer is a good answer thank you here's why it's in my Whitetail hunting history Ryan which I guess can re I can really say that starts when I got to Nebraska now when I got to Nebraska the room six five Creedmoor wasn't even think yet right so you know relatively still new cartridge uh not as new as it once can I ask what what year it was that you landed on the shores of Nebraska yeah oh gosh I think that would have been uh O2 oh yeah yeah you're predating the Creedmoor by a good half decade um here's what I'll say about the Creedmoor it it used to be not as common right like when I first bought my first six five Creedmoor which I've owned a couple over the years I still actually have that first one it was like a new thing like it was in the it was you know kind of debuted in the you know the target PRS World long-range Precision type stuff and then was began you know a lot of people were talking about oh it's a new magic cartridge right now no well I also caveat before people really start hitting me I don't think that the 6'5 Creedmoor is made out of unicorn dust I don't believe it's I don't believe it's Thor's hammer I don't believe you know what I mean like it has limitations sure right but anyway but it's also got a lot of positives yes as well um at the end of the day whitetails aren't the biggest animal on the planet right so let me back up let me back up 65 Creedmoor in the hunting World used to be not super common now I feel like it's very common there's a wide enough uh bullet palette with good bullets available uh for hunting that a person is going to be be able to find something that shoots out of their rifle that's readily readily available and will suit their needs for their style of whitetail hunting uh what I have here I've been shooting completely out of my six five what is this this is the uh it's the uh Federal terminal Ascent 130 grainers right so let's look at some numbers here real quick Ryan uh box posted okay that's what we got here box posted uh muzzle velocity of 2800. that's pretty solid it's right in the pocket this is this uh bullet has a uh um a high BC Ryan we were talking about BC's earlier you know so it's going to be an efficient bullet it's gonna pass through the air efficiently I don't like to use the word fly a lot of people say that the bullet flies it's not flying what's it doing it's passing through the air I don't know does it have wings is it creating lift well it's it's passed through okay um gosh I used to know the BC of this uh okay yep uh it's got a G1 of 532 pretty damn good for 130 grain bullet right um and like I said this is one example I like this example I feel like it's gassed up pretty good 465 Creed um 130 grain bullet is uh plenty for a whitetail buck yep whitetail buck deer munching on Clover um and like I said but there's there's a wide enough bullet palette is it as big as a 30 cal no way Jose no way right but it's big enough to cover the white tail bracket right uh short action uh you've got uh you know it's gonna be uh mild manageable recoil yep if you break it it's gonna be even less but what I would say to that the nice thing about it is you don't have to break it and shoot it very comfortably and pretty much any rifle that you put it in yep um because uh of its uh you know um temperament it's temperament and also because it is a good long range cartridge it is going to do better in my opinion at longer range than say like a 308 regarding Windrift talking Wind Drift right you get uh what is a variable that compounds over the uh here I'm gonna I'm gonna contradict myself I'm gonna say time of flight Ryan uh when right so that's going to be you know as you go further away as your shots get longer you know the the longer the Bulls can be passing through the air it's going to be more affected by the wind the 6'5 does better than that then I'll come I'll compare it to a 308 and in the wind right he's like well I'm hunting whitetails yeah a lot of whitetail shots 20 30 40 50 yards I mean you get a lot of bow shots right you know 100 yards could be a long shot depending on where you're at uh the furthest I've killed a whitetail actually happened it was in Wisconsin Ryan I think I've talked about this before but 330 yards jeez shot him with the whole 300 wisdom how come you didn't use a 6'5 Creedmoor because that's that's because that's my rifle for everything okay not just whitetails I don't have a just whitetails rifle well I guess I've got a six five create more so it could be a just whitetails rifle I just love the 300 wisdom though um Yeah man so in that right so where I was going with the distance you even though even here in Wisconsin There's potential for uh I'd say most of your shots are going to be probably actually 100 yards an end sure and definitely 300 yards an end sure six five Creed is going to handle all of that very handily but you get a buck Beyond 300 yards on case in point I've probably talked about the scenario before before I started you know kind of learning the fundamentals I'll say of long-range shooting uh met some buddies we're getting ready to do a bunch of good old-fashioned deer drives they love to do deer drives we're sitting there looking at this Buck bedded in a cut cornfield with a dough he's bedded probably um 400 yards away I think about 400 yards right uh I didn't have you know a dope card and all this you know just whatever just thinking oh we're just gonna do a bunch of deer drives all day we surround the deer you know try to cover all the Escape Routes somebody goes in somebody shot missed Buck gets away real nice buck nowadays Ryan you just laid down and killed it what you also could do with a 300 or 30 odd 6 that you're talking about so that's not going to change but this is uh the uh this is a a mild manner just easy shooting Pleasant cartridge it's a fine cartridge that's that I think is going to do everything you need to do and then you know you brought up two deer Ryan yep what you like to call them cows deer I go back and forth when I've been in Arizona a lot of guys just call them whitetails they're not wrong they're not wrong no let's just call them those teeny deer that reside in the American southwest so obviously big enough bullet to get it done uh I've uh shot two Coos deer in my life uh the shortest shot 400 yards was it with a 6'5 no that was with a 300 wisdom and the other the other one was actually probably I'd say I can't remember what year that was that was with a 6xc so an even smaller bullet than than this guy did did great did great so but anyway where I'm going with that you're gonna I think oftentimes you are presented with a longer shot or can be in that country uh it can be windy this is just gonna do a great job it's just gonna do it's good it's great it'll kill every Whitetail that you need to kill at whatever distance you need to kill a whitetail I'd say you know caveat I'm sure there's exceptions at any distance that I would intend to shoot at a whitetail it'll do the job just fine yes I don't know where have I gone wrong nowhere I I think it's a fine choice I just the the hard part about this question is one of those questions that can't really be answered innovatively like um you know how's a rainbow made [Music] they actually know wow they think they know they think they know right um and I think it's fine cartridge I really do and and I get a lot of folks listeners who write in and they'll say you know hey I'm thinking about doing this that or the other thing I don't have a rifle or I'm looking at a new rifle you know what what should I consider um and especially if you're a newer shooter um and then again this probably doesn't necessarily apply to the shorter ranges that you might encounter Whitetail like that bow distance Market talked about but if you're planning on some varied terrain and you may be hunting here in the Midwest and taking a foray out west or into the Southwest or wherever it is that you might have a little bit more distance um you know honing those fundamentals of Marksmanship uh you have to shoot the gun period yes and the gun that you can shoot the best is the most effective and this is where I really do love the 65 Creedmoor because generally speaking it's very affordable to shoot it is very mild-mannered um compared to you know larger cartridges and you can you can develop efficacy faster with less time on the range with a cartridge like this everything else you know considered equal go ahead Mark I'm going to I'm going to give it a detractor oh even though I was just you know touting the positives okay uh I feel as though uh although the uh number and and uh what is the word selection the selection of uh rifles chambered and six five Creedmoor is um very good right Factory I'm talking factory options here it's very good yeah it will I I don't believe it matches like the 308 or the 30 odd 6. you know I bet we can put a pen to paper and find out if we go out at the you think like stuff like uh what we were talking about like uh the 7600 the other day well that probably you're not going to find a six five Creed VAR another fine rifles yeah you're correct in those two examples perhaps but I think I think we'd be surprised to see how many six five creedmoors are chambered it is I believe now the most popular Centerfire cartridge for big game hunting no in purchases yeah where'd you hear that are you sure it was a figure I read they had and that was like globally so it is a really good character we'll do some Wikipedia fact checking okay yeah continue um yeah so like I I do I do really enjoy the cartridge in fact I just I just took it uh out west I just returned the other day from Pronghorn on not a white tail but a pronghorn um I use a 6'5 Creedmoor and uh the results were spectacular how far did you shoot that bucket shade over three okay Yep this is 334 on the on the rangefinder and what um what bullet did you 120 grain barns tip triple shock handloads I got loads what are those what's the muscle velocity on those 2929 yeah I got maybe 100 feet per second over here well you've got 120 Grainer though too that's true versus multiple BC discrepancy between this and this is a figure that I'm not obsessed with I don't I don't find myself necessarily concerned with ballistic coefficient as long as I have a robust projectile and I can put payload on target it's not a figure that affects much of how I shoot or where I shoot or when I shoot well and I would say knowing you you generally limit the distances that you shoot yeah that game and and I I try to and actually with that where I'd say that does it becomes a moot point yeah I mean that particular Pronghorn I had an opportunity at him at like 100 yards and uh you know it was kind of one of those things where let's see how let's see how I get my gun off my sling I have a sling that clips into my pack and so I had to do a little bit of finagling and got it off and got into a hasty position on the shooting sticks and my hunting partner called me a range and then we were cutting Pronghorn up shortly thereafter but what's your uh what'd you have your gun zeroed at 50 yards 50 yards five zero Did you dial I did one point I think it called for 1.2 mils and I think I dialed 1.5 because he was kind of Meandering and then I held a bit of wind because it was kind of windy and uh well it went exactly where it was supposed to where'd you hit him right behind the shoulder on one side and then right through the shoulder on the other uh yeah did he what was his reaction uh instantaneous death good yeah fantastic everything you want it was um but I've you know I've made that exact same shot with a 308 with a 270 short mag with a 30 out six um similar shot with the 243 I've seen that shot executed with two set well did I say 270. um and so okay I'm just going to talk about my cartridge selection I just said a thing because I needed to say a thing I don't actually have there's this is a non-answer to this question I think that any reasonable Centerfire cartridge 24 caliber or larger and I'll put an asterisk behind that with an appropriate bullet and that I think is the most important part yes is the best Whitetail cartridge and because of all the things that you had mentioned with the variability of whitetail in in both size and distance um you know you have to make that selection accordingly if I was to have just a gun for the rest of forever and I was only hunting deer white Dale specifically but I was hunting them in all the places that whitetails exist and all the sizes that whitetails come in I'd probably pick a 308 or a 30 out 6. maybe even a 300 Winchester or a 300 wisdom and and not because that those are the required cartridges to kill it but because of how I can have it loaded and what I can have it do when we start getting into you know taller distances and and things like this um but I've killed whitetails with 223 and very dead um 243 a smattering of 30 caliber options I watched my hunting partner take the most spectacular shot I've ever seen on a whitetail using the lowly ancient 270 Winchester with an aerodynamically horrible bullet I mean 130 grain soft point it was fine and it was a great Whitetail and it was it was an unreal shot and it was fantastic and um I think at the end of the day though when we do these necropsies on these Critters it's the bullet construction that makes the kill my cousin um when we were younger we would hunt in northern Minnesota he would shoot uh Winchester 94 and 30 30. and he killed a number of deer my uncle before him with that gun killed a number of deer another guy in our party he had a Remington 760 in 308 he killed deer my father shot a 308 I shot a not six um I mean again I think that the bullet design and the bullet placement is really what what makes what makes the gravy on that one but I guess if I'm going to pick one I'll pick the 30 on six it's such a good choice it is it is um I was I was flirting between because I was like I was trying to think I mean you know I love 30 cows I do like um yeah if you made me pick one cartridge for everything yeah then I'm personally going with a 300 whizzle and buy everything you mean whitetails or buy everything everything all the things right but I'm like I don't need like then I started thinking about no recoil management and like do I need all that and I I don't there are white tails nope and I don't think you do for bigger things it's probably more I'm pointing at my head oh yeah a lot of it's upstairs there's a big part of that but you know to share another story and kind of another um you know bag of chips on the uh six five creedmores into the poker table here a childhood friend I grew up across the street from each other he moved to North Dakota um was an Archer through and through and um back when we lived in Minnesota he hunted with a slug gun so you know Remington 1100 we're talking 50 60 yard shots anyways is what we were getting exposed to and he drew an elk tag um and in a hurry needed a rifle and so he wrote me and and we talked about it and you know limited experience with rifles he was shooting ARs and maybe a bolt 223 I know his dad had a triple Deuce for a long time but but like very limited experience with rifles good shooter but limited experience with rifles and so we talked about different cartridges and and like he was getting this for Elk this is something he's thinking he's going to do on a semi-frequent basis you know maybe not every year but every other year or so and then knowing that he's got kids that are coming up in Age and and um wants to get them into the outdoors and and um he wants to I guess expand his experience in in hunting you know whitetails mule deer Pronghorn elk et cetera um we had to find a cartridge we had about four months to get this all buttoned up and I think what I'd come down to was the 6'5 Creedmoor or an odd six and when looking at both of them together it was like okay you have limited scope of use with a bolt action rifle a magnified rifle scope um and you need to figure out how to shoot good to a distance we're adding ballistics into this now and and you know what's it going to do and I said for the budget mind for the shoulder and mind and and to really crank up the efficacy with the the platform in mind get the six five which was a light recommendation for Elk um practice up with it and select it damn good bullet and so he picked up atika in six five put a modest rifle scope on it and bought some pretty inexpensive Target ammo and went out and started shooting pretty frequently you know figuring the gun out at 100 in the in the conventional ways and then moving himself out to two three four five and so on and so forth invested in a chronograph figured out how to do a ballistics table and all that kind of thing and then selected a really good projectile to pull this off and then on his hunt he had a cow elk I think she was like 300-ish yards and he put that really well designed bullet exactly where it was supposed to go and she folded like a five dollar tent and um I think I mean I'm not saying that you couldn't have done the same thing with an odd six or 300 Win Mag but I really do believe that key got really good with the gun in a shorter amount of time because it didn't kick the tar out of him and it didn't drain his wallet and ammunition costs yeah and and I think that's a huge thing to consider uh when you're looking at that ideal cartridge and again I'll heart back on this and I really think that the bullet is the most important part not necessarily the cartridge but the bullet in an appropriate selection of projectile is is Paramount in order to dictate success for sure for sure particularly if you're going to take a cartridge like the six five and pursue you know game that's probably on the upper end definitely suited for it yeah you know on it on its upper end also I would not shoot an elk personally at distances that I would actually shoot a deer at with the six five three more yeah yeah like um like I think four would be and like and we're talking like oh I think four would be my limit that's a long shot 40 miles short of quarter mile or 40 40 miles 40 yards short of quarter mile right that's a long ways it's a real long ways yeah right so like I think we we get we um oh what's the what's the word I'm looking for anyway we put a lot of thought into a lot of these statistics and performance characteristics um on the end of the spectrum that oftentimes doesn't matter I think that's a huge thing um and I'm glad you brought it up and I think that's why I keep talking about the right projectile and guilty as charged um That I Used to Be horsepower horsepower horsepower when it came to cartridges my first rifle that I had kind of quote built for Western hunting was a 300 Weatherby because I thought that's what I needed to kill Pronghorn and mule deer at distances that I thought I was going to engage him at like I was thinking 7 800 yards you know um the reality is it just doesn't exist uh or at least in my realm I don't encounter these shots with any degree of frequency um and as much shootings I do I just simply wouldn't take them um what I found though is Ryan uh and and I can't claim that I came up with this but I do subscribe to it you'll never make an amazing shot unless you take an amazing shot that could be that could be um no but you know with that big gun I thought I needed it and I thought I needed the huge philosophy and huge energy numbers and um I found out that it's just really hard to shoot and it's really hard to be good with and it's really hard to be consistent with and I found myself not trusting the rifle in fact it had nothing to do with the rifles trusting my ability with the rifle so what I've done over the past I'm going to save 80 years 10 years is I've gotten smaller and smaller and smaller in cartridge for the same Quarry and and actually I believe have gotten better and better and better and more more effective and ethical intake um and so you know odd six 308 708 25.6 270 uh 280 280 Ackley um six five Creedmoor even 243 a lot of people still dog on that cartridge oh it's a great cartridge it is and I was I was going to take a 240. the 243 and the 708 I feel are and even more so the 708 yeah is bad rap yeah it's a phenomenal cartridge yeah I feel like such a duns for not having one I I don't know that I'd fall in love with it but I I know what it's capable of and I look at the 280 Remington which I think is just a darling cartridge and all it can do and the 708 can can really kind of do everything that the 280 can and if you if you're a hand loader and you're real particular about the configuration of rifle and the projectile selection you can you can certainly get to some numbers that you would go whoa that's out of the lowly seven millimeter weight what a brilliant cartridge though um but it does it gets it gets a lot of heat and for no reason it's just got brushed to the side it did okay and so did 243 people say you know I'd say Youth and ladies cartridge well and so um I bought one when uh when I lived in Nebraska I was like oh this would be a great uh great deer rifle uh brought up I I also it's the other thing is I bought it for coyotes too sure you know it's like let's be a great dear coyote gun and it was a uh it was a Winchester it's like a compact Woodstock it was like really cool rifle I sold it of course um and uh yeah people made fun of me for it though I took some heat they said oh yeah like you're like oh you know like uh like a ladies youth cartridge just like you said people would say those things to me Ryan and I hurt and it shouldn't I my plan was on this past hunt that I went on again not a whitetail hunt we're talking about cartridges for Whitetail and I keep coming back to pronghorn um I brought that gun to the range I bought that gun in like 2015 or 16. and I just simply haven't gotten around to firing it and so I took it to the range I had some Factory loaded ammunition um in in some 100 grain soft points that I just wanted to kind of fire lap the barrel and get it kind of burnished in and so shot like uh 10 15 rounds of those and let it cool down and switched my my hunting loads again a Barnes bullet 80 grain tip triple shock um an 80 Grainer yeah well that would certainly never do it well we'll talk a little bit about bullets maybe and we'll talk about grain weight what difference does it make but um and it shot fantastic but my 6'5 just shot better and and like and like that's the race from it which one is going to shoot the best and so I have high confidence in both rifles one of them just outperforms um and probably an unfair test you know comparing the two rifles one's got a pretty seasoned born it was set up so one was the six five and the other was 243 243 yeah okay yeah and so I look I look at that shot and I was like oh yeah I could have taken that shot you bet I could have um and it would have been fine I'm certain that problem would have been just as dead and I'm I'm certain that a whitetail would have been just as dead but um there again you know Mark Mark said 80 grand I can't do it well it's all that bullet again that bullet so what what's better what was the what was the 80 grain bulletin question uh Barnes tip triple shot oh it was okay gotcha yeah so light light launch but if you can recover one generally the same weight or within a grain or so of of what it was fired at I was being I was uh it was you're being positioned sarcastic okay yeah I see but no I you know maybe I maybe I should have done that we'd had a different talking point perhaps by the nature of the twists and turns that this car that that this podcast has taken just in terms of the fact that we can't stop talking about other cartridges yeah that outside of what we you know I guess uh made our decision again air quotes it just goes I mean there's a lot that are extremely well suited to the task at hand and also pick one that um like we're picking one for all the regions yeah right yeah should we should break it up some will be might be but then again though like I feel like this works in all the regions so maybe you're done I mean it could but why Ryan if I was like dude I know I know that my shots are going to be like 300 and N let's say then I probably would pick a 308 because I could get like a wider I could shoot a heavier bullet yep do I need to have your bullet no I don't need a heavier bullet but why do I want to pick the 308 then this is the reason that there's options on the table because of our indecision you remember the book Benoit bucks yeah 35 Whelan in a Remington 760 or 7600 I don't know I haven't read that book big slow bullets right you know maybe the maybe the question is like well we should pick a rifle first well if you pick okay you pick a region and the subspecies and then you pick a rifle and then you pick a cartridge maybe that's how you do it okay okay so like let's just say we're in the up of Michigan or Northern Wisconsin Northern Minnesota Timber Big Timber limited shot distance opportunities occasionally they exist I think my dad told me one time he the farthest he'd ever shot was 107 yards across a clear cut in in Northwestern Minnesota where Houston deer 107 yards he said it like he said like 107 yards um you know so if you if you have a limited window for instance as we're shooting deer with their bows that far now I know it right I mean that's crazy to think about 107 yards but so if you wanted a a rifle that you could if you were going to still hunt in the fashion of the Benoit right so you're looking for tracks in the snow and you're you're following you want something pretty portable probably something pretty handy probably going to be maneuvering through some underbrush you know maybe you got to stand a black Spruce you got to push through some Aspens whatever something light fast but powerful enough the first things that are coming to my mind when I think about that Terrain would be the Winchester 94 or Marlin 336 or any similar pattern rifle of a handy lever action chambered in 3031 Chester 32 Winchester 35 Remington any of those slow moving but adequate cartridges for that 100 yard 125 yard Whitetail shot you know got a good frontal area on that bullet enough Mass to go through hit you know hit a deer in the right spot it's gonna pop out the other side and Mass to go through just the deer yeah I don't subscribe to the brush bus thing I just well that's where I was gonna it's not I thought maybe you were we still have not done the science I know I want to because I could be proven wrong I'd love to be I'd love to know I would do something you hear well I mean I think we talked about it on a different podcast actually and I even think let me add another one before you hear the old oh man that's a brush bust yeah makes a brush well some of it a listener wrote in and said brush busting wasn't to inspire the bullet busting through the brush but rather the Hunter and so the gun was a brush Buster because it was this lightweight handy maneuverable rig gotcha so you are the brush Buster the cartridge is just completely adequate for yeah those types of shots so I'm also going back then to uh Remington 760 the Browning BPR which are pretty hard to find the Browning pump rifle which is like the super deluxe version yeah those are fun guns well they had the uh what's the uh the Browning shot pump shotgun the DPS yeah yeah and then VPR yep for rifle um so that chambered in 308 306. they must have quit making those yeah they did they're kind of hard to come by I wonder when they quit making them quite some time ago did they look like the shotgun they looked exactly like a bar just without a charging handle on the bolt it looked like a bar yeah I like it they're a classic gun and if you wanted the finest pump rifle in the United States that's that's the one to get free-floated Barrel yeah they shot good so but so do generally 760 7600s right they all shoot pretty darn good too yeah I just I'd be curious like you just always hear like oh pump Gun auto loader they're not as accurate depends but I think I'm saying you hear it yeah I don't know but then you look at any gun that's built for precision it's always a bold gun yep I think one of those pump rifles or semi-auto or or lever gun let's not forget the blr which is great gun now I don't see enough of those come in the door we had one in last week last Friday gentleman came in with a blr chambered in 308. um but something like that again the idea is a rifle that we can get a rapid shot off generally smaller in profile faster to operate quote unquote um you know in an adequate Center fire cartridge I don't think we need to get into the Magnum level stuff at this right so and I'd even say like a Marlin 1895 and in 4570 would be great and I don't want to dismiss the the pistol revolver cartridge crowd either um you know a lever gun and 44 magnum would be a great choice they make a couple of Bolt guns or had made a couple of Bolt guns and 44 Magnum fine cartridge it would that would do just great um I would personally probably pick one of the bottleneck Center fires just just in case the opportunity for that shot down the Logging Road uh if it had presented itself Now we move out of the big Northwoods we get down here where we're at in South Central Wisconsin we've got this interesting mix of Hardware we've got a mix yeah interesting mix of Hardwoods and then large agricultural properties and we have we have customers come in here and we've experienced this as well where you could have an opportunity at a shot identical to that that you would encounter in The Dakotas in Wyoming Nebraska et cetera you could have hundreds and hundreds of yards and now I think maybe I'm going to be looking at a bolt action center fire rifle and I'm probably going to be looking at a flatter shooting cartridge and I'm going to start at 243 and I'm going to end it you know probably 300 Win Mag realistically it's a lot of gun for a whitetail but you know if we do have distance to contend with it's not a bad choice a lot a lot to shoot but not a bad choice I like the bolt for the potential for better accuracy generally we'll observe a better trigger which is important and you can get it in a bunch of great cartridges that that'll do six five Creedmoor 30.6 308 708 270 25.6 all fantastic move west of the Missouri River I make no differential in my my choice for this can be about the same yep if anything I'm going to start looking at a lighter weight rifle because I'm probably going to be doing a lot of toodling around potentially in some altitude and so with that though I'll caveat and be like okay if it's going to be a lighter weight rifle it's going to be harder to shoot because I'm going to be subjected to higher levels of recoil it's like a Yin it's like a yin and yang there because you don't want to carry it but that heavier rifle sure is nice when you go to block yeah so I mean the rifle that you're working with right now that you're going to be heading to Montana beautiful rifle shooting exceptionally well not an easy gun to shoot because of its form factor it's just it's a light like I love it I I love lightweight quotation mark Mountain Rifles um it's uh so that gun is a Weatherby uh Back Country 2.0 uh the uh the steel barrel included steel barrel in 6'5 RPM which when you look at some numbers it's quite an impressive cartridge I I've remarked that I think that that would be the for everything I hunt caliber cartridge and rifle package but it's unforgiving the gun seems to be shooting quite well right now yes I'm gonna shoot it later today yeah I'm going down to the um to the outdoor range actually after this podcast yes and going to uh proof out some uh some dope on there so yeah see uh if my numbers are accurate Ryan uh that's this guy here oh there we go those are some this is some uh FMJ 308s which actually is what I thought there we go I thought that I thought that's what I was going to pick about until I got here and I was like What if I get those longer shots Ryan I'm gonna I want the wind I want the uh less susceptible to win but yeah six five whether it be RPM this is the Weatherby Select Plus Ryan shoot the Barnes 127 grain lrx box post and muzzle velocity of 32.25 that's new safe fast that's that's cooking that's a Snappy little cartridge though it is so hit the brake on it I don't like brakes we put the brake on it I'm glad you did yeah you almost made me take it off did I mention that about the 6'5 Creedmoor though you don't have to break it you don't have to but it did if you did it's going to be even more mild but I just you know like I am very guilty of I don't have time to put my hearing protection and bang like uh yeah that's where the ringing comes from um so that's what's nice about this is you don't have to break it and endure maybe potentially a little bit more uh a little more noise but we put we threw the brake on the uh six five RPM but that's the light rifle five five and a half pounds I think is what that thing's coming in at trim trim very trim make a good point right so lighter lighter weight rifle I'm going to be tooting around some altitude some rough train I want a rifle that's super easy to carry I'm going to be a little bit more selective in cartridge because I don't also want to knock my teeth out when I'm trying to get zeroed it's gonna be a harder rifle to shoot and I'm going to be dissuaded from using it I'm going to pick probably a short action cartridge or in the case of this gun because there isn't really a quote short action in the weather be six lug it's a standard action something that's going to fit in there without being atrocious caveat 300 wisdom that's a that's pretty hard recoiling gun in a really lightweight yep but I'm going to pick a lighter cartridge on The Recoil side a pretty Snappy cartridge that I can take a longer shot and like my my go-to for that is either that that 6.5 Creedmoor that I was hunting with last week or like my Kimber in 308 I weight down on the bullet I'm shooting 130 pretty darn fast 3140 3150 is what I'm getting out of that gun so I've got this nice trajectory that I can take these potentially longer shots with and I'm still impacting with enough payload to be ethical and wait 3150 out of which one 308 oh I do 301 yeah wait what 130 grain those are handloads no Factory ammo what's the BC on that bullet 0.350 ah atrocious and yet somehow so efficient and really by that I mean like in it's uh ability to work on target you know Aaron killed a bison with that folded it like a five dollar tent I digress we move into the American southwest Mark you've hunted cows to your Coos dear you've done it a couple times a couple times a few times with the rifle one time with the boat you and James hunted with a bow and of course you got into archery distance on several deer oh my gosh I I had one now we're now going back into you know just story time but we had dude it was going to be I had probably a shorter shoulder length window or shoulder width window in the Ocotillo if that's how you say it uh for like 50 yards and this this dough came through at like 30. she had a buck like you could just barely see him flickering above her in the brush you know but he was following her and uh like I had tension on the bow string because I knew the second I saw his nose I was gonna have to draw get the pin on them hopefully get them to stop maybe stops naturally in that Gap whatever and uh let it rip at 30 yards and she got down the doe got downwind and blue just as he was about to get in that Gap and then then she came back through took the whole thing yep um that was a heartbreaker I was like oh my gosh I'm you know of course I would have had to make the shot but I was like I've got a legitimate opportunity to kill the kids here with my bow here but smaller Target the smallest honorable Whitetail subspecies I believe in North America less margin for air yeah they're they're a little critter a lot of times and you can uh attest to this potentially longer shot opportunity and potentially a more technical shot opportunity if you have one I'm probably going to pick a rifle that's a little more aptly suited for that kind of shooting [Music] um you know something that that might not be the the old Turnbull that I was using up north if not that you couldn't but yeah I want something stable I want something highly accurate and if I do have to thread a needle like you did you described there and from the cows do yours Hunter cow deer cows what am I trying to Coos deer call me it's called what they are from the hunters that I've spoken with that do a lot of shooting um down there on them um that shot that you just described threading one through the Ocotillo isn't out of the question yeah yeah you think it's like oh it does hurt it's wide open it's like there's a lot of stuff down there there's a lot of stuff that can get in the way Ocotillo Mesquite grease soap Bush all that stuff but you know you want a rifle that's that's highly accurate controllable and and then potentially one that could bring you to some distance because you may that may be your opportunity for it right and so I'm I'm looking back it's a cartridge like the six five Creedmoor I'm looking back at a cartridge like the 6'5 RPM um 25 odd six 270 can't believe I said it um the short mags are becoming appealing to me even things like 257 Weatherby the aclease any of these faster flatter shooting cartridges oh six eight Western there's a good one forgot we had that box on the table you know now I am putting a precedence on accuracy and and payload and um you know that long range Precision now things like most coefficient may may go up a little bit in my my ranking but I've never done it I really should I should do that on the acoustic yeah yeah you should yeah this is uh pushing a let's get 160. five one sixth one sixty five grain ablr accubong long range a 165 grain coming out at 29.70 that is that's not bad nope that's it's actually it's about exactly the same load that my 280 actually can do only that one's got up probably better realized BC than my my 280 AI does with the similar bullet 168 grain ablr that's got a BC of uh a G1 BC of six two zero box posting yep it's in the name though six eight Western that's what it's for yep as we've you know begun extending our effective range which I can say with certainty oh I do like the way that looks it's a handsome cartridge reminds me of the 300 wisdom that's why I like it it's similar um there are definitely Critters some very memorable and important Critters good haunts great memories that I never I I when I started hunting like in my first years of hunting even into uh I'd say what I'd call like my midlife of hunting right uh and I'd say you know before dialing became like a real like more of a mainstream thing like back in the days which really isn't even that long ago when once I got a good zero on my rifle uh no touchy yep like like black magic do not touch my turret whatever um I wouldn't have dreamed of taking some of the shots that I've taken you know nowadays you know like 400 yards we better get closer yep you know what I mean now 40 yards is very realistic yep and I've shot some stuff beyond that too yeah with confidence right um wear cartridges like the six eight Western come into play but four deer four whitetails I'm still I'm gonna come full circle I'm gonna say the six five Creed more you know there I I don't think you're wrong have you changed your mind I haven't I really haven't it's hard for me to not pick a 30 cal It's But there again like I said when I made that statement I kind of just made it just because I had to come up with a I thought you're gonna say 308. I mean I thought about it but I thought you were going to say 308 so I said 30 odd six I partially didn't say 308 because I thought you were going to say 308 oh boy see what we did there did we have we settled on the 308 fine cartridge um I'm sticking with this I'm okay I like everything I would say I like the 308 better than the 6'5 Creed however for long range performance Windrift those things that's where I Trend towards the six five and then I go back to my early argument I think it's going to do everything that the 308 does pretty much for whitetails and I'll say this one maybe I'll end my personal argument on this like I feel like look at the three cartridges this look at the three cartridges we've talked about mainly yeah we've talked about a lot of cartridges even though we're trying to pick one uh we talked the 30 odd six yep right now we're talking about the 308 and they should be interchangeable though well oh time out though I'm gonna I'm getting somewhere here okay geez talk about 30 odd six and then you know the 308 I picked the six five Creedmoor right uh the 308 is kind of in between those two but we're arguably it's like what in some ways replace the 30-06 didn't not in the hunting realm but like you know the 308 was again this slated replacement the slated replacement for the odd six very popular cartridge yeah incredibly capable great at just about everything under the sun two world wars now we have the 6'5 Creedmoor which is eating up that's right you went from the ought six to the 308 to the 6'5 Creed I feel like that the 6'5 Creed is the next evolution of those two cartridges for deer-sized game I'll take it I'll take it in the I like how you did that when you brought that all together like that that was nice that's what I got I Mark that is one of the most astute things I've heard I've heard you say it was really good surprised you here I was just going with the old 1906 Springfield it would never work I know it it's well it's like seven millimeter Remington Magnum you'll never hear me say that I love the odd sex um that's what I got that's what I got you know here here I've uh you know here you know uh said oh you know the ultimate deer cartridge essentially is the uh Whitetail cartridge is the uh uh six five Creed which I think that's deer you know you can deer size game um and here I'm heading out on a hunt with my fancy new uh six five RPM which I think is really cool I'm looking forward to your your results I can't wait to hopefully tell you all about a raving success excellent what's your next hunt mule deer have not decided to take it TBD yeah you got to be leaning somewhere you got one that just worked yeah I'm sorry it just works I'm I'm there I've I loaded a bunch of ammo for it last year I fired one round um it worked probably take it I got some rifles and that is the 665 yeah I've got some rifles I haven't shown any love to in a while so we'll see rifles are just fun cartridges are fun yeah it's fun to talk about them it's fun to it's fun to think about them look over the numbers look over the hunt that you're going on what you think you might anticipate try something new just for the sake of curiosity yep that's why this is all fun that's why we got a lot of them I guess I don't know yeah we can't leave well enough alone oh you can't and you know what the best part is about that you in this case I don't know that we can Define well enough no which is great fantastic tune in for round two when we spin in circles again excellent you got anything else Ryan just pick a really good bullet pick a good bullet match your bullet what that bullet's supposed to do to to what you're doing do you want to go shoot long range steel shoot a bullet that's optimized for that you want to shoot things with heartbeats and bones shoot a bolt that's optimized for that hashtag agree all right everybody that wraps up Ryan and I's discussion on the ultimate Whitetail cartridge the end-all be-all comment if you agree comment if you disagree but be nice please I did throw that slide in on seven rep Meg well and I picked the six five Creedmoor which is everybody's favorite cartridge to hate you know what oh time out you know what I'm going to add something to it all right I think sometimes that people who hate on the 6'5 Creedmoor are mad because they actually loved the 6'5 Creed more when it was more obscure and then it got really popular and then all of a sudden it wasn't cool anymore I wanted to say something about this I think they're a secret six five Creedmoor lovers out there yeah I agree and they're the ones that could be commenting back negatively all right I'm good thanks everybody for listening let us know what is in your opinion that's all these things are the ultimate whitetail deer I want to hear geographical location and firearm yes all three yeah and bullet yes tell us what bullet you're using we literally want to know I do all right everybody thanks for listening we'll catch you on the next one there you have it folks thank you very much for listening as usual give this video a like if you liked it comment something below and give us a subscribe to the vortex Nation Podcast Channel it would mean a lot to us also why don't you give us a follow over on Instagram while you're at it at Vortex nationpodcast we'd love to hear from you over there and we'll keep you updated with all kinds of cool photos and videos from our adventures that we do here otherwise we will see you on the next one thank you again happy hunting and shooting everybody have a good one

Channel: Vortex Nation

Views: 114,107

Keywords: Vortex Optics, Vortex, Vortex Nation, Vortex Nation Podcast, Podcast, Optics, Vortex Podcast

Id: vG65ivjm8-s

Length: 57min 10sec (3430 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 09 2023