Jeeves, hand me my 9 bullet for this shot, please...

[Questor]

We have so many bullets today, some specialized for various shots and situations. Have we gotten to the point where we need a hunter's equivalent of a golf bag to carry our different bullets for different shots, or can we still count on just a few good bullets overall.

I get tired of reading stuff like "don't use ballistic tips at high velocity at close range or you may get erratic performance".   Or you can't use a fail safe on game like that because it won't expand.

I don't know where my next animal is coming from. It may be 3 yards or it may be 300 yards.  Why should I get something so specialized that it doesn't work at all realistic ranges.

[jhalcott]

this reminds me of a stunt I pulled on one of my buddies some years ago. After he made a comment about the number of rifles I put in the truck for a hunting trip.(Why don't you get a golf cart? You can only use one at a time?). I had an old golf bag/cart lying around that my bro-in law didn't use. Next outing, my son and I unloaded my new gun cart from the back of the truck and proceeded to fill the slots with four rifles. Some ammo and a spotting scope were added. The farmer thought it was a great idea,visions of piles of dead groung hogs clouded his eyes. My buddy almost choked when he saw the rig. I had a rimfire, 223 ,6mm rem and for real long range shots,a 25-06. I wish I still had it! walking gets to me now after I broke an ankle. Those heavy varmint guns wear me out too!
  jh

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

What you are witnessing is a result of more and more demands on the gun/bullet, and superior marketing techniques.

It used to be people just hunted.  And if the buck was too far away, they tried again tomorrow, or next year.

Nowadays, the hunters are far more likely to be limited in the amount of time they get afield.  They may spend the bulk of their days in New York City, or Chicago and this is their only chance to hunt all year.  This puts them in a spot where they are willing to take 300+ yard shots - because there may not be a "next time".

Well, making a gun with a point-blank-range of 300 yards and a bullet to perform within those parameters is extremely demanding.  

Add on top of that, the expectation that our guns should recoil like a .22 but hit like the Hammer-of-Thor.  

Years ago the demands were made on the HUNTER, not the gear.  The hunter was expected to either A) stalk in closer B) have practiced well enough to take shots outside of point blank or C) be available to try again next weekend.

The guns and the ammo that were around back then are still available, and they work well IF you are willing to put the demands back on yourself rather than your gear.

"Technology is what we use to compensate for our lack of woodcraft"

[handirifle]

BJJ
You are absolutely correct.  I have been running all this crap through my head lately.  I have a elk hunt comming up this fall (my first) and am driving myself nust thinking of what bullet to load in my '06.

I think I am going to go with my original, the Rem 180gr corelokt.  It's only worked for the las 30years or so.

[Robert357]

Ok, your comment about golf carts and numbers of specialized bullets, leads me to make a comment.

My first trail handgun, was a 357 Mag double action revolver (Taurus).  When I go hunting, camping, backpacking, remote-whatever, I like to take it or a Ruger 357 with me.  

The reason I got the 357 Mag DA was so that I could load the cylinder with a couple of 38 specials, a couple of 38 Shotshells, and a couple of high performance 357 Mags; put it in my holster and know that I had a quickly available firearm for just about anything (small game for a camp dinner, kill a snake, scare off something, personal protection.)   All I needed to do was rotate the cylinder to what was required.  

I also carried a shirt pocket cartridge wallet with more ammo.  

Therefore, there are easier systems that don't involve gold carts.
The same could be done with different magazines for a semi-auto, althought that is a bit more hassel.