PIPSQUEAK POWER

I’ve never been a big advocate of magnum cartridges. As a young big game hunting tyro, I used a .243 Win. to tag everything from prairie dogs to bull elk — as well as my first dozen deer. I never found it lacking. Rifle hunting for me has always been about shot placement and choosing the right bullet for the job at hand. Later in life, attending Texas Tech University and involved in range and wildlife management projects, aggressively culling herds to create marked increases in antler and body size on large Texas ranches, I shot many so-called varmint cartridges to put deer down.

I had become a hard-core bowhunter by then, the only rifle shooting I did directed at coyotes and small varmints such as ground squirrels and prairie dogs. Those rifles were simply what I owned and shot well and kept my freezer filled with. I have taken dozens of whitetails with my .223 Rem. without losing a single deer. Even more recently, I’ve been involved in ruthless wild hog culling, while helping friends manage deer hunting properties (animals in most ways mirroring deer dimensions, on average, with exceptional animals much larger and tougher). This typically involves a