Top Cartridges for Hunting North America Game – Episode 12

Today, Dale is joined by Gregg Sloan and a few new faces. Greg Christensen and Cagen Carter join the podcast to tell a little about what they do at Barnes and all dive into the topic. Best Cartridges for Hunting North American game. The guys go down a long list of animal species found in the US and Canada, and pick some well-known and wildcats as their ultimate cartridge for hunting said game. This is a great entertaining conversation.

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Hey everyone, welcome back to another Barnes podcast. I’m your host Dale Evans and today I’ve got an array of people. We’ve got Mr. Gregory Sloan to my left that you guys have seen a lot, but the other two guys on this podcast you have not seen yet or heard from if you’re listening. To my right, I’ve got Greg Christensen. Greg, can you introduce yourself a little bit? Tell how long you’ve been at Barnes, like what your day-to-day life is. Yeah, you bet. Um I’m the general manager here at Barnes. Um been here for a long time. I think going on 27ish years. So um seen lots of things over the years. So very familiar with with all the processes and products and you know everything that goes on on the day-to-day operations. So awesome. Awesome. And very accomplished hunter, right? Uh I don’t know about that, but he’s he is very accomplished. I enjoy hunting. Yeah. There you go. He’s pretty humble when it comes to his hunting. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, that’s why we brought him on today is we’re going to talk hunting. There you go. So, that should be that should be a pretty easy conversation for you, right? Okay. Good. All right. And to Greg Sloan’s left, we have Kagan. Kagan, how are you? Good. How are you doing? Well, man. Uh, so tell us again kind of introduce yourself. Uh, how long you’ve been at Barnes, what your day-to-day is, like what you do here. So, uh, Kagan Carter. I’ve been here just over 18 years. Um, I work in the ballistics lab with Greg or under Greg. I do all of our electronic stuff. So, test equipment, um, Aaylor equipment, sensor calibration. So, that’s that’s my dayto-day. And you like to hunt a little bit, too, right? I guess you could call that Yeah. hunting. I follow people around that kill stuff. I don’t kill things anymore. So, Okay. I think I think most guys here are pretty humble when it comes to hunting. So, um, yeah, I did not bring my list. So you guys start talking. I need to go grab my list. It’s right over there. Hold on. Yeah, you’re good. I was going to say Kagan’s a I think he’s a good definition of we use the term at times ballastition. Um I know it gets it gets thrown around the industry. You know, that’s not an official job title that we use at Barnes um for a job position. But but Kagan is every bit of ballastition if there ever was one. Um, a lot of experience ballistic testing, cartridge load development, um, all the way back in those 18 years, load data, reloading manuals, um, ammo load development, um, every day work in the lab. So, don’t let him be too humble on that. He’s pretty educated on the ballistic handloading world. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it’s great because now we’ve got, at least for these three guys, right? We’ve got what 50 plus years of experience of working with for the Barnes family has all shot a numerous probably almost all of our offerings or are pretty dang close to it, right? So you guys kind of know what you would pick if you were to hunt any species across North America. So, that’s going to be our topic today is we want to say if you’re going to go on this once in a-lifetime hunt, and not all of them are once in a-lifetime hunts, like understand that, but like if you had your once in a-lifetime opportunity, um, what would be your caliber/cartridge of choice and why? So, let’s kick it off. Um, we’re going to start out small, right? Obviously, this isn’t going to be quote a once in a-lifetime type of hunt. But if you were going to go hunt varmint tomorrow, you know, thinking prairie dogs, rock chucks, like those type of things, like what would you want to pick, Sloan? Uh, you know, with this one, I’m actually going to keep it pretty simple. I’m going to I got to go first, so I’m going to I’m going to steal the easy answer. Yeah. Um, Nah, that’s too boring. Never mind. I was going to say 223. Yeah, it just it works. Good barrel life. It’s not going to heat up too much, but I need to be a little more excited than that. Um, prairie dogs, I actually like to go a little bit bigger. Most of the time the shots end up well, at least I try to hit them a lot further away with prairie dogs, right? So, I’m probably going to step it up a little bit in velocity and case capacity from a 223. But your barrel does heat. Ah, I don’t know. There’s no wrong answers. There is no wrong answer. It shouldn’t be this. I should have taken the easy route and just gone 223. I mean, apparently it is 223 because you keep coming back to that one. He just has too many options. Exactly. You’re you’re asking the wrong guy. That’s like This is going to be hard to go one. But it’s just I can’t over you get to pick first. All right. Prairie dog. Rockchuck size varmments. Yeah. Um, I’m not a 22 cal guy, so I gotta go six mill. Okay. Um, let’s go six by 45. Six by 45. Okay. Ah, you stole it from me. There you go. All right. It looks sounds like Soma is getting pushed into a two two3. I’m going to go a little bit different. All right. I don’t own one, but I’ve always wanted one. Yep. 221 Fireball. Wow. It’s a good one. It’s a sweet little round. Good case, good design. It’s different. Yeah. Don’t have to be boring like a 223. What bullet would you sling through to it? Uh, prairie dog wise, I’m going to stick with something in the 50 to 55 grain. Keep velocity up. All right. You know, I would probably, if I built one though, have a little bit faster twist and I would get up in the 60 69 grain range. Yeah. GC, I’m pretty simple when it comes to cartridges. that that we actually kind of knew that about you. So, there might have been a reason that like we have the gun nut over here that’s going to pick a different cartridge for every single animal and then we have you that’s probably going to pick a lot of the same cartridges or one or one. Um, so 300 Win Mag. No, that is pretty much my choice for most things, but maybe on prairie dogs. Um 22250. Pretty simple, old school. Um have one in my truck all the time. Usually don’t ever see anything because I have one in there, but I pack it around just in case, right? Yeah, it’s a good choice. Well, 22 250 was going to be my choice as well. So, and and I will preface this that you guys can all pick the same cartridges if that’s what you want to do. If one guys picks one, you don’t have to pick something different, but other than 300 Win Mag is great. That one’s gonna be mine. We’ll we’ll leave that for GC for everything. All right, so 22 250 on two. Um, I will also say that the audience can also play along if they want to and drop in the comments that they can pick their favorite cartridges for everything that we’re doing as well. So like get a little audience engagement on this. So, all right. Next up, I got to go one quick comment back to prairie dogs, though. I’ll I’ll be quiet. I promise. It’s hard to bring one gun for Prairie Dogs. Your barrels heat up. They could be 50 yards away. They could be 500 yards away. I found that I’ve got I go 22 Hornet, 223 type class, a 6mm of some sort. This is your This is your once in a lifetime prayer, dog. You only get to shoot one shot. You get one shot. Once in a lifetime prayer. Trophy prayer. I got a thingy. Okay. All right. All right, I’m done now. Okay, so next up, uh, we’re going to go predator. So, thinking coyote, bobcat, fox. So, Kagan, I’ll I’ll let you start again this time. All right, we’re going to stay 6 mill. Go uh 6mm Remington. 6 mm Remington. Okay, GC, I would say wind mag, but probably 243. Okay. 243. Yeah. Again, kind of traditional, old school, but Yeah. Okay. Uh, I’m gonna stick with the 6MM class, but I’m gonna go 6MM Creedmore. Okay. Yeah, it’s a my go-to predator kind of calling rifle. And And is it mainly like why you guys want to step up to that is just because of obviously like distance and and those type of things. Distance and wind. Um, my calling rifle, I don’t do a ton of calling, but I’ll call it that cuz it’s why I justified building it. Yeah. Um, it’s a six Creedmore. It’s actually shooting 112 grain match burner. Okay. um precision match ammo actually and it works actually good on coyotes way good BC does good at long distance if you get the shots that are clear out there so that’s I’m going to pick okay I I would pick 22250 again just because I have one I’ve I’ve shot coyotes with it I’ve shot predator you know multiple fox whatever prairie dogs rocks everything else so it’s like it works if it ain’t broke don’t fix it type of thing like I’m very much like you like up until I started to kind of work in this space I always shot like one cartridge for everything. Like call it good. All right. Next up, Kagan, you have to pick last on this one. All right. All right. I go last. So, we’re going to go mountain lion. If you were going to hunt mountain lion, what would you pick? GC. So, the only one I’ve killed with a rifle was a 22 long rifle. So, that’s probably wouldn’t be my choice. Um, depending on the hunting conditions. Um I think any 22 250 243 I mean something smaller I don’t want to do a lot of damage is probably a close shot right um so yeah any any small cow but like I said probably 22 250 243 I have them that’s probably what I would use. Okay I’m going struggle to pick one. Um I’ve actually never killed a mountain line so I’m probably the only one here that hasn’t. Yeah. Um, so I don’t have any experience to go off of, but if I do, I’m gonna go with my 357 in my 1894 lever gun just cuz it’d be fun. It’s probably too much, but yeah, be kind of fun to pack around shoot one out of, you know, tree line or whatever with the carbine. Yep. Well, and to you said maybe it’s quote too much, right? I think that we’ve established this in multiple other podcasts. It’s never quote too much. True. Like dead. Dead. Dead is dead. Can’t overkill something. So Kagan, I’ll open it up to you. Our resident mountain lion hunter. I don’t know that I’d say a mountain line hunter. A chaser. A chaser. So um I don’t know. I’m packing something small because I know where they go and where you end up going to get to them. So it’s going to be a handgun of some sort. So I don’t know 10 mil, 9 mm, whatever fits in my backpack and it’s there. It’s close range, right? I mean it’s close. So, you don’t need anything that’s going to reach out there. Absolutely. And and I’m with you. Like, I’ve only killed one. I I shot it with a bow. Um cuz again, it is close range. It was 12 yard shot, something like that. Right. But if I’m going to pick an actual firearm, um then I would probably pick 10 10 mm as well. Yeah. So, I’m right there with you. All right. Next up, staying with the predators, let’s think bear hunting. Sloan. Yeah. Yeah. This is out of my comfort zone. What kind of bear hunting? Good question. Spot. Sorry. Sorry. So, it will be black bear hunting. Okay. Right. And yeah, we’ll call it just mountainous terrain. Spot and stock. Oh, that definitely changes for sure. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Yeah. I was also just giving it up to you of like whatever you wanted for your once in a lifetime bear hunt. It could be sitting over bait and you could shoot it 15 yards away. You could shoot it under dogs. Like you tell me what you want to do. I’m going to go with two. Can I go with two? You knew that. It’s once in a lifetime. You only get one. That’s right. You get one trigger pull. Okay. Well, I was going to say like I have an idea. Say, “Hey, you can only hunt with this gun four bears for the rest of your life, and you can never pick anything else.” I guess I was going to say for spawn stock, I’m going to go with my 65284 Norma. Okay. Shots can get longer, can reach across a canyon, right? 127 grain LRX kill any black bear. Um, I only get one, but I’m going to say this anyways. If I’m hunting over bait, which I am building points in Utah, like many other species, my 14 bear points, when I finally draw that tag, I’m probably gonna bait hunt. Um, who knows, Kagan might take me with dogs. We’ll see. If we still got dogs going at that point in time, 20 years it takes you to draw a tag. Um, I’m going to go just because I’ve never killed anything with a 3030, but I’m going to go with our 190 grain original in the Pioneer line. Nice. Yeah, good choice. Okay, how about this? Now that you guys have talked so much about it, right, let’s talk cross canyon. Oh, actually, I guess you just did, right? So, like, yes, you get to pick two. Okay, for this one. Top calibers for bears spawn stock. Um, I don’t know. 270 Winchester. Wow. Just grew up hunting with it. Know it know it’s going to do the job. No questions. Okay. Um, over bait or in a tree. I’m with Greg. 3030. Pick your bullet. 150 190. Yeah. Again, short, small, right? Throw it on a backpack. It’s not hanging out through brush. You’re close. Yeah. All right. Since I know GC is going to pick 300 Win Mag for both. No, actually over bait or with dogs. I lever guns are so fun to shoot. Yeah. You know, they’re just a riot. So, I’m with you two on the 3030. I think you know um close range right there. But definitely spot stock 300 win mag all the way. Okay. Yeah. I’m going to be a little different. I’m going to stick with lever gun, but I’m going to go 4570. Okay. Just because it was fun. You know that you’re I mean, yeah, I understand it’s Black Bear. You probably don’t even need 4570, but can’t overde it, right? Nope. So, um, long range, that’s a tough one for me because I’m a seven guy. I’m gonna pick seven PRC probably just like if I’m going to take one gun like for the rest of my life, I’m a seven PRC guy. So, we’ll go with that. 4570 7PRC. All right, moving up to the Plains game. We’re going to go prongghorn Analopee. GC is up first. Probably 65 Creedmore just because I have one. They’re light. Um, easy to throw around. I mean, I feel like I’m packing a Ruger 1022. You know, they’re very handy. Um, you know, I feel comfortable shooting that size of game out at 400 yards, 450. If I think I’m going to have to shoot further than that, I would bump up to my win mag just of course. But, um, I enjoy shooting the the 65 Creedmore. Um, I think it’s plenty for for analopee. So, okay, I’m going to go ahead and go just because I’m kind of piggybacking off of that one. I’m going to go 65 PRC. There you go. Just to get a little bit more speed, right? like and I I love the PRC family. Um I’m not a big fan of 300 PRC, I should say, but um I like CX5 PRC. I’ve killed a lot of stuff with it over the years. I’m going to stick with that. I think that again 127 grain LRX all day long. Yeah. Yeah. Sloan. Um I’m going to take I thought you actually going to take this one from me, so I’m glad you didn’t say this. I don’t own I know where you’re going to go. I don’t own this. I know where he’s going to go. I don’t own this one yet. It’s always been on my wish list. Um, if I was ever going to buy or build a dedicated ponghorn rifle, it’s 257 Weatherbe. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. As soon as you kind of like give me that little twinkle in your eye, I knew where you were going. Flat. It’s flat shooting. It’s fast. It’s a point and shoot zero at 300. A lot of times in analopee, I I’ve had issues with getting good ranges on them. You know, it’s flat open country. It’s even with really good rangefinders, sometimes it’s is it 350? is a 400 is a 450 with a 257. Like it’s a point and shoot gun. Well, now with the reserve, sounds like I need to get a 257 if it’s just point and shoot. I I’ll tell you this, we’ve been playing with that reserve line in the 257 and it is crazy accurate. We actually shot it out at the range today at what was it 1050. Yep. And that was about I don’t know 6 8 in. Yeah. from a rock chuck on like first round. No kidding. That 1050. Yeah, that’s crazy. Yeah. And it was shooting like off a bipod like sit it like se seated. Wow. I mean Yeah. But you were and it was crushing at 700. But like at real hunting distances I mean you made first round impact on still 500, first round impact at 700. I mean obviously two three 400 yard impacts no issue. It’s fast flat 101 grain. While we were out there, we were even saying like, “This is literally the ultimate analopee gun.” Yep. And then we get into this podcast and I can’t even I can’t even pick it. I told you. I thought you were going to go with it. I know. And I’ve never hunted analopee with one. Um, funny story. They made you made you want to. I I’ve always It’s always been on my mind as like a It’s an It’s an analopee or prongghorn, whatever you want. It’s like the pronghorn cartridge. Yeah. But here’s a funny story. The last ponghorn I killed in Wyoming, I used the last thing you would think of, maybe, right? 300 Blackout. Oh yeah, that’s right. And then your son shot one with 300 out six. Yeah. Which is also not like the most common analopee gun, but it was fun. It was different. Kagan um ponghorn with Greg fast and flat, but I got to go Wildcat. I’m going to do a big six mill of some sort. Six PRC, 6UM, six, something like that. It’s a good choice. Get a get a 95 grand LRX cruising 34 3500 feet per second blazing. Okay. All right. Um let’s go whitetail. And I will give you two choices here as well, right? And and the reason is is let’s think treeand hunting slash blind hunting versus you know western whitetail hunting if you will. Yeah. So, who do I want to go with first? I think you need to go first. There you go. And And I probably have I’ve probably killed the most white tails. Probably combined. Yeah, I’m sure. Combined. Yeah. Okay. Um 270 all day long. Um I think I’d probably actually pick it for both. Like it makes sense. It’s what I grew up shooting. I mean, I shot my first couple whitetails 3030, right, out of a tree stand. uh then stepped up to a 270, then stepped up to a seven mag, but 270 is just the right cartridge, I think. I mean, it it does everything that you need to do. Shoot out three 400 yards if you need to if you’re in the open planes or whatever. So, I’ll stick with a 270 for for my white tail cartridge. Kagan, what would you do? Oh, that’s tough because you just stole mine. You know, you said we picked the same one, but I got to be different. So, you could pick something similar to it. Similar. Um, maybe something that we just released. 68 Western. Yeah, there you go. How about that? Reserve 155. Yeah, it’s a good choice. All right, so open planes western style. We’ll go 68 Western. Okay. What about tree stand? Treeand. I’m going to go off the wall. I’m going to go handgun. I’m going to do Wow. A TC contender in something cool. JDJ or something something funky. Just something different. You should share real quick what you killed your last white tail with though. I killed my last white tail with a 1895 357 and our 180 grain Pioneer. Nice. Yeah. How How far was that shot? Like 150ish yards. Nice. Yep. Right on. We won’t tell the whole story cuz it’s not how it was supposed to work out, but it worked out. There you go. All right, Salan. Um I won’t pick 270, but I’ve only killed one white tail. It was actually with a 270 win. See 130 grain TTSX. It’s funny that we’ve gone down three people and everybody’s talking back to 270. But I won’t pick that. Um, and I already said 65284, so I can’t pick that again. You can. He’s going to pick 300. True. It’s true. Um, okay. I’ll stick with it because I I promise I won’t use it again. Okay. I’m going to go open country. I’m going to go 65284 Norma 127 grain. And guess what? What? We also have that available now as well. That’s true. Yeah. In reserve. You can do it. Great. Great round. Um, you mentioned 65 PRC earlier. The 65 PRC wishes it was a 65284 normal. So, well, I I will say that I’ve never owned a 65x 284. So, that’s probably why I tend to push the PRC’s. They’re the same. At the end of the day, you’re pushing the same bullet to pretty much the same velocity, right? It was just older. Yep. This is a Wildcat, you know, version originally, you know, rebaited rim, 284 windbased case, but, you know, it was standardized in the norm version. Um, did Nosler standardize? No done it, I don’t know, 15 years ago, 10 years ago. Okay. Somewhere around there. But the first one I built was when it was still Wildcat. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Okay. Tree stand. Treeand. Um, I’m going to stick lever gun as well. We didn’t say how long this tree stand shots. Okay, maybe it’s far. That’s true. That’s fair. That’s fair. I told you I’m not a white hunter. Ken shot his with 150 160 yards. Oh, I know. But I’ve shot deer out of 400. I’ve got it right here cuz I won’t pick it for anything else. And I do like the cartridge. I’m going to go 308 Win. 30 Win. That’s a good choice. 13 choice. TTSX. Get velocity up, but I’m going to go shorter barrel, suppressed. Yeah. Yeah. Comfortable in a stand. Handy short. Yep. I shot one last year with 308 shorty suppressed. There you go. As we were testing the harvest stuff. It’s a good setup. Do you see? Yeah. So, I don’t own one. So, maybe this is a good excuse for Yeah. to go buy one. Convincing the wife that I need one. You don’t need to convince her. You need to convince yourself. Yeah. Well, yeah. Uh I think the 68 Western would be a good choice for that. and and whether I’m sitting the stand or you know um hunting you know any other way I think that covers everything. So I think that’s a good choice. Yeah. Absolutely. All right. So we’re going to jump up to you know the lesser of the deer family, the mu deer. Lesser of the deer family. Yeah. No, you’re in the wrong state for that. All right. Yeah. You know what we didn’t put on here, but I’m about to add it right now because since we’re in the deer family, we didn’t have blacktail on here, but we’re going to put it in there. Okay. But we’re sticking with mu deer right now right now. Yeah, we’re gonna we’re going to talk mir since we’re in Utah. You probably know this one already. This one’s easy for me. Uh 65 by 284. Oh. Oh, okay. 280 amp. Oh, that one. The next one. 280 improved is my go-to mu deer gun. Okay. Um 152 LRX and the Vortex LR ammo is what I’m shooting lately. Um, but I’ve hand loaded 139s, 145s. They all work great. Yeah, Kagan 270 Win. Nice. Yep. Good choice. GC probably a Win Mag, of course, but maybe if I’m on a a deep backpack backpack hunt. Yeah. Um maybe a little lighter if I don’t feel like I’m going to have a long shot. Um that 65 Creedmore out to to 400 yards. Um I feel pretty good about that. And again, it’s lightweight. um short barrel, you can pack it suppressed and don’t feel like you’re carrying a bazooka, you know, um when you’re packing. It makes a big difference. So, I may downsize a little bit and and do that, but probably more than likely my 300 Win Mag. All right, so I’m going to go with 68 Western this time. I think that makes a lot of sense. Um you know, again, a little bit heavier bullet, right? You’re still getting kind of 270 performance, but obviously a little bit better. Um and then heavier bullet. So, I’ll go 68 Western on that. don’t own one. I think I’ve shot one a couple times, but I’d like one. There you go. If Browning’s listening or Winchester or anybody else, they can send a couple. Yeah, exactly. Put them to use. Um, all right. So, now we’re going to go Blacktail. And this can be Colombia or Sika. Blacktail. Me. Yep. You’re You’re looking at me. You look like you were ready to rock and roll and just say 270 again. I probably would, honestly. It’s just the go-to. Like I said, I’m with you. I grew up hunting with it. You know what it does. You know how it works. So, I’m I’m kind of plain and simple that way. Okay. GC. Probably the 68 Western. I think white tail size. I mean, it’s probably a good fit all the way around there. So, probably that. Okay. Go for it. Okay. I’m going to go with something different. Okay. Um especially if I was going more sick. A hunt like that for me sounds like a really good reason to get a new gun. build something different. That’s what I need. Um, well, you need like a good weather gun. Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. Lightweight, but super, you know, weather resistance, you know, all stainless carbon. Y, probably serak coated on top of that. Um, I’m going to go light recoiling. Um, and you’re going to have to pack it if you’re going to have to pack it. Yep. Lightweight. Still something that can reach out there. 4 500 yards if needed. I’m actually going to go 25 cal on this one. Oh, I don’t have one yet. Um, but I’m thinking it’s probably going to be 25 cal of some sort. I can’t talk about yet. Oh, one one of those. Yep. One of those. One of those guys. And it’s going to shoot a really cool bullet. Okay. It’s like a blacktail. I have one of these hunts coming up, so I guess I have to choose on what I want to shoot it with. I’m gonna go 280 Aley. It’s a good choice. Just for you. Yeah, since we just built one. Yep. All right. You won’t regret it. Yeah. I Okay, I’m gonna flip this. No, we’ll stick with it. All right. Elk. Rocky Mountain Elk. Even though it doesn’t really matter. All right. Do you see? You can probably skip me. Everybody know by this time. Can Can you tell us about your Give me Give me a brief story on your elk hunt from last year. Brief story. Which one? He hunts too many. He has got specified. I feel like I got a video of him killing at at a pretty good distance last year. Yeah. No, that that was good. I mean, um we’ done a ton of scouting. Um hadn’t seen the quality of bulls we were really hoping for. Yeah. Um but ended up finding finding a pack of bowls. Um got in there opening day. Um some people have moved them around a little bit from where we thought they was going to be. They ended up on a a ridge a little further away. Um ended up having to take a little further shot than I like, but I’m comfortable with. Um you know, it was just under 800 yards. Um hit a high shoulder. Um went straight down. Um did have to follow it up as we got closer with a follow-up shot. Um but it it put it right down. So yeah, worked really well. Um just the the Win Mag 165 TTSX almost 800 yards. It packs a punch. Yeah. Slow. I’m going to go a little bit different on this one. Okay. So, my big bull that I’ve killed, I’ve mentioned before, was in Utah with a term mag, so it’s a good choice. Christianson knows what he’s doing there. Um, but if I was going to build a dedicated elk gun, yeah, I’ve never owned one. I’ve shot him plenty in the lab, though. I’ve always loved the cartridge, the case design. I would go 340 Weatherbe. Wow. Yeah. It’s a cool round. If I was ever be like, I built a dedicated L guns 340 weatherbe. Okay. Yeah, it’s a good one. What do you think? I’m going 300 short mag. 300 short mag. And we’ll we’ll specify on that and go super short mag. We’re shooting 212 border rider. Yeah. So again, reserve. Coming to the win. Coming for the win. I’m gonna go sudden again. like I’ve got to, you know, it just it just makes sense for me. I mean, I’ve killed them with 270s. I’ve killed them with seven red mags, right? Like killed them with seven PRC’s. So, yeah, it’ll work. Give me something 277 or 284 all day long and I’m happy. Yeah, I will back up and say that I did my last what I call elk gun build um was a 300 Win Mag, but this time with a one and eight twist um to shoot the 208 grain LRX. Yeah. So, I have to make mention of that. Okay, makes sense. All right, next up we’re going north. We’re going to go into caribou country. If you were going to go on a caribou hunt, what would you take, GC? Yeah, I’m still Yeah, they’re perfect. We’ve gotten to that size that size animal that is just have to get really big before we do anything different. Yeah. Okay, Kagan. Uh 68 Western. 68 Western. Good choice. Good choice. I promised I wouldn’t say my 6524 or my 280 AK again, so I’m going to choose something different. Um, I think this would be a cool hunt to use some classic. I’m going to go with a 300 6. I don’t hunt with it a ton. I own one with a cool maple stock. Yeah, really pretty gun. Um, 3006, huh? It’s actually turned into just like an analopee gun for some reason. Yeah, is what we keep using it for, which is weird. Probably because it’s a fancy wood stock. But I think that we gota also kind of think about like where caribou lives again wet, right? I would change out the stock. Okay. I’d put some synthetic stock on it for that. I mean, and now we’re talking like guns versus Yeah. But but no, I think an six is still capable. It’s never been my go-to. I like to make fun of it, but it’s kind of like it can do everything. I just it doesn’t do anything well, but it really ton of bullet options from light and fast to heavy and big. But I think it’d be a cool hunt to just be like, I’m gonna go classic and stick with an 06. Nice. Okay. Well, you know, I have a caribou hunt coming up this year and we got four guys going and we’re all using very different things, which is kind of cool. Um, one guy’s using a 65 Creed, one guy’s using a 65 PRC, another guy’s using a 7 PRC, and then I’m actually using a 257 Weatherbe for it. Um, and I think that all of them are great, right? super flat shooting, like five, six00 yards all day long. So, with that, I would say any four of those would probably be a pretty damn good choice for top caliber for caribou. I will I need to back up. I didn’t specify with the six. I would shoot our 175 LRX. I think that’s one that people overlook. It doesn’t sound exciting. It’s not a long range cartridge, but when you really crunch the numbers, an 6 pushing 175 LRX, the BC’s there, the velocity is there. Yeah. The retain velocity, the bullet performance, like it can do 600, 700 yard shots as much as anything else, right? Yeah. Just obviously dial in your dope, right, and call it good. It’s not flat shooting, right? You know, but you start looking at a 65 Creedmoor, you know, an O6 is pushing a 175 grain faster than a Creedmore is pushing 127 grain. Yeah. So, something to think about. Mass matters, right? Yeah. All right. Um, I’m gonna kind of jump around. Let’s go to bison real quick. So, all right, just mark that because that was a little bit further down my list, but we’re gonna bring it back up. Um, Kagan, if you were going to go shoot a bison, what would you shoot it with? 4570. Yeah. What would you load it in? That’s a tough choice. Um, probably 400 grain Pioneer. Just Good choice. Old school. Does well. Yeah. Bullet performs well. You know, you’ve been there, done that. So, but just classic. So, and I’d probably have to find some old cool single shot, some sharp rifle and do it. You’re going to go that far. Super old school. Nice. Okay. GC uh 4570. I lever guns again. I think they’re ball to shoot. The 400 Pioneer, great load for that. They’re going to be fairly close shots, right? I think that’ll be a lot of fun. Yeah. So, I’m gonna stick with the lever gun theme. I think like you said, they’re going to be close. If not, you can get close. Right. Right. I mean, you ought to be able to get a stock on a bison and get within range. Um, this one’s always been on my list for actually a different game. Um, but I’ve always wanted a model 71 lever gun in 348 Win. Um, we have the old original 250 grain. That’d be kind of cool to use. Um, oddball cartridge. You know, there’s not a whole lot of 348 Win still out there. Um, and I need a reason to buy that gun. So, we always need to reason, don’t we? Y All right, I’m going to stick with 4570. I think that, you know, the consensus tells you, I mean, it’s it’s one of those kind of traditional things as well, right? Like, you want you want to kind of go back to the roots of of the pioneers and shoot it off the back of my horse’s alongside and Absolutely. Yeah. That wouldn’t go well, just so you know. Yeah, I’d probably get off. Yeah. All right. Um, we’re going to jump to Moose. Moose. And I mean, if we want to go technical, right, we’re going to say Yukon Moose. Alaskan Yukon Moose. GC. We’re getting close, but I’m still my win mag. Okay. Yeah. Kagan, I got to go 340 Weatherbe. Got to be 338. Yeah, Weatherbee’s classic classic cartridge. So, yeah. Okay. 340 Weatherbe slow. I already used 340. Kagan just used it. I am gonna stick with the 338. I think that’s a good choice. Um I’m gonna go 338 Rum. 338 Rum. Yeah, I’m not a huge rum fan. Um I think a couple of them like the seven are completely overboard, but over the years of using them in the lab and testing and doing development, um the 338 rum is I would say the best I Oh yeah, definitely on that of the rums. It’s the most efficient. Um yeah, 338 rum. Okay. And 250 grain LRX. There you go. To specify there. Okay. I’m going to go 300 Weatherbe. I mean, to me, the proof’s in the pudding. Um, if they if people haven’t watched that video, they can watch it on our YouTube, right? Like, I shot that moose and absolutely pancaked it. So, 300 weather be for me. All right. Where are we going next? We’re going further up the mountain. It’s a mountain goat. Oh, mountain goat. I’m gonna let him think on that one a little bit. Yeah, he caught me off guard. I thought he was going big. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Um, slow mountain goat. Um, I need all the help I can get that high up. So, you need that reach so you don’t have to get up. I need I need the reach and I need a light. Yeah. Um, so I want something accurate. I want something that can reach and I want something that I can pack. Every pound matters. Um, I’m going to go 6’5. Wow. Um, and I think I promised I wouldn’t say this again, but I’m going to go with my 65284 normal 127 LRX. Okay, good choice. Okay, you can go for it. Never killed one. Yeah. Heard they’re tough. So, has anyone killed one at this table? No. Okay. I didn’t think so. Okay. Um, I got to go 30 cal. So, uh, 300 Weatherbe 75 LRX. It’s a good one. Good choice. Do you see? So, if I wasn’t taking my wind mag, um, the 65, I like the lightweight like Greg was saying, but I’d probably another excuse to to step up and buy a PRC. So, maybe a 65 PRC, I think it’d be a good choice. Yeah, I think that’s that’s a pretty dang good choice. I mean, from everything that I’ve heard is that you definitely want to anchor those things like in their tracks, right? And I’m not saying that 65 PRC can’t do it 65, but, you know, 284, I think that your 300 Weatherbe makes a lot of sense. Um, I’m gonna go seven rim mag just because I want to go seven BRC, but I won’t just because I picked it too many times already. Um, I think that 280 AI can make a lot of sense there as well, right? Like with our 152, it’s going to it’s going to do its job. So, all right. Um, let’s go sheep next. I have a good one here. You do have a good one here. Yeah, I do. Are are you trying to be convincing when you say this or No, I just I’ve thought too much about sheep. Oh, okay. All right. Well, I guess we’ll start it off with Sloan since So, I’m gonna go desert um because that’s what I’ve tried for forever. Someday I hope to hunt one and I’m going class. Just buy a Mexico hunt and do it. Yeah, you can go on desert out of my reach. I have to play the do-ityourself draw tag game for desert sheep. But uh or a hunt expo. Or a hunt expo someday. Mortgage the house. I mean, there’s options. I’m saying. Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. I mean, you could do it. Like, I don’t know what you’re priorities. I don’t know what you’re waiting on. When the kids are out of the house, the house gets paid for someday. I’ll be like, “Okay, we’re going to take out a mortgage.” I’m going shoot. It’s the plan. Yeah. Hopefully your wife’s listening to this and she also agrees with this. I’m going 300 H&H. Classic. Really? Yep. Very classic. And I’m going to find a pre64 model 70. Wow. It is the classic sheep cartridge. And I’m going to shoot something lighter, get velociy up. I’m probably going to hand load a 165 or 168 TTSX. Okay. Yep. 300 gauge danger. Kagan 270 win. Nice. How do you not hunt sheep with a 270? Like can’t. That’s a classic. Cannot go do it. Yeah. So, agreed. I was thinking 270 as well. I think that’s a good option for sheep. Um I do have one. It’s pretty dusty. I haven’t shot it in a long time. Um, but I might dust that off and and I think that’d be good. Somebody once said 270 is good for sheep. Somebody that killed a lot of sheep. Somebody’s killed a lot of a lot of sheep. Yep. Um, oh man, this is a tough one. I don’t know if I can answer this question just yet, but yeah, 270 makes a lot of sense, right? But I think that I do want a little bit more range for the just in case shot. Um, let’s go 6A Western. Yeah, good choice. Buck the win a little bit better. A little bit more, you know, a little bit more velocity. Go that. All right. Brown bear. Brown bear. Coastal brown bear. I’m gonna say coastal brown bear. Um Ken gets start. Coastal brown bear. 338 Win Mag. It’s a good one. Just classic cartridge that’s done it all. So, I think when it comes to bears, anything bigger than a black bear, I’m with Kagan. I think I’m a 338. Yeah. Long. Uh, since they both picked 338. That’s a good choice. And I already talked about a 340. Yeah. I’m going to go 375. 375. I’m gonna go 375 Ruger. Um, Yep. 375 Ruger. probably in a 77 Alaskan. Okay. Yep. I’m gonna go 338 RPM just just to be different. It’s a cool cartridge, right? Yeah. I think it’s pretty cool. Um that kind of concludes our list, but I also as I went through the list, I was like, man, we’re kind of missing some stuff here. Right. So, we’re going to go kier. Okay. Right. Because we didn’t talk about that. So, we’re going to go from super big to very small. Super small. Yeah. So, let’s go Kuzz deer with GC. Maybe shooting ways. I’ve never I’ve never hunted them actually. I know they’re pretty dang small. Um they’re very small. Probably probably maybe my Creedmore 65 Creedmore. Okay. Yeah, makes a lot of sense. You know, I can’t remember the guy’s name, but I remember reading years and years ago, like when I was young, about a couser hunter from Arizona, and he was a gun builder. I wish I remembered his name. Yeah. But he actually built custom rifles, and his go-to was a 300 Win Mag for cooster. So, I’m going to change my 300 cuz honestly, I’m probably taking my 300 Win Mag, just so you know. But yeah, his whole thing was like far shots. Now, given this is way back when, right? Um but his whole thing was Yeah. They’re far shots. He had accurate, super accurate long-range rifles. Um, good velocity, good reach. Yeah, that’s not my pick, but I wanted to mention it just should have stuck with the win back. Well, you gave him a reason to tie it back in. Yeah. Back. So, Sloan handed on a a bullet that we won’t disclose and a caliber that I would never have built until said bullet was talked about. Yeah. So, I’m going 25 PRC. 25 PRC. Yeah. Keep velocity up flat. Yeah. Light enough recoil. Light recoil. So, you’re going to wildcat it for sure. Oh, yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah. He actually stole mine. I wouldn’t go to PRC, but a 20 fast 25 cal for for cous. Yeah. I won’t say which one. I’m going to cheat. So, I was just going to say 257 weatherbe. But see, I want a faster twist to shoot a heavier higher BC bullet. I don’t think you need it. You know, I think I think our 101 grain LRX is going to crush crush. Um, yeah, I will tell that. I mean, I’ve only shot one Kuzz deer and I shot it like 27 yards with a bow. So, yeah, I think anything that we pick is going to those things are so small. Like literally, I shot this thing and I grabbed it by all four and like picked it up with one one arm. I mean, it was, you know, and it was a mature bach, right? And it was 85 pounds, maybe. I’m going to change mine. They’re just so small. I’m going change mine because I because I left it too vague with just saying fast 25 cal. Okay. Um I don’t have one anymore, but I did build one. Um 22 Creedmore. 22 Creedmore. I’m not smaller. I’m going smaller. I’m not a 22 cal guy for big game. Yeah. But a couser is plenty small. Um but uh we built the 77 grain LRX. Yep. Um I built a 1 and 7 twist 22 Creedmoor. When we built that bullet, it was like literally hot off the press. Like we just got the first experimental run. I hurry and hand loaded some up. I was getting like 3,500 ft per second. Yep. And went down and my wife used to kill an analope at 350 yards. Nice. And just smoked it. Yeah. And I think it would be cool. I have since sold that rifle. Yeah. Cuz I have to come up with funds for more rifles. But I I would build another one and take it down for Custer. 77 grain LRX and a 22 Creedmore. Okay. So again as I was as we were talking through this one I was like man like we are missing some stuff like what if we want to go hog hunting right and I’ll just say you know most hog hunting obviously yes you can hunt with dogs all that type of stuff right but like let’s just talk about Texas or something along that lines of shooting over a feeder 100 yards and in what would be your pick a choice Kagan uh 1895 5 357 180 grain Pioneer. It’s different for that. Yeah, it’s good. It’s a good choice. He’s like, “Hey, it worked on a white tail.” Great on a white tail. No, it’ll work. All right. Do you see 300 Blackout? I think it’s a hog killer. Yeah. I mean, I’ I’ve heard it’s a hog killer from this guy to my left over here. Yeah, I’ve actually killed multiple hogs in Texas and and Oklahoma. Oklahoma Blackout. It’s a good one. Um, how far did you shoot that hog this year? Um, that was actually 250 plus yards. Yeah. Um, but I actually used a 65 Grenle on that one. Oh, that was I thought it was 300 Black. I brought a Blackout, but mine was just a short AR with a lowowered scope. Got it. Um, I think it’s great for hogs. 100 yards and in. I think it’s awesome. But that one ended up being a little bit further. So, I ended up using um somebody else’s 65 Grenle with the 115 TACT TX and it worked awesome. Yeah, big hog. dropped it. I’ve actually killed a hog. This is not my pick, but it was random because I don’t know why I had the gun, but anyways, I killed a hog once in Texas with a 300 Weatherbee of all things, and it it did the job. I’m sure it did. It did the job. Um, but no, I’ve shot hogs with muzzle loader. Um, which was actually pretty fun. Yeah. Um, but yeah, 300 Blackout. I’m with Greg on that one. I think if I was like, we don’t have hogs here obviously, which is a good thing for not tearing stuff up. Um, but it kind of sucks cuz we’re I’m kind of jealous of states that have a ton of hogs cuz gives them something to go shoot all the time year round. Yeah. Yeah. And obviously we like to test bullets and ammo and different cartridges and Right. Yeah. But 300 Blackout it’s our 110 Tac TX does awesome. Okay. I’m going to go 3030 just to be a little different. 100 yards and in lever gun call it good with 3030. Yep. All right. kind of sticking with that theme. Let’s go Havalina because I again I was just trying to think through animals. Kagan’s killed some Havalina. Yeah, I’ve killed a couple as well. They’re pretty fun. Yep. And they are they’re surprisingly tasty. As much as I really surprisingly tasty. I promise you it is so wild. I’ve I’ve done it where you just like basically throw a ham in the crock pot, let it cook, you know, for eight hours and then you kind of just like sizzle it almost like barcoa type stuff. Amazing. Amazing. I thought they were just giant rodents. Yeah, they are. And I still promise you that they they are awesome to eat. I don’t know. Okay, I’ll take It’s kind of like I mean mountain lion mountain line is great. Is amazing, right? Nobody would think that. It’s a damn predator, right? like Havalina also awesome to eat. All right, Kagan, since you’ve done quite a bit of it, go for it. I killed mine with a six Remington. Okay, but probably not going to go that route. I said I wasn’t a 22 cal guy, but now you are. Stick and center fire just for the fun of it. You don’t have to. Oh. Oh, you mean like not go to rimfire? I don’t know if it’s legal. Is it? Um, I don’t think you can do rimfire. I I was just meaning like you could also do like handgun, shotgun, something like that. I’m gonna go 22 Hornet. Ah, you stealing it from me. You knew I was the minute you said 22. I’m like, don’t do 22 Hornet. Don’t do 22 Hornet. That’s the only 22 cal I could say that I would probably go kill something with. Okay. I love 22 Hornet, by the way. You don’t know that one yet? I don’t know that one. Yeah. I don’t think I’ve talked about 22 Hornet. You haven’t? Yeah. It’s a sweet round. Classic. It’s so stupid and ugly. Like, if you really look at it. Yeah. We’re weird. We talk about things in the lab sometimes that most people wouldn’t. A couple guys out there get mad because we go off of what the cartridge looks like. Yeah. And the Hornet is a dumb ugly. It’s an ugly cartridge, but it works. It’s fun to shoot. Um it’s just I don’t know. It’s just low power. I mean, it’s like 11 12 grains of powder per It’s just great little bar. I should have picked it for prairie dogs. Okay. Are you going to pick that for Havalina? No, you can’t. No, I’m uh He picked it. I got to do something different. Um, I’m gonna pick 10 millimeter by the way. Hand gun. I’m next. No, that’s where I was going. Hey, I’ve been last every single time. So, that’s why I jumped in here before he could do it. This is one. It’s a cartridge that’s more I’ve wanted for Varma. I don’t have one. It’s been on my list. Okay. Um, I’ve always wanted to do a 20 cal. Um, 204, but I don’t just want a 204. I’m going to do the 20 V target. It’s the fireball case neck down to 20 cal. Okay. Does that surprise you? Yeah, I know. And just like just throwing some like I think he’s just making stuff up. I need to like Google just like it’ll show up. Promise. 20 fart [ __ ] Like what’s going on here? Yeah. Uh no 20 vartar gets the fireball case down to 20 cal. And it’s a cool little round. Way better looking than the hornet. But and then we got to build an X bullet so we can of course like that’s why he’s like bringing all these up. He’s like, “Oh man, we need to build bullets for this.” You should ask him if we should build a 20 cal X bullet. You should just Yeah, people should answer that on the podcast. Put it in the comments. Yeah, put in the comments. Do they want a 20 cal? That’s actually been brought up for as long as I’ve been here. Guys have wanted a 20 cal X bullet. So, not very long. No. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. GC 10 mil. I think it would be fun. I I’ve never hunted them. I’ve seen a few. They seem like they just squirm away. They’re close. I mean, a semi-auto mag full I think it’d be a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I’ve I’ve shot some with a bow, right? Because again, like you said, you can get close. I’ve shot some with seven PRC out in Texas when they’re just running across the hillside, but I I’ve always wanted to do one of those ham hunts that they have in Arizona. Be fun. Just for that reason of like shooting with 10 mil. Yep. So, cool. All right. Did we miss anything for North American species? I think we pretty well covered it. I’m trying to I’m like thinking down my list of like things that you would want to haunt. Trying to think there’s anything that would be different. We didn’t talk about wolves. I say you could do wolf because it might differ from you know your regular predator. You might want to step it up a little bit. DC you’re taking 300 win mag on wolf. Yeah, I’m taking 300 win mag. Yeah. Kagan, go ahead. Six. Six Creed. There you go. 95 LRX. It’s a good choice. I’m gonna stick I’m gonna go back to I mentioned this one already, but 22 Creed, 77 LRX. Choice. Yeah, I’m going go 257 Weatherbe again just because it’s flat shooting. You’re good to go. Makes sense. So, all right. Now, is there anything else? Have we missed anything? Not unless you go outside of North America. Yeah. Do we want to talk about like in I want to do one thing. You know what we have? I mean there’s actually been quite a few and you’re saying like staying within North America, right? Like what about muskox? We didn’t talk about muskox. We have those here in North America somewhere. Very I mean hey we can talk muskox. We didn’t talk about polar bears. How many people hunt those? Like one a year or something. I mean you could also kind argue for some of that. Um, I don’t know what what what do you want to add? I was going to say I know we wanted to stick North America, but if if we just picked one thing in Africa and I knew you were going to do this. You were going to try to bring some in. We don’t have to. And I I wasn’t prepared for that one. Sorry, but you can edit it out. This gives this gives a No, we can we can have a whole other P. Does the Do you think the viewership wants an African caliber selection? Probably needs to be its own podcast. That’s what I was thinking. Yeah. Right. Because now we can go over a lot Planes game. I was just going to bring up one one thing. Kate Buffalo. Well, of course, cuz everybody wants to think about Kate Buffalo. We’re going to wait. We’ll wait. That gives us another podcast. Fair. And I think that that makes sense. Do you see? Was this your first podcast that you’ve ever done? It was. You bet. What What do you think about it? Did you have fun? Great. Yeah. All the smart guys are around me. So I just sit over here and talk about 300 Win Mag and let you guys cover everything up. I just make stuff up like Bart. I know. He fartard something. I don’t know what that is. But yeah. Kagan, was this is this your first podcast you ever done? First one. Did you enjoy it? Yeah, it was good. It’s fun. It’s fun to laugh. Yep. Just chat. That was a good chat for an hour. That was a good topic. Yeah, it was a great topic, right? Yeah. Sometimes it’s more difficult, right? Like and you gota got to work through it, but I think this is a fun one. So, we appreciate everyone listening and uh yeah, we’ll see you soon.