You still need excellent range finding equipment and preferably have tested drops in your rifle in case your bullets have exaggerated BC claims. It's clearly the best varmint cartridge of the new millennium. numbers which are not quite as accurate as G7 numbers in predicting trajectories of todays wildly long, sleek bullets. The accurate, potent .300 PRC also makes a great long-range target round. The non-bonded bullet should deliver good terminal performance up close and at distance. Recoil is negligible, making it a great option for hunter with sensitive shoulders. The .277 bullet earns a lower B.C. 6.5mm and 7mm projectiles offer very high ballistic coefficients, meaning they offer excellent ability to overcome drag and wind deflection over longer distances. Its not all hype. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (Curiosity? The 7mag is one of the calibers he mentioned for the original 7 in the test. Im going to set a restrictive definition on common and only include cartridges that can be found chambered in most any rifle. Remington officially introduced a .260 Remington in 1997, but we can trace its roots in the wildcat 6.5-08, well-known cartridge in competition circles. Almost 80 years later the company introduced the .270 WSM, which has also been successful, but recently the company unveiled the newest member of its .277-lineup, the 6.8 Western. Not many of us can afford the ammo, let alone the rifles and scopes that chamber it, in such calibers as 375 CheyTac, 408 CheyTac, or 416 Barrett. Hornady Precision Hunter 212-grain ELD-X at 2,860 fps. Most of the calculators out there show larger drop rates then your table. It shoots as flat as a Kansas prairie and holds its velocity way out there. As mentioned, since the beginning of the 6.5 Creedmoor was intended for top competitors in PRS and 1,000-yard slow-fire matches. It started with the .30/30 and continued with the .30/06 and .308 and right up to todays .300 Blackout. If youre after critters deer-size and up, the field is dominated by .30-caliber, 6.5mm, and 7mm cartridges, with the best long-range options remaining supersonic out to at least 1,400 yards. If there was ever a cult cartridge, the .280 Ackley Improved is it. BadAssOptic.com is a participant in the Amazon.com Services LLC Associates, AvantLink, Impact Radius & ShareASale Affiliate Programs, affiliate advertising programs designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees. bullet boasts a blistering 3,000-fps muzzle velocity making it a laser beam compared to 2,400fps from its slightly older .17 HMR counterpart. No howitzers or tanks.). You can argue that you can get the 243 WSSM shooting flatter, but that cartridge is already considered obsolete. With the ability to handle more aerodynamic bullets than the .270 Winchester or the .270 WSM, the 6.8 Western and its 1-in-8 twist rate allows this cartridge to outperform both at distance. Mag. Created from the ground up for competition and very little hunting, the 6.5 Creedmoor has several advantages over the .308 and the other .30-caliber cartridges. However, the .220 Swift and the .22-250 have been used to take deer out to distances a lot of folks got no business shooting, for a long, long time. Since this article originally went live, several excellent long-range big-game cartridges have it the market. Its .224-diameter bullet with ridiculously high Ballistic Coefficient (BC) number can maintain supersonic speed and drift less in the wind right up until about the 1,300-yard mark. The 257 Weatherby Mag. This is the allure and benefit of a flat shooting bullet. Besides, the aerodynamic bullet and heavyweight bring the energy that is about one-third of a .44 Magnum at point-blank range. There are some 22 caliber and 6.5 caliber bullets with a BC over .700 - that is extremely flat shooting! A long-time favorite of snipers, the .308 Winchester will remain supersonic out to around 1,200 yards. The Nosler's family of new generation rounds includes 26 Nosler, 27 Nosler, 28 Nosler, 30 Nosler, and 33 Nosler. On the same African trip we set up a shooting mat and were punching stumps on a cutover hillside over 1,400 yards away. The .22-250 has a very high velocity and is very accurate. But its so close to the 6.5-300 Wby. Nosler is loading the 27 with their famous AccuBond, which is one of the best big-game bullets ever crafted. Great info but my 7mm rem mag with Nosler 120 grain BT (.417bc) @ 3600fps has anything on this chart beat pretty soundly. Drops just 11.6 inches. Always be open to new possibilities. The .300 PRC was developed in 2018 when the US Army announced a competition for the new sniper system that will provide a 50-percent hit chance on a man-size target at 2,000 yards. For example, the 7mm Weatherby Magnum will shoot the same bullet as a 7mm Remington Magnum, but it will do it about 10 percent faster. Should you have other helpful info, please send it to me by email: [emailprotected]. The caveat here is that fastest becomes a bit murky. He just never made it official. Hello there, I think your web site may be having browser compatibility problems. To show viewers how to succeed at long range, J. Guthrie gears up for a challenging shot while chasing Colorado pronghorn at long range with DPMS' Panther 6.5 Creedmoor. Those features are granted to the high velocity of 3,000 fps and 230gr Berger Hybrid bullet with an incredible 0.743 Ballistic Coefficient (BC). http://www.hornady.com/ballistics-resource/ballistics-calculator. If Ive left out an obvious winner or near winner, write in and state your case. These are all under my extreme heading, because theyre all brutal on cost and recoil. To even things out, Ive zerod all cartridges at 100, drops are listed in feet and cartridges that fell below 1000 ft-lbs didnt get past the next 100 yard clip. Hornady's Precision Hunter 145-grain ELD-X at 2,950 fps is the flattest-shooting .270 Winchester load. It can also handle Hornadys low drag 250-grain A-Tip .308 bullet with a G1 BC of .878, which bucks the wind extremely well. This is an example of how different loads in different rifles can produce different results. Besides hunting and military use, .300 Winchester Magnum cartridge is mostly used for long-range cross-country disciplines and 1,000-yard slow fire matches. . Up until that time, there had only really been two .277-caliber hunting cartridgesthe .270 Winchester and the .270 Weatherbyso the .270 WSM was almost immediately popular. Even though high-BC .30-caliber bullets need to be heavy and pushed hard to shoot flat, many American hunters love them enough to tolerate the recoil. The longer the bullet is in the air, the longer gravity can pull on the object. Based on the antique .404 Jeffery cartridge case, the 27 Nosler is the first new .277-caliber rifle cartridge since the .270 Winchester Short Magnum, which was introduced almost 20 years ago. projectile that you might crown that one King, especially since that 100-grain sounds a bit more reasonable for deer-sized game. However, the lead that the 25-06 has is pretty small. Still, while the rimless .338 Lapua was made as sniper rifle cartridge with semiautomatic firearms in mind, the 338-378 Weatherby Magnum was developed as hunting style ammo and the biggest .33-caliber long-range commercial cartridge. Yep, me too. etc. Best Ive been able to do is run ballistic charts on many combinations, knowing that muzzle velocity is of major importance and bullet B.C. Many of the .22 calibers ie 22-250 lose theor velocity at long range and get blown around in the wind a lot. Federals EDGE TLR .270 Winchester is another outstanding option. The wise longer range shooter errs on the side of a higher B.C. 301". Loaded with a 130-grain bullet, it will carry more than 1000 foot-pounds of energy out past 600 yards. Despite modest early acceptance the shooting world eventually went crazy for the Creedmoor. The 6.5 PRC can remain supersonic out beyond 1,600 yards or so, but ammunition options are limited. The Remington's belted, bottleneck 7mm magnum cartridge is known as "one of the great all-around rifle rounds" due to the vast selection of genuinely outstanding bullets, in weights from 100 to 180+ grains. Hornady Precision Hunter 143-grain ELDX at 2,960 fps. Thats what makes a long-range hunters heart go pitter patter, and its what has kept Weatherby in business since 1945. There are also lighter rounds available with a 154-grain, where BC is .530, and the muzzle velocity is 3,000 fps. Sign up for Field & Streams newsletter to receive the latest and greatest gear reviews and expert hunting and fishing advice. With its rebated rim and 1/2-inch diameter at the base, it is essentially a longer version of the 6.5284 Norma; ballistically equivalent to the .264 Winchester Magnum. As with Hornadys two recent 6.5 caliber introductions, it has found favor with long-range competitors, but also with hunters who like to hit at distance with heavy bullets. The article has really peaked my interest. Tips, techniques, and equipment are applied to these classroom discussions on how to become more proficient and successful at making long-range shots while hunting with AR-platform rifles. ), Hornadys Precision Hunter 178-grain ELD-X at 2,600 fps is probably the best long-range option, but look also at the new 168-grain Berger Hybrid Hunter load from Federal, RELATED: 6.5 Creedmoor vs. .308 Winchester. As a result, the mighty .300 Win Mag features typical bottlenecked, belted Magnum case and overall length of 3.34 inches to fit in standard-length action easily. ammunition in an AR-15 chambered for the 5.56 NATO. As you can see, one of our gold standard flat-shooting cartridges (.270 Winchester) does not compare favorably with either of the Noslers or the Weatherby Magnum. .300 Win. 2,700 fps. Your email address will not be published. With a muzzle velocity faster than 3000 fps, it offers great external and terminal ballistics. And for all of you whove just learned your flat shooting champion really isnt, sorry. Actually, the 26 Nosler is developed primarily for long-range hunting in mountainous terrain. While many authors describe it as a 6.5 Creedmoor on steroids, the .26 Nosler wasnt designed as a long-term target cartridge because of short barrel life and more noticeable recoil. To be fair to the 30-378, itmurders everything else for flatness way out there, staying feet above most other cartridges and carrying enough energy to take a deer at just over 1000 yards. Thats comparing apples to apples with the others up above, using a 6 vitals zone. For years the bullet weighing 160 grains was optimum for all-around use, but today ammo makers offer heavier, high-BC match bullets like Berger 180gr VLD bullet with a 0.684 BC. However, some people believe that the flattest shooting rifle caliber is the .308 Winchester. I'm looking for something for hunting that can shoot reliably out to at least 200 yards. Many people found it informative, but some of the hunters wanted to know if you have any statistics available on the calibers as listed above. Swifts 150-grain Scirocco at 3,036 fps delivers outstanding terminal performance. Advanced Search Cancel . Bullet selection means alot. Generating muzzle energy of 400 ft-lbs, this innovative rimfire round easily outperforms all previous rimfire varmint cartridges and duplicate the centerfire velocities and energy in a more affordable rimfire package. If you are looking for the flattest shooting caliber to 500 yards, you should read anything else. A highly accurate, easy to shoot rifle with a flat trajectory will make for confident hunting. A 30-06 will take any game on the NA Continent. Now, one manufacturer specializes in fast, powerful, ridiculous cartridges, and thats Weatherby. . 7.62x54 ammo might be cheaper . At 500 yards the 6.5 PRC drops about three feet when zeroed at 200 yards, eight inches less than the Creedmoor. Check out ShootersCalculator.com. And that light recoil not only makes you a better shot in the field; it also makes practicing more fun and productive. Released in 2007 by Hornady's team, the 6.5 Creedmoor is named in honor of the oldest shooting competition in North America, the Creedmoor Match. Trust but verify. Your email address will not be published. It seems a bit odd to consider a .22-caliber cartridge of any design suitable for long . Nevertheless, flat shooting cartridges have long fascinated hunters and driven cartridge development and sales. Whether or not thats true, my own success rate at 1,000 yards informs me to always stalk closer if I can and to forego shots at any distance unless Im supremely confident I can make them. There are production rifles available from Nosler, Browning, Seekins Precision and other companies, and a custom rifle builder with whom I spoke said they build as many .28 Nosler guns as anything else. RELATED: How the Brand-New 27 Nosler Revives the .277. The bullet has a BC of .648, and when sighted in 1.2-inches high at 100 yards its dead-on at 200 yards and strikes just 5.6 inches low at 300 yards. Have fun hunting! Ive seen the cartridge flatten whitetails and caribou, and tight tolerances make it capable of excellent accuracy. The way in which cartridge manufacturers develop rounds to overcome these forces is the twist rates of the barrels in the rifles the cartridges are chambered in, developing longer, more aerodynamic bullets with narrower ogives and case capacity. 2023 Backfire LLC, a limited liability company headquartered in Utah, USA. In the shortest terms, you can conceive 7mm Remington Magnum as flat- shooting .270 and hard-hitting .30-06 round. Want to run your own ballistics numbers? The following table averages multiple loads for each cartridge and shows an average amount of drop at 500 yards and 1,000 yards for each cartridge. Barnes Vortex | .300 Winchester Magnum. This poorly promoted and greatly underutilized chambering is recognized for its strengths as an intermediate shooter round. The 300WM with the 210 VLDs at 2950fps is pretty good also. Pick a bullet for each. What is the flattest shooting rifle? Velocity, drop, energy and the use of bullets with their own factors which create their ballistic coefficients all should be considered. This excellent .25-caliber round was the first wildcat to have been based on the .30-06 Springfield cartridge preceding the development of much more popular the .270 Win round. When the .300 Norma Mag launches a 220 grains bullet at 3,200 fps, it will generate a whopping 4,400 ft/lbs of energy. bullet. As soon as a projectile leaves the muzzle, the earths gravity instantly begins to affect the trajectory of the round. Based on the old .404 Jeffery case, its the same length as the .30/06, which means it works in standard-length actions. The newest addition to the Nosler line of proprietary cartridges is the 27 Nosler. Besides recoil, the downside is the limited availability of factory ammunition and rifles. Give a Gift A 108-grain 6mm Creedmoor bullet with a ballistic coefficient of .536 fired at the same velocity carries 300 more foot-pounds of energy at that distance, and the difference in wind drift is pronounced: the .243 bullet drifts 22 inches at 500 yards in a 10 mph crosswind while the Creedmoor drifts just 15.7 inches. But truth be told, every Weatherby cartridge is a long-range cartridge. And here they are: Flattest at 300 yards 240 Wby. CZ 457 Varmint Precision Trainer .22LR Bolt Action Rifle - Best .22 LR Bolt Action Training Rifle. If so you're at the right place. That makes this a potent elk and moose cartridge. And once they started shooting, squirrels . It has flipped positions with the 6.5, losing by a mere 1.4-inches. Mag. Using the larger .378 Weatherby case, the .338-378 get a 20-percent more case capacity than .338 Lapua and thus gained higher muzzle velocity. Among these cartridges, the 25-06 offers the highest MPBR (Mean Point Blank Range) or the max distance that you can adjust a scope to and be +-3 with the most common bullet weights per caliber. There are the two most common ballistic standards called the G1 and G7. The 27 Nosler bests the .270 Winchester by about 400 fps with 150-grain bullets. Fantastic information. Here's a chart from my Popular Hunting Cartridges Compared article. Bullets of this diameter are easily configured to have extremely high ballistic coefficients. And is it fair to include Risky Ralphs overstuffed, compressed-powder loads that exceed the highest handloading guides top loads by 400 fps and leave primers looking as if theyd been squashed on a train track? Like the 6mm, the 6.5 Creedmoor with high ballistic coefficient bullets has less wind drift than other 6.5s that shoot lighter bullets, and its no secret that the 6.5 Creedmoor is very accurate. While few authors claimed that the .300 Norma Mag is capable of 20-round groups as small as four inches at 1,100 yards, some ballistics testing showed that the .300NM equaled the .338 Lapua Magnum out to 2,000 yards. It was introduced by Remington in 1962 to the commercial market in an age of "magnum-mania,". The 220 Swift would be my pick for coyotes, rodents, and probably pronghorn if it werent for the wind deflection issue. Yeah, yeah, I know theyre cartridges and not calibers, but lots of people call them calibers so I thought Id roll with it. There is a lot more to it than inital velocity. The new .300 Precision Rifle Cartridge (PRC) use as a parent case a .375 Ruger, which Hornady ballisticians necked-down to .30 caliber and moved back the shoulder to make a cartridge with very long head height. Deciding on the three best flat-shooting cartridges does not come down simply to one statistic, but a combination of all the factors inherent to a cartridge. All the following data was computer generated as if all loads were fired from a (simulated) dead flat (level) barrel, so these are pure drops. 535-yard plates in the shadows are no challenge for the 22 CM. But, as an extreme range competition shooter recently told me, the number of cold barrel, first round hits he sees at 1,000 yards in competition is well below 50%. While the ballistic coefficient doesnt affect accuracy inside of 100 yards, at 300-350 yards and beyond that BC starts to become really important. The Creedmoor carries more velocity and energy downrange with less recoil than any other factory cartridge. When considering cartridges for their ability to shoot flat, overcoming drag is critical. 6.5x45, 6.5 creedmore, 260 remington are all good choices. Now, the .280 AI is finally a SAAMI-approved cartridge, and while ammunition options are sparse, its performance is right there with the 7mm Remington Magnum. The .338-378 Weatherby Magnum or in metric description 8.6 x 74mm is in the same performance league as the .338 Lapua (8.6 x 70mm). Factory rifles and ammunition options are limited here, too, but based on the ballistic abilities of this cartridge, thats likely to change sooner rather than later. So, if you want to go long, there are some clear choices here. wins again with just 218.5 inches of drop, the 27 Nosler moves into second place with its 150-grain bullet falling only 225.8 inches. I thought Id run an article on the flattest shooting rifle cartridges to compare and contrast both whats popular, as well as a few of the high performance options out there. Mag. Somehow stumbled onto this article. The .17 Winchester Super Magnum 20-gr. For example, the .50BMG and the 6.5 Creedmoor both launch bullets at approximately the same muzzle velocity of 2,700fps. The flattest-shooting popular rifle cartridge at 1,000 yards is the 6.5-300 Weatherby Magnum, followed by the .26 Nosler, the .28 Nosler, the .22 Creedmoor, and the 6.5 Weatherby RPM. Its well-suited for long-range target shooting, especially since there are numerous 140+ grain bullet options and plenty of factory rifles available. Thanks for the half baked artical. Before we check that out, lets give a nod to the 240 Wby. There are 6.5 optimized long range scopes available, which you can browse here. The .264 (6.5 mm) caliber bullets are known as extremely long and sleek projectiles featuring remarkable ballistic coefficients. It nearly matches the ballistics of the Winchester Magnum, but does so in rifles with faster-twist barrels and modern powders that extend barrel life. Hunters can take advantage of flat shooting rounds to extend maximum point blank range, the distance over which a center-of-target aim results in the bullet remaining within the kill zone, never climbing above it at mid-range and remaining in it until maximum point blank range is reached. Compared to .223 Remington, at the 1,000-yard target, it duplicates the amount of energy of the standard .223 bullet. No, its not a 6.5 Creedmoor, but few things are. What It Is Not. It also carries 300 additional foot-pounds of punch at that distance. Savage Mark II GY .22 LR Bolt Action Youth Rifle - Best Beginners .22 LR Rifle. Ballistically, the cartridge is very similar to the 6.5 PRC, but unlike the PRC it uses a standard 0.473 rim diameter like the .308 Winchester. A good hunting cartridge has to fit in a rifle thats comfortable to carry all day and wont kick you so hard that you cant shoot it well. (not the bullet Id choose for this beast, just puts it nicely in line with the others), What does that do for you at regular ranges? at the same distance. Beth Shimanski of Savage introduces their all new straight-pull rifle. The 55-grain Ballistic Tip at about the same speed is ideal for varmints, coyotes and such. MPBR with a 150-grain spire point from a 308 Winchester might extend to 317 yards on an 8-inch target while a 300 RUM might push that same bullet to 373 yards. The best long-range cartridge in the world might be the .408 Chey-Tac. Still, by using G1 across the board, we are on a level playing field. Emulated by all others, the VLD Target Rifle Bullet incoporates a secant ogive design which allows the Rifle Bullet to experience less drag as it travels to the target. But the PRC also competes well against older .30 caliber rounds, too. Hunters and shooters should also know that wind deflection of bullets is a more challenging part of hitting what you shoot at than is drop. But the 220 Swift is not a legal big game cartridge in many states and the 40 . Barrel Break-In: What It Is. Todays top seven long-range cartridges get the job done on big game and targets at great distances. As a numeric designation, the ballistic coefficient (BC) is usually described as a number between one and zero. No exotics just yet, theyll come later. Not a lot of difference in drops between the cartridges though; you need accurate yardage readings to get your drop correct. However, the lead that the 25-06 has is pretty small. loads. Cartridge and chamber specifications helped improve accuracy, and recoil was manageable.
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