How Many Different Caliber/Cartridges?
Larry Weishuhn
Recently I was asked to do a podcast episode with John McAdams for his popular “The Big Game Hunting Podcast”. John does a fabulous job with his podcast and covers much ground, based on personal experiences including his years with the military, and having grown up in a hunting family, as has often been the case with Texas residents, and helping set up hunts for others. Like his many expert guests and obviously his listeners, John loves hunting, learning and talking about guns particularly those used for pursuing wild animals.
One of the many questions John asked was “How many different calibers/rounds have you taken game with in the past?”
Before giving my reply here, let me “essplane” a few things. I have long embraced an outdoor lifestyle and started hunting with my Dad and maternal granddad, A. J Aschenbeck when I was still in diapers and “short britches”. My dad loved hounds so he hunted ‘coons every night he possibly could. Initially my hunts were for squirrels primarily with granddad because my Dad worked 7-days a week from first to last light most of the time, then rabbits. We also hunted whitetail deer. However, during my earliest years afield there were very few deer in our part of Texas, in the gravel hills just above the Colorado River and the Gulf Coast Prairie, then about 80 miles west of Houston.
John’s question caused me to do some serious thinking and recalling. Thankfully he had warned me before our agreed interview time so I could start making a list. I knew it would be a long one.
I started hunting whitetail deer by sitting in a “deer stand” sitting on tree limb with my Dad from about the time I was four years old until I reached my sixth birthday. After that Dad would scratch the leaves and grass from around the base of an oak tree and tell me to sit there until he returned. Before leaving he would hand me two .22 Long Rifle shells for my “deer rifle”. .22 rimfire was legal in Texas back then for hunting deer.
My first “deer rifle” was a Remington Model 33 single-shot .22. It was one where you had to pull the “knurl” back to cock it. It was all I could do to “cock” my rifle, should I need to. Thankfully I was “big for my age”. Before leaving he would tell me not to put a shell in the chamber until he was out of sight and then remove it when he whistled signaling his return. I was early instructed never to cock my rifle until I saw a buck and was preparing too shoot. Back in the early 1950’s does were not legal game, nor were bucks unless than had at least a fork on one antler, no spikes! All that mattered very little because if we even saw a fresh deer track during the hunting season which then in Texas began November 16 and ended a half hour after sunset on December 31, we considered it a successful hunting season. None the less I hunted deer religiously.
Even though I started hunting deer on my own at age 6 it was not until I was 14 (1961) I shot my first buck. This after many, many hours in the “deer woods” behind our rural home. By then I was using Grandpa Aschenbeck’s “single-barrel” 12-gauge loaded with Double Ought Buck! The neck mount of that first buck, which looks not unlike a big rat with spike antlers, proudly hangs on my office wall. If I had to get rid of all my mounts save one, that is the one which I would keep. I have told the story of its taking many times from the stage, in print and on video, a truly memorable event!
After saving for years I bought my first real deer rifle, a Savage Model 340 in .30-30 Winchester, topped with a Weaver K4 scope. At the time I was convinced it was the world’s best deer rifle… In time I learned it was a good one, but certainly not the “world’s best”.
While at Texas A&M I acquired a .257 Roberts, then a .30-06 and a .270, the first of many different rifles and rounds. Regarding handguns, shortly after high school I went from hunting with a H&R .22 revolver to a using my father-in-law’s, E.V. Potter, Remington Model 1911 .45 ACP and occasionally his vintage .45 Colt Peacemaker while hunting deer and rabbits. Next came two Ruger Blackhawks in .357 Mag and .45 Colt followed by Thompson/Center Contenders, in .22 Hornet, .30-30 Win and .45/.410.
After that the doors opened widely and I started acquiring other rifles specifically a 7×57 Ruger M77, followed by numerous others, as well as other handguns and muzzleloaders. My last year at Texas A&M University I started working for Texas’ Statewide Wildlife Disease Project and continued doing so after graduation. Part of my duties entailed collecting whitetail deer and exotic species for many different research purposes. Every animal taken, including those by others who helped with these projects I necropsied. This was the perfect opportunity to “test” many different calibers, rounds and bullet designs. Doing so I learned much about shot placement and terminal performance of bullets. I have continued that early “training” of investigating terminal bullet performance ever since. It was a “practice” that served me well, the many years I was a “gun writers”
As years progressed, I left state employment and established my own wildlife management consulting company while also doing a lot of writing about gun, including handguns, rifles and muzzleloaders, as well as touching on shotguns. During those years I served on staff with SHOOTING TIMES and HANDGUNNING. As such I field-tested many guns; rifles, handguns and muzzleloaders. For a while I also served on staff with Petersen’s HUNTING as their muzzleloader columnist, and the handgun columnist for SPORTS AFIELD, and other shooting/hunting publications. Then too, I was a featured speaker numerous years for the NRA and specially their Great American Hunters Tour. A bit later I was one of the five members of Bass Pro’s ProHunting Team. Then too, I served for several years as the PR/Media Person for Thompson/Center Arms, during the time we took that brand to one of the more popular guns in North America. After that I long served for years as a Ruger Ambassador. I also have served as the Dallas Safari Club (www.biggame.org) Ambassador for over 30 years. These and many other “factors” have allowed me, during my career as a wildlife biologist, outdoor communicator to hunt big game on six continents, plus the Island of New Zealand with a wide variety of firearms, calibers and rounds.
This brings us back to John McAdams’ question, how many caliber/rounds I had used for hunting “varmints” to big game to dangerous game, when I guested on his “The Big Game Hunting Podcast” (www.thebiggamehuntingblog.com/podcast). Thankfully he called me two days prior to tell me that was going to be one of the questions. That is when I started making a list. I had to dig deeply into my memory banks. The number I came up was at the time 80 different rifle and handgun caliber/rounds. The list included many of the more common rounds such as .223, .243, .257 .270, .280, 7×57(.275 Rigby) .308, .30-06, .300 Mag(s), .375(s) and the like. But it also included such as the .17 Remington, the smallest caliber with which I have shot a deer, to others seldom talked about rounds such as the .218 Bee, .22 Hornet, 6mm Rem, .250-3000, 7×64 Breneke, .30 TC, .450. Regarding handguns, these include several of JD Jones, SSK Industries rounds such as .300 Whisper, 6.5 JDJ, 7 JDJ, .309 JDJ, .338 Woodstalker, .375 JDJ and numerous revolver rounds, the biggest being handgun caliber being the .500 S&W Mag which I used on bison.
My most recent “new at least to me” round was an 8×57 JS used while hunting roe deer in Poland, another one I used on whitetail on the Choctaw Hunting Lodge in Oklahoma was the .22 Creedmoor. Taking a roe deer with the 8×57 JS brought the total number of caliber/rounds I have used to take a game animal to 81.
Those 81 rounds do not include 20 and 12-gauge shotguns with slugs and buckshot. With muzzleloaders I have used .32, .45 and .50 calibers on whitetail, wild hogs, black bear and other species found in North America.
The list of animals on the small side in terms of big game started with Africa’s blue duiker about the size of a cottontail rabbit to the continent’s largest big game, elephants. I have used .375 Ruger, .416 Rigby and .416 Ruger and .450-400 NE 3in on Africa’s dangerous game and a wide variety of different rounds on plains game. In South America the biggest hunted and taken has been their version of the Asian buffalo. In Sweden and Norway, the biggest animals I have taken are large-bodied red stags and reindeer. In Australia the largest game I have taken is their Asiatic buffalo. In New Zealand the biggest animal I have taken there have been red stags. Hunting in Asian I failed to taken an animal, but there I hunted with a finely tuned .300 Win Mag. Back here in North America I have taken two huge Alaskan brown bear, one each with a .454 Casull revolver and .375 Ruger, as well as moose with .308 and .30-06 handguns, and a .375 H&H rifle in Canada and then a huge variety of different rounds on the various deer species, antelope, exotics, and grizzly and black bear.
Every animal I have taken, with the exception of some in Africa and 4 deer recently when my back would not allow me to do so, I have personally gutted each so I could look at terminal bullet performance, actual wound channels and when possible recover the spent bullets. Those I did not open up personally I was present when they were eviscerated so I could see how the bullet performed and shot placement.
What have I learned from all of this? There are many “perfect” or “near perfect” hunting caliber/rounds with properly constructed bullets when placed through the vitals. It comes down to what “you like” and shoot accurately!
Two other question asked by John McAdams were: What’s your favorite bullet?” and “If you could only own one rifle with which to hunt the world what would it be?”
My response to the first question was, “Just about any bullet made by Hornady, with proper choices for the animal hunted and the circumstances that could surround the hunt and shot! I have shot a lot of animals, seen many shot by other hunters, and thus far Hornady bullets have never let me down, with proper shot placement in the vital, in killing an animal quickly and humanely!”
In response to only having one caliber and round with which to hunt the world, which would include essentially every thing from rabbits to elephants, it would be the .375 Ruger topped with a Stealth Vision (www.stealthvision.com) scope. I have used it considerably on game in Africa, North America, Australia and Europe. Interestingly too I have found Hornady .375 Ruger ammo in some of the really small stores in Australia and Africa. Initially when I first started hunting with that round very shortly after it was released, I also took with me a .375 H&H Mag. Thinking if I lost or used all the .375 Ruger ammo and I could no more, I could continue hunting with my .375 H&H Mag. That said, I have yet to travel anywhere where I could not find .375 Ruger ammo readily available.
If that question had been asked about handguns (hunting where handguns can legally be used), my response would have been a Taurus Raging Hunter chambered in .454 Casull, shooting Hornady’s Custom 240-grain XTP Mag ammo. With that combination there are very big game animals I would hesitate shooting.
Moving into the future when it comes to selecting caliber and rounds for hunting, no doubt I’ll stay with some of my old favorites, but will also try the newer rounds now coming out at a seemingly rapid rate.
All that said, “How many caliber/rounds have you used during your hunting career?”
Be certain to listen to Larry’s weekly podcast “DSC’s Campfires with Larry Weishuhn” on Applepodcasts, Spotify, carbontv.com, outdooraction.com, waypointtv.com, and numerous others, as well as his bonus video episodes on YouTube “Larry Weishuhn Campfires” channel, as well as on Patreon.com/MrWhitetail. Too, be sure to watch Larry’s mostly humorous “LW’s WhiteTales” on Tik Tok. You can contact Larry Weishuhn on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. You can also see the weekly outdoor show he co-hosts, “A Sportsman’s Life” on YouTube and on carbontv.com, and then read his many blogs on www.larryweishuhn.net.