How fast do you need your projectils to fly?  Let’s talk speed vs energy!

Last month I was in North Dakota and we put a pile in the truck.  22 over the weekend to be exact.  We should have had 30, I know, coulda, woulda, shoulda…….

I decided to take the new 22-250 bolt gun by Specialized Dynamics, the “ACE”, which is an 18″ barrel in a MDT Chassis.  Its a very compact gun and speeds weren’t too bad.  The Hornady 50gr Vmax factory ammo was getting 3480 over the chronograph.  Only about 100fps slower than my old 20″ barrel.

I had all my drops to 500yds memorized, practiced weekly at our local range while test firing customer rifles.

Whats does all this have to do with speed/energy you might ask.  Well, its the several dogs we didn’t recover.  Some will say its just shot placement and maybe a couple were, but after watching video from the trip, several were center punched at 350/400yds and fell, then got up and ran off.

So this got me to looking at the rifles I have in the safe and compared the energy of them all.   I was quite shocked how little energy that 50gr Vmax has at 300 and even worse at 500yds.   The highest energy of my rifles was my 6×284 bolt gun shooting 95gr Berger bullets around 3500fps.

I’m not trying to advocate against a 22-250 by any means, it hits hard, fast and easy to get ammo and reload for.  What I will say is, that out west in the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, etc…  I will bring a heavier bullet than the 50gr Vmax out of the 22-250 on the wide open areas we hunt during the day.

Take a look at the chart below and see the drop at 300yds of all the cartridges and see how close they are(minus the 6.5 Grendel), but also take a look at the energy produced by each one (including the Grendel).

There is no magic caliber, even though some of you say to yourself a 243 is king.  Admit it, you just thought that…..

My final thought and truly mean this, shoot what you have or what you like, just be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of each cartridge.