The Hunter's Alaska

by Roy F. Chandler

  Staying with the .300 Weatherby for a moment longer, it should be noted that the .308 diameter offers an incredible assortment of bullets for the handloader, and every serious hunter really should load his own ammunition. To ignore that facet of the hunting sport is like a meat and potatoes meal without dessert.

  A handloading hunter probably tries every bullet practical within his chosen caliber. I have used some lulus, some really lousy bullets, over the years, but I determined which one I liked best, and although I try others. Nosler, 180 grain Partition Bullets remain my favorite in .30 caliber.

  When you examine cartridge ballistic tables and their trajectory tables you still cannot fault a .300 Weatherby for most situations. Flat shooting and hard hitting, a lot can be said for the .300.

  A good cartridge requires three things.

  It must be accurate. We can set that requirement aside as all of our modern commercial cartridges do well in accuracy.

  Velocity must be adequate. Many experienced hunter/writers have concluded that a bullet must start out at not less than 2450 feet per second muzzle velocity. Excepting a few of the really heavy cartridges such as the .458 Winchester Magnum, I concur and accept that figure as sensible.

  The bullet must be effective. A bullet must expand sufficiently, yet penetrate deeply at the distance you are shooting—in my opinion completely through an animal from side to side.

  Bullet performance is, in part, a direct result of its velocity. If that were not so, as Major John Plaster has written, "We could simply throw our bullets at our target."

  The bullet must expand as it hits, but it must also hold together or it will not penetrate. Hunting bullets have been known to shed their jackets, to veer off course, or to explode. All are examples of poor performance.

  We do not want any sort of "explosive effect." We should never "hope" that some unplanned separating bullet fragment strikes a lethal spot We want the bullet to go where we aim it, expand as large as practical, continue in a straight line (no matter what it hits), and keep digging deep.

  We must also note that "explosive effect" does not depend on high velocity. "Explosive effect" is a matter of velocity in relation to bullet design. Examples: A solid does not explode at any attainable velocity. A bullet designed to open well at 3500fps on groundhogs "explodes" on the side of a Cape buffalo. Want great "explosive" effect? Load a 405 grain Winchester .45/70 bullet full power in a .458 Winchester Magnum cartridge. You will get it with a vengeance because the velocity of the load exceeds the design speed of the bullet. Although we do not desire "exploding" bullets, consider that a .458 bullet "exploding" is more effective than say a .308 bullet also "exploding." Bigger bore bullets usually win.

  This next photo shows the author's backyard chronograph setup about twenty years ago. Modern equipment is more simple to use, but probably not significantly more accurate. Since this time, I have farmed out chronographing, but calculations of old loads measure about the same on the new equipment as they did on the old.

  To design bullets that expand but stay together within one small velocity range is rather simple. To develop bullets that will do the same from say, 3070 fps at the muzzle down to 1640 fps at 500 yards is a lot tougher. That is the velocity range of a 7mm Remington Magnum. When we are encouraged to shoot at extreme ranges we might think a bit about what we are asking the bullet to do—because—they are not always up to the task.

  This is a Sierra, 180-grain boattail bullet that separated in a grizzly bear. There was great expansion, but the jacket stopped just a little way inside the bear, and the core went off in a weird direction. The bullet was used in one of my handloads for the .300 Weatherby. I loaded 79 grains of 4350 powder at that time. My 26-inch-long barrel backyard-chronographed that load at 3200 fps. I often dropped to 78 grains, but I also loaded a few blocks of cartridges at 80 grains. In my rifle, the 80-grain loads seemed maximum, and although I did not spend time on the range testing them, the big powder charge kicked like a mule, and I thought the heavy loading shot less accurately.

  This photo shows the author's custom .300 Weatherby as it looked in the 1950's. The recoil pad has now been replaced and the plastic stock tip is gone—replaced by a rosewood tip. The white inserts at butt and grip cap are history. The Weaver K4 is still on the rifle. The 26-inch barrel is cut off in this photo. The rifle now belongs to Bill Smart of Montana.

  This might be a good spot to compare three interesting cartridges, all of which have been claimed to be "good stuff" for Alaska by various hunting scribes.

  First let's look at:

  Using recommended Alaskan hunting bullet weights, the 7mm Remington Magnum falls short in the flat trajectory department. Surprised? Many are. To shoot as flat as a .300 Winchester Magnum, the 7mm has to shoot a light bullet. A 150-grain bullet is about right, to regain the flattest trajectory.

  The above 7mm Remington Magnum trajectory figures look much better, but look where the lighter 150-grain bullet would end up in hitting power—KO value, if you will. We again compare the three calibers.

  I must ask why anyone shooting long distances would choose a 7mm Remington Magnum? I guess I go further. Why would anyone shooting any distance believe a 7mm Magnum to be the best?

  My old .300 Weatherby Magnum, you ask. Well, the Weatherby does a lot better and, with the following figures supporting my conclusion, I can ask—Why would anyone turn their nose up at a .300 Weatherby for any Alaskan big game hunting? Some do, but their reasoning is specious.

  That is why I used a .300 Weatherby through more than a dozen seasons, but there are other aspects to be discussed before we all rush out to buy Weatherby magnums.

  The next photo shows Bill Ramer at the bench. This is the only correct way to zero a rifle. If a benchrest is not available a hunter does what he must, but a bipod is not the best, nor is a sandbag, or even a sniper's pack method. If anything were better, accuracy buffs would use them and ignore the bench. The author has found this style, with three sunken-post uprights, thick rough-sawn plank top—cut away for both right and left-handed shooters with a chain saw—is one of the sturdiest, the cheapest, and the easiest benchrest to make.

  Two subjects are bound to be controversial. The two subjects are: Big Bullets vs. Little Bullets and How Far Should You Shoot? I, as usual, take a contrary view. Neat stuff to examine. Let's begin with the bullet part.

  When I was a youth and ardently supported the .30/06 and .270 Winchester as all-round game getters, I punched a great many holes in packed magazines, lumps of clay, and spaced one-inch boards. I suppose I arrived at special conclusions from those experiments, but I have long forgotten what they were. I have run similar tests on a lot of super-duper cartridges, and some unexpected results leaped out.

  I was surprised, for example, that my .44 magnum pistol, loaded with a Keith type 240 grain lead bullet, cast pretty hard with tin and antimony, out penetrates my .300 Weatherby Magnum at 50 yards. (It is inconvenient to test pistol cartridges at much longer ranges, and I did not try.)

  It was not surprising to find that my .458 Winchester Magnum blasted through about three times as much material as a 180 grain .30/06 hunting bullet and had twice the penetration of the .300 Weatherby; this also was at close range.

  This is not new information. Consider the following.

  In 1947, Outdoor Life's "Sportsman's Encyclopedia" summed it up like this:

  "Everything else being equal, a bullet traveling at 2000 foot seconds will go through brush more nearly in a straight line than one traveling at 2500 fps, and one with a muzzle velocity of 2500 foot seconds will do a better job than one driven at 3000. Other things being equal, the heavier bullet goes through brush better than a light one and the round nose better than the spitzer."

  Nothing has changed since then.

  Elmer Keith wrote in his Keith's Rifles for Large Game on page 34:

  "I would far rather use a .45-70-405 grain smokeless soft point in close range timber shooting than any .30 caliber rifle made, regardless
of how fast the bullet is driven."

  If you want your bullet to carry powerfully a long way, or if you want deep and sure penetration, use a big, heavy bullet.

  Some of the above raises the question of just how much penetration do we need, anyway?

  Any reader of hunting stories will have noted that the "perfectly mushroomed bullet" is often found just under the skin on the far side of an animal. This is a common occurrence. Skin is tough and stretchy. A light bullet with most of its velocity gone often does not get through the second skin layer.

  If a .300 Weatherby bullet (for example) punches clean through an animal, is it necessary that it bury itself in inches of ground on the other side?

  Elmer Keith always said that a bullet should continue on through an animal and leave a good big hole on the far side to let air in and blood out. Sounds logical to me. The western scribe, Les Bowman, described shooting a big grizzly with a .350 Remington Magnum, and the bullet went clean through leaving a 2-1/2 inch exit wound. To me that sounds effective, and I have administered enough of those kinds of deadly wounds to large animals—including brown and grizzly bears—to believe in that kind of bullet performance. For an example, see the photo of Ed Piabola's Dall ram later in Chapter 21.

  But, there is a more commonly accepted concept that a bullet should expend all of its energy inside an animal because any energy left after the bullet leaves the game is wasted. Hmm, that also sounds good.

  In the matter of lethality then, one wonders just what is proven by finding which is the most penetrating bullet?

  I recall my service years in US Army research and development where penetration of a 3/4-inch pine board (called a one-inch board) was considered lethal penetration. While that may be good thinking on a human, it certainly does not indicate effective knock out punch or much of anything on an animal that may be five times the size of a man.

  To judge a cartridge's effectiveness, I have settled on a rule touched on earlier but no longer remembered by most hunters. It is:

  Choose a cartridge that will push the bullet completely through the animal from side to side—at the ranges you are hunting.

  At the same velocity, that type of bullet will also plow through most of the length of the same animal if you take a raking or a from-the-rear shot. (We should remember that we get a lot of that kind of shooting.)

  If your bullet will not completely penetrate your animal from the side, a shot taken from behind cannot be expected to range through hard muscle and all those wet guts to reach a distant heart/lung area. That means a hunter may not even realize he wounded a big animal, which can run off with a bullet in its belly that will kill slowly and painfully. I have recovered or come across far too many animals lost from such hits.

  In wrestling with the problems of bullet effectiveness we are dealing with a terrific number of variables. This is what to do: Keep reading along until you find the author's recommendation for the all-around Alaskan rifle. Buy one and use it.

  Now for an eye opener. How far should we shoot?

  I suppose we have all seen some really long shots. Unfortunately we tend to dwell on the successful ones. Some background:

  In the U.S. Army it has been found that beyond four hundred yards soldiers cannot estimate range worth a hoot. The problem is so serious that the military has given up the task. 400 yards (perhaps meters) is IT.

  The military Sniper is another story. I know a lot about Snipers because my brother and I coauthor a book series called Death from Afar which digs deep into all aspects of USMC Scout Sniping. Those one thousand yard (and longer) experts with their 14-pound (and heavier) rifles and match grade ammunition (who have been trained to the limit) have little to do with conventional big game hunters.

  Neither do shooters like the 1000 Yard Club down in Pennsylvania. Decades ago I used to sit with Al Hoyer, their master gunsmith in his concrete block shop above the Juniata River (Al often lived in a corner of the shop) and talk about those esoteric shooting distances. Those guys shoot off benches with huge rifles, using Battery Commander's range finders. (I remember that Al once took 20+ shots to get on and kill a black bear at the favored 1000 yards.)

  I will begin range limitations with a quote from Clair Rees in his important book Matching the Gun to the Game, Winchester Press 1982, p. 236.

  The wise sportsman knows the limitations of both himself and his equipment. An honest 300-yard shot is a long one, and most riflemen would be well advised to limit their shooting to shorter distances.

  I can sense the stuck out lips and squinted eyes. Yes, I have met a thousand liars who claim to have shot assorted game at incredible distances.

  I can recall about the same number of hunters who have missed or wounded at similar ranges.

  I have also known many hunters who have legitimately connected at five hundred or more yards, but author Rees is correct. We should limit our shooting to .300 yards.

  Here is a zinger for you to consider. I first wrote this in my book Alaskan Hunter in 1977. I still make the claim.

  In all of my Alaskan big game hunting, I have never shot at game over 300 yards distant.

  No one has to, not even in the open mountains—unless he is a lazy-assed pilgrim unwilling to actually hunt. Yet, I do not know a hunter who does not have a story about some completely bizarre, long range kill in their repertoire. Most admit their shot was pure luck, but—they took it, and that means that they probably took others that were not as successful and so are rarely repeated.

  Many stories published in hunting/shooting magazines explain long shooting because "The open terrain made it impossible to get closer." If asked if they had attempted to low crawl—like an infantry soldier or a primitive Indian hunter—for a few hundred yards with the slowest and lowest motion possible, the answer would be, "No."

  That is unfortunate, because a genuine hunter's stalk should also be part of the chase. Because you cannot conveniently walk up to a decent shooting distance does not mean game is beyond reach or that an imaginative shot is required.

  I find it hard to remember an incident where, if I was on the same mountain as the game, I could not get within three hundred yards by getting on my belly and edging forward, often not directly at an animal, but always shortening the distance or changing the altitude. (It is usually an advantage to be above an animal but not always—see moose hunting section.)

  Because I can be as lazy as the next guy, I remember many situations where I chose not to attempt a final and difficult creeping and crawling stalk that would put an animal within my self-imposed 300 yard limit, but I also passed up the long shots that unwillingness to hunt hard offered—those shots that are attempted by far too many.

  A major point to limiting your range to 300 yards is that when you, or I, or any hunter squeezes a trigger, he should be astonished if the animal does not go down and stay down, not as most long shots are experienced—with surprise and pleasure if a good hit is made.

  At longer ranges we miss and wound far too often. Animals are hit and disappear over ridges or into cover with the shooters believing they missed. We all know that to be true, and although it is tough to hold your fire when there is a target, not shooting beyond 300 yards is the sporting way.

  I have heard every excuse and every possible exception declaimed as a legitimate reason for having to take that long and inspiring shot. I reject them all. I include in that rejection the famed "last moment of the last day of the last hunt and a world class trophy." Get close or stay home. The game deserves better.

  I suppose that over the decades I have passed on shots I could have made. I am far better trained in long range shooting than most hunters (I operated that Sniper school in Japan in 1952), and I am still peripherally involved in training both law enforcement snipers (whose ranges are short) and military snipers (who sometimes shoot very long indeed), but I am just as sure that I also avoided wounding and losing animals because I shot at distances beyond sensible range estimating, probably beyond adequate bullet perform
ance, and possibly beyond my actual ability.

  During my better hunting years, I could lie on a known distance range and place most of my bullets within a ten-inch circle at one thousand yards. But, I had a special rifle, match ammunition, a perfect supported-prone position, and shooting conditions were ideal. In the hunt, my rifle has usually been subject to harsh treatment, I am using hunting ammunition which is inherently not as accurate as match grade, range to my quarry might be iffy (animals move around and so does the shooter), my shooting position is rarely Camp Perry and is sometimes simply terrible. Weather conditions? Every known rotten condition will be encountered if one hunts enough. Only occasionally will it be calm and bright. A hunter is also often physically stressed and geared-up emotionally. How well we shoot in practice has only limited bearing on how we will do in the field.

  Limiting your shooting to 300 yards has some distinct advantages. The most interesting is often called

  The 300-Yard Rule.

  Although it has been around since the birth of smokeless powder, the 300-yard rule is even more practical with our modern flat trajectory cartridges. The concept is to choose a zero that will allow the shooter to hold dead on out to 300 yards without worrying about any ranges in between.

  So, a .300 Win Mag using a 180 grain bullet could be zeroed to strike 3.6" high at 100 yards, 4.4" high at 200 yards, and on the nose at 300 yards.

  Not bad really. A hunter could expect to lethally hit big game without holdover (or hold under) out to about 340 yards—which is beyond proper game shooting distance.

  A better solution for the .300 Winchester Magnum, and the zero the men I hunt with settled on for almost all of our shooting was 1-1/2" high at 100, 2" high at 200 yards, and 2-1/4" low at 300 yards.