SHOOTALL –
Don’t worry about the personal attack thing – asking questions and supplying a different point of view is far different than personal attack. I do this quite often and although sometimes folks take it as a personal attack I think they do so mostly when they can’t support their position with logic and facts.
I was not giving credit to the .385 Win cartridge, but rather to 385Win, the member of this forum who did the work on comparing various cartridges. He obviously put a lot of time into it. Do I agree that his method of comparing cartridges is the best method for me? No, but that does not invalidate his method.
You are correct that bullet shape will affect downrange energy, which is why I focused more on muzzle energy in my examples. 358Win also ranked the cartridges by muzzle energy.
You seem to confuse 358Win’s dedication to the .358 Win cartridge with my feelings towards it, which are rather ambivalent. I don’t own one and don’t see one in my future – ever. I’d rather have a .35 Whelen and I don’t see one of those in my future either.
Congrats on your .356 Win, by the way. It is essentially a rimmed .358 Win, generally loaded to lower velocities even though the SAAMI pressure ratings are the same. If I ever find one of the 3,000 or so that Marlin made, in great shape and at a reasonable price, it’s likely to follow me home.
It looks like we agree that efficiency alone, as measured in terms of energy per grain of powder, is not a very good reason to choose a cartridge, although it is interesting to see how the various cartridges line up.
When comparing cartridges I tend to standardize using a MPBR (Maximum point Blank Range) calculation for a target 6” in diameter – meaning the bullet is never more than 3” above or below line of sight from the muzzle to MPBR. Then I compare MPBR zero points and ranges; the range and energy where the bullets have dropped 10”; and the bullet drop and energy figures at various ranges - typically 300, 400 and 500 yards. You will note that efficiency, in terms of energy per grain of powder, never comes into play.
When comparing various loads for a particular cartridge, I look at a number of things. When comparing two very similar loads, typically driving the same bullet to similar speeds with different powders, I generally look at accuracy, ease of loading and efficiency in terms of shots per dollar. Again, efficiency in terms of energy per grain of powder does not come into play, at least not directly.
My Browning B92 in .44 Mag pushes a 300g Speer JSP to 1531fps using 20.0g H110. That’s 1561fpe at the muzzle for an ‘M eff’ rating of 79.1. A 240g Speer JSP runs 1880fps for 1883fpe and a ‘M eff’ rating of 78.5. I love that rifle, a gift from Dad, and have hunted with it often enough over the last 20 years. With 10 in the magazine it is a great little defense gun against Colorado’s black bears, lions and two-legged predators, and has often filled that role in camp – especially when the kids were young. If ‘M eff’ was reason enough to choose a cartridge for hunting I wouldn’t need anything else. (It easily beats everything listed by 358Win.) Nevertheless, it is not, never has been and never will be my go-to hunting rifle.
