Jerry,
just joined LRH last month or so and am catching up on as many articles i can. yours caught my eye right off. of course i have always wanted to build my own rifle, the ultimate, and money being no problem. something like a 40,000 ft/sec rail gun comes to mind, or laser gun would be nice. but, since money has always been a major consideration, i really got into your article. i researched center fire cartridges, actions, etc. for over 10 years before i got my first one. it was a surplus 7.65 arg mauser for 60$. shot my first moose with it. got a 30-06 and 300 WM for the next two rifles (cheaper and easier to find ammo and reloading components) for a total of 500$ (for the pair) new. settled on 30 cal because of availability of bullets and mil surplus. still have that 300 action with a lilja barrel now. practicallity has been a major consideration along with $ over the years.
i would not hesitate one instant hunting with that rifle. if you look at the sectional density of those bullets they are probably in the range of the 6.5X55 swiss in 160 gr slugs, a very renounded killer. P.O. Ackley used a 220 swift in his high velocity tests and found some interesting things. he was one of the first to recognize "hydralic shock" and describe some of the effects. of course your round doesnt go the 3X's the speed of sound to produce this affect, but Ackley also described killing "jacks" at 5-600 yards with it and the slug was going only about the speed of a 22 mag at that range. they still dropped as if the light switch was thrown off. even when hit in "immediate non-lethal" areas. he postulated that it was the spin that did this. your bullet is doing over 298,000 RPMs (the 220 swift was about 210,000rpms) and that rotational energy and speed DOESNT decrease noticeably with distance. makes sense. i shot my first caribou at about 1300 yds with the 300 WM, 200 SGK at ~2900 FPS and the first had it's left front shoulder and leg blown off, the second, left rear haunch, and the 3rd was almsot cut in two just behind the kidneys. i suggest that is why the impact was so substantial with your loads and why they would be great hunters. in fact, Ackley went so far as to say that if he had to have only one gun that he wouldnt even have to think about it. with the proper bullets he would choose the 220 swift to hunt everything from elephants to "dogs".
as to the critic of your super group--there is so much in this world that is not documented. much more than ever documented. it is the arrogant and ignorant who believe that only documented things are real. do you really believe that there wasnt some great athlete in africa, asia, etc. a poor farmer hunter, etc. who wasnt greater than michael jordon-or could beat him at anytime? or a poor boy somewhere who was an unknown who couldnt outswim spitz. did boone or crocket shoot the smallest ever know groups? hathcock had 97 CONFIRMED kills, but he held a whole platoon down in a rice field for nearly a week, day and night and wiped nearly the whole platoon out. the artillery barrage he called in on the last day, disintergated the bodies and he got almost 0 confirmed kills for that week and his tally. must have not happened then, wasnt documented. his caliber of CHOICE for long range was the 300 WM. all of his sniping was done with a model 70 in 30-06, basicly factory, no scope levels or any such thing and a redfield or unertel ?SP? scope all of which came from a sporting good store in the US. the german snipes in WW11 hold nearly all the world records for "confirmed" data even today, but the russians did almost as well with "lousy equipment" compared to the germans.
so GREAT article. loved it. dont get worked up about documenting everything although i loved it. practicallity means more to me than all the rest. people didnt believe the old sailor stories of squid sinking ships, but now there is the collosus that washed up on shore--several juveniles caught over 60 ft long. the coelacanth didnt exist, even tho the natives said so for centuries, till one was brought up and "documented". the Hittites as far as science and so on believed didnt exist till we dug up 10 foot thresholds in a city in asia minor in the mid 1900's with a plaque stating the city of the hittites, on and on and on. those who refuse to believe something because they didnt see it or it wasnt documented live in a small world.
great job. keep it up. i want more.
thanks
