Take a little hike over to the 6.8 forums and look in the hunting pictures area.... you will see some LARGE animals taken...
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I have such confidence in my 6.8 that I put away all of my bolt guns for the Wisconsin deer season. I have and love a variety of super magnums, and hunted with them for 20+ years. however the 6.8 just works so well for me.. i love it.
I have shot six DRT deer over the last 3 years. Last year i shot a pair of large does at 22o yards. high shoulder, bang flop. complete pass through. postmortem is convincing... anyone who says its not enough , well, lets just smile and let them pretend they know all! We know the truth. If you lost an animal, it certainly wouldn't be the fault of the cartridge.
I am shooting a pretty mild load under 110 seirras. really only pushing them @2550 fps, and i
would have no problem tangling with even the largest whitetail out to 300yds with that combo. SOOOO acurate....
I echo the earlier posts about getting a 1:11 twist with the spcII chamber... MUCH better, easier to load hot. I would also have switched to the 85 gr Barnes had i not already purchased so many Prohunters. Seems to really be a killer on the big hogs.
90gr TnT's are also very accurate. I put 10 semi rapid fire rounds into one jagged hole @100yds measuring 7/8" during load development. Lets see ANY 30-30 do that.
There is really no advantage to go longer than 18 or 20 inches of barrel or bullets heavier than120gr. The case capacity is simply not suited to the larger bullets and 16 inches will get you 90-95% of the performance of the 18-22 inch barrels.
The cartridge was designed for effective performance from short barrels in lightweight packages. If you attempt to "improve" the performance, by seating heavy bullets way out there, you will have worked very hard to create a 7mm-08 with lesser performance.