Ammo from 1960s compared to today.

[mikeroz]

I would argue not. You would be surpised how light bullets with low BCs shed kinetic energy as distances increase. Even my go to favourite 243 is guilty of this over 200m. When taking deer we owe it to our quarry to be as humane as possible.  With regards to an earlier posting about head shots, whilst we all know people do head shot, I wouldn't advocate doing so online.  Remember, we can all accidentally gut shot an animal when taking a heart and lung shot. Not, normally a problem, however if the point of aim was the head and the same margin of error ks applied you have the possibility of a deer running of with a damaged jaw and then dying a painful death. If anykne on here no matter how god a shot is comfortable with that then you operate a different attitude towards humane dispatch than myself!

[mikeroz]

The saddle (loin) is some of the best meat on any animal,  my game dealer gives me £1/lb but only 50p/lb if there is saddle damage. No deduction for shoulder damage. Correct me if I'm quoting you incorrectly(can't be bothered to backtrack thoughthis thread) but you said income wasn't something that concerned you, if so, and the number of deer you take each year is also as you state, then if your aim is proficient then surely one or two deduction out of 30 deer is of no consequence.  Game dealers have to cover their backsides and also make a profit. If they didn't they'd go out of business and then you'd soon find yourself travelling further to your game dealer, who'd then have a bigger monopoly (in your wider regional area) and screw you even more. 

[Breacher]

So, it sounds like the same theory preventing increases in speed limit despite huge advances in tyres, traction control and ABS - we cater for the most inept driver.

As a Met Traffic Officer once remarked to me "Too many fast cars being driven by slow drivers"

[maximus otter]

19 minutes ago, Breacher said:

...a Met Traffic Officer once remarked to me "Too many fast cars being driven by slow drivers"

 

I recall standing over some gooey remains on the tarmac, and a colleague saying to me, "Another **** who thought that traction control, ABS and four-wheel drive enabled him to contravene the laws of physics".

maximus otter

[Laurie]

What has changed since the 1960s is a huge expansion in the number and type of sporting bullet designs. Back then nearly all expanding bullets were relatively simple cup and core designs, usually with an interlock ring/groove to hold them together, and with either exposed lead at the tip or a large hollow-point. Since then, we see two section (partition type) designs, all copper, bonded core types, hollow points plus plastic tips driven back into the jacket to initiate expansion, Hunting VLDs ..... etc, etc.

Many of the premium or 'boutique' bullets have been designed to cope with the much higher terminal velocities encountered with shorter distance shots using very powerful cartridges which are MUCH more widely distributed and used than in the 60s, especially in the USA. The 30-06 and 270 were big game mainstays then and most 0.308" hunting bullets were designed for expansion at 30-06 terminal speeds in 50-150 yard shots for example. They were often inadequately robust for magnum velocities on large animals. That is how the first of the modern 'boutique' bullets came into being - John Nosler was a very successful road haulier in the 1950s and could afford an Alaskan elk and moose hunting holiday each year using a .300 H&H Magnum. A whole series of short-distance hits on a moose heavily covered in dried caked mud in a swamp that failed with bullets failing to penetrate after over-expanding on the skin saw him design the two-section partition on the back of an envelope and make up experimental examples in the company workshops. (This eventually led to the sale of the haulage business and the setting up of the family owned bullet manufacturiung business.)

With improvements in rifles, bullets, and especially optics and much greater affordability since the 60s, there has been a trend to longer shots whether in varminting or larger quarry. So, there has been an injection of match bullet qualities in external ballistic abilities into the sporting field. (Or even a blurring of categories and abilities given sporting use of the Hornady A-Max and similar in recent times.)

So, all this means that irrespective of calibre / cartridge choice the 'hunter' has to know a great deal more today about his or her ammunition's ballistics and expansion characteristics to obtain the desired expansion characteristics reliably than was the case 50 odd years ago. None of this changes 'the basics' as in user-competence as others have pointed out, arguably in fact may have provided yet more traps for the unwary / ignorant / incompetent.

[baldie]

Very interesting as always Laurie.

The bullet manufacturers , I would say, drive the shooting scene, far more than people realise.

10 years ago, how many shooters had heard of the .284 Winchester ?

Not many.

The advent of top quality target bullets, saw a massive resurgence in the cartridge. It dates back to 1963.

just a good example, there are probably quite a few more.

[Laurie]

7 minutes ago, baldie said:

The bullet manufacturers , I would say, drive the shooting scene, far more than people realise.

 

There are a lot of positive reinforcement loops in play it appears. I hadn't realised how much the improvements in affordable optics have driven changes affecting every factor in US varmint shooting, especially open landscape prairie dog 'hunting' until I read an article some years back looking at cartridge choices in the field especially super high velocity 20s. As the saying goes .... 'If you can't see it, you can't hit it!' .... so huge improvements in riflescopes in recent decades saw people able to see small targets further away and increase the desire to shoot at and hit them. This in turn created demands for greater precision, higher MV bullets, higher velocities and so on and so forth.

 

[oak tree]

Laurie you have many valid points.  I agree with all of them and in particular the point about scopes.  I was the first out of a group of deer controllers to get a decent zoom scope several years ago.  My colleagues were making several comments such as " you dont need anything other than a 6x scope".  The 6x scopes were all replaced over time with good zoom scopes.  I asked some of the colleagues if they would give up the zooms and go back to the old 6x scope and the answers were NO.  

 

To the op, I do think some of the laws are a bit outdated.  

The ethics of head shots or what distance we should be shooting at is I think up to the man who pulls the trigger.