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Lane Salvato

I stumbled into Nathan's Knowledgebase probably 8 years ago now and didn't understand anything. Didn't realize he was taking about long range performance for cartridges or bullets. Being the genius that I am after about four months I got it figured out.

After awhile things began to make sense and his paper Entitled "Effective Game Killing" made a lot of sense to me based upon my own experience. I had always tried to shoot animals at the base of the neck for no other reason than my dad did it and my grandpappy did it may they both rest in peace. I had always used soft bullets in my calibers of choice, the 270 and 25-06. The 130 grain factor power points had put a lot of deer down for me. My single elk hunt to the Weiminuche Wilderness in Colorado brought me an opportunity to take an elk with a 7 Mag. and 175 grain soft point bullets.

Everything that Nathan has written about game killing was basically just defining and codifying what I'd been seeing for over 40 years. When I was a kid (yes I'm going to say it) we all wanted bigger rifles. We measured ourselves by whether our dads shot big rifles or not, and whether we could handle those same rifles. I would fist fight a guy who ever insulted the 270 and my 30-06 friends were the same way. It was tough on those fourth grade streets!

Nowadays everyone seems to want to go small. Nobody wants to go with the 7 mag on an elk or God forbid a 338. Everyone wants to try and find someone to confirm or support his position that the 6.5 Creedmoor or 6.5 PRC or whatever the small caliber Dujour is. During the COVID lockdown I've had plenty of time to review videos of guys that filmed their hunts. It's been disheartening specifically in the case of elk.

Elk are big, tough, large boned animals and those on public land are especially tough. I think Red Stag are almost as big but they cannot be as tough as the American Wapiti because, well they're American!!! All national pride aside I hope that we as a group can see the value of understanding how bullets really work, the value of larger frontal areas, heavy bullets, and the value of really picking our shots.

It is possible and probable to poleax an elk. I did it myself and have seen African species that are just as tough if not tougher (forgive me George Washington) get poleaxed too with the right cartridge and bullet combined with excellent shot placement. That should be our minimum goal. We shouldn't want to get as small as we can so we can do just enough to kill an elk. We should want to send the thunder of God his way because we are humane and we don't want to see an animal stand there and suffer or worse, run off never to be found. It's a strange thing about the affection we as hunters have for the animals we hunt but we know it is true.

I don't disparage any cartridge. I've got most of them from the 223 to the 338 and I love all of them when they are applied to the job at hand. I think that the 243, 25-06, and 6.5's are all great in their strengths. I don't think that it makes much sense to go after Mike Tyson with a bantamweight. Sugar Ray was great but he was no match for Mohamed Ali. I just hope that for long range, especially on public land that we can see our way clear to be the best hunting group on the planet lead by the best long range teacher on the planet. Oh and Nathan too. What did you guys think I didn't mean Steph????

So here's hoping that we can do our part to conservation by being as humane as possible and going after the right game with the right tool. Nathan has it all for us in black and white and there are a whole bunch of us that by our own experiences know that it's not just theory. Let's carry that torch, oh and Hold that Fore-End!