Here in the West we like to talk about long shots across canyons and up in high alpine basins at a big

mule ear buck about to escape through a saddle or something like that.

And those are important situations to prepare for in terms of skill and equipment and cartridge in

projectile choice. However, those aren't the only situations. Many times you'll be

stocking through heavy timber and you'll stand a big bull elk up out of his bed at

40 yards. Other times you might be somewhere like Alberta, you know, still

western half of the continent, right? Hunting for big white-tailed deer. Now imagine you're in a stand in Alberta and it's 10 below zero and it's your seventh day sitting there with very little action.

And you've finally seen the buck of your dreams. He's a monster, maybe a

hundred ninety inch non-typ typical heavy antlered white tail, but he's got a whiff of your wind or something, he knows something's wrong and he's

sneaking away and he's rapidly approaching a brushy ravine. He's about to disappear, to walk out of your life forever.

And this is your last day to hunt.

You have a shot at 70 yards, but you got to rake him up through the hip into his

vitals. What cartridge do you want to be shooting? How about hunting elk in Colorado? You've been working your

tail off. You've hiked until you just don't know if you can hike much anymore and

you finally found a good mature bull but he's 520 yards across a canyon.

This is more of your typical challenging shot in the west, right?

You got no way to stop closer before you're out of daylight. So you have to choose

whether or not to take that shot or pass on it. And it behooves you if you put yourself in this type of terrain this type of hunt for this type of big game to have a cartridge that's capable

and that's what we're here to talk about today. Now how about here's another kind of unusual

situation but or at least one that is unusual as far as being discussed commonly but let's

say you're hunting for spring bear, right, black bears, and you're doing

a spot in stock hunt. While still hunting into an area where you want a glass a bunch of country,

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