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Originally posted by sigfreund:Added: As a final question, I am always curious about the, “You can find the .XYZ everywhere,” justification for a particular cartridge. Does that mean if I have a 30-06 I can go into any Walmart and pick up a box of Barnes 150 grain TTSX if that’s my preferred load? Or does it just mean that people who offer that advice don’t really understand—or at least care about—the major differences among different loads? I.e., they’re just as happy with a box loaded with 150 grain round nose bullets as they would be with 178 grain ELD-If X?

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Originally posted by sigfreund:
Member jljones once observed here that we shouldn’t choose a cartridge based on what it’s best to miss with, and I’ll expand on that a bit.

Long ago the writer Massad Ayoob pointed out that if we think we’ll need something like ammunition in a crisis or other shortage, we should have all we’ll need before the shortage occurs. In other words, we shouldn’t pick a gun on the basis of what ammunition we think will be easiest to find when supplies dry up. And of course as has often been reported, very frequently odd calibers are more likely to disappear from the shelves last during a shortage. It’s only in normal times that the 30-06, 308, and 223 loads are more plentiful.*

* Are there exceptions to that flat generalization? Of course. Are they common enough to rely on? Not if we have any sense.

And for hunters as compared with competitors and other high volume shooters, it should be cheap and easy (relatively, anyway) to lay in several hunting years’ supply of 257 Roberts, 300 Savage, or 35 Whelen, so why wouldn’t we do that as we would with more common loads rather than hope we’ll find it on the shelves during the next inevitable ammunition shortage? In fact, I would bet a nickel that it’s more likely to be the guy with a 270 Winchester rifle who walks into a store during the next crisis and says, “What‽ Where’s all the ammo?” than the guy with a 270 Weatherby.

Added: As a final question, I am always curious about the, “You can find the .XYZ everywhere,” justification for a particular cartridge. Does that mean if I have a 30-06 I can go into any Walmart and pick up a box of Barnes 150 grain TTSX if that’s my preferred load? Or does it just mean that people who offer that advice don’t really understand—or at least care about—the major differences among different loads? I.e., they’re just as happy with a box loaded with 150 grain round nose bullets as they would be with 178 grain ELD-X?

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Originally posted by LimaCharlie:
I had a new shooter/new hunter show up with a new rifle he had just purchased from a big box store for our club's sight-in service. It was a 26" Savage 110 .338 Lapua with a NightForce scope. He wanted it sighted in for 100 yards to hunt small whitetail deer in the Oregon Coast Range.