We pored over B&C’s extensive database to find out which cartridges are responsible for tagging the most world-record animals
It’s no surprise that the .300 Win. Mag. has accounted for more record-book elk than any other cartridge. However, another venerable cartridge has taken more total record big-game critters. Photo by Swaroop Pix.
A few weeks ago, my friend Will Brantley at Realtree.com wrote an interesting story. He went into the Boone and Crockett record database and found which cartridges were responsible for the most record-book bucks. The thing is, B&C also has data on other critters and the cartridges hunters have used most to take them. So we thought it would be a good idea to dig into it.
You can settle debates on which cartridge is better, faster, or hits harder by looking over ballistic charts. But there’s nothing like horns on the wall and meat in the freezer to prove what really works in the field. These cartridges are most responsible for punching record-book tags for animals such as mountain lions, caribou, elk, pronghorn, moose, and all sorts of bears. So if you’re getting ready for your next big hunt, or are just trying to set the record straight on .30-06 versus .300 Win. Mag. with your buddies at deer camp, we’ve got you covered.
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THE TOP BOONE AND CROCKETT CARTRIDGES FOR BIG GAME
● Mule Deer: 7mm Remington Magnum (123)
● Alaska Brown Bear: .375 Holland & Holland (91)
● Moose (all subspecies): .300 Winchester Magnum (183)
● Caribou (all subspecies): .300 Winchester Magnum (62)
● Sheep (all subspecies): 7mm Remington Magnum (227)
● Mountain Goat: .300 Winchester Magnum (64)
● Elk (all subspecies): .300 Winchester Magnum (150)
● Bison: .300 Winchester Magnum (27)
● Black Bear: .30-06 Springfield (332)
● Cougar: .30-30 Winchester (47)
● Grizzly Bear: .300 Winchester Magnum (42)
● Musk Ox: .300 Winchester Magnum (18)
● Blacktail Deer (Columbia and Sitka): .270 Winchester (72)
● Coues Deer: 7mm Remington Magnum (36)
● Whitetail Deer: .30-06 Springfield (534)
● Pronghorn: 7mm Remington Magnum (155)
Numbers don’t lie. The .30-06 has taken more record-book big-game animals than any other round. Photo courtesy of Boone and Crockett Club.
THE .30-06 REIGNS SUPREME
Most of the entries for the .30-06 are for white-tailed deer and black bears. From the list above, it might not look like the .30-06 won, but on sheer numbers alone, it did. Since World War II, this cartridge has been a mainstay at hunting camps from the Maine North Woods to the Sierra Nevada. A big part of its popularity is probably because of its life as a military cartridge. There were loads of surplus .30-06 rifles on the market after World War II, and soldiers were used to shooting them. This gave the average folks access to affordable bolt-action rifles, which were previously reserved for more well-heeled hunters.
At the same time, post-war America saw a huge boom in hunter participation. Many of these new hunters were returning GIs and they toted .30-06s — as sporterized service rifles or brand-new rifles from companies such as Remington, Winchester, and Savage.
They got it right when they made the aught-six. It’s still a very relevant all-around cartridge today with a wide range of bullet weights to choose from. Ballistic calculators also make the .30-06 even better, as you can make up for its drop in trajectory with good data. It has logged an impressive 1,440 entries in the B&C books from whitetails to Dall sheep. Hunters have even used it to take 24 grizzly bears and four Alaska brown bears.
Surprisingly, several record-class Alaska Yukon moose have been taken with what many consider to be deer rifles. Photo by David Turko.
AND SO DOES THE .300 WIN. MAG.
If you take whitetails and black bears out of the equation, the .300 Win. Mag. wipes the floor with the .30-06. It’s also been the top choice for more species than the aught-six by a long shot. And I’m not surprised. When most people think of an all-around big-game cartridge for North America, they think of the .300 Win. Mag. Americans love .30-cals (though this is starting to change) and a big, fast .30-cal is even better. The availability and diversity of .308-diameter bullets is a huge plus for the .300 Win. Mag. You can go from a 150-grain bullet at around 3,300 fps to a 220-grain bullet at just under 3,000 fps.
The cartridge was designed by Winchester in 1963. It was based on the .375 H&H belted case. Many think that the brass belt was put there to contain a big powder charge, but it was actually put there for headspacing purposes. In total, hunters have logged 1,376 big-game records with the .300 Win. Mag. The cartridge dominates in seven categories, including moose, elk, caribou, musk ox, and even bison. It even makes an appearance on lists where you wouldn’t expect it, such as cougar.
As far as any trend through the years, there are mixed results. Some years, such as 2009, are big for the .300 Win. Mag., with 14 entries. Yet others, such as 2021, saw just one entry (compare that to 14 for the .270 Win). With loads of factory ammunition and rifle manufacturers still chambering guns for this cartridge, I don’t expect the .300 Win. Mag. to take a back seat for a long time.
7mm REM. MAG. AND .270 REALLY STACKED ‘EM UP
The 7mm Rem. Mag. and .270 Win. are in third and fourth place, respectively, according to the numbers. And before you say that most of the .270 entries are from years ago, wait a minute. Hunters into the 2010s and 2020s were still using this 100-year-old cartridge, and as mentioned before, it was responsible for 13 more entries than the .300 Win. Mag. in 2021. What’s funny about these cartridges is that they’re pretty much the same. The 7mm Mag. is only a bit more powerful than the .270 Win, and it’s not even that much to make a big difference.
What you get with each of these cartridges is a bit more distance before you need to start turning turrets on your scope, and that’s probably why they’re so popular with B&C record holders. Using a maximum point blank zero, you could hold dead on target with a 160-grain 7mm Rem. Mag. comfortably out to 250 yards (and beyond with some loads and barrel lengths), and a hair high to get to 325. Just about the same can be said for a 150-grain .270. A 180-grain .30-06 will get you to around 225 yards, but it starts falling off quickly after that.
The 7mm Mag. and .270 shoot “flatter,” and as they gained popularity in a time before the ballistic calculators, chronographs, or BDC reticles were widely used, that capability solidified their place in Western hunting. It’s no surprise that more record -book sheep (227) have been taken with a 7mm Rem. Mag. than any other cartridge. It has also been the top-choice for record-book pronghorn, with 155 entries.
The list of cartridges used to kill record-book black bears varies considerably, ranging from .223 Remington to .375 Ruger. Photo courtesy of Boone and Crockett Club.
WHAT ABOUT ALL OF THE NEW STUFF?
Cartridges such as the 6.5 PRC, 6.5 Creedmoor, 300 PRC, 28 Nosler, and 7mm PRC are but a blip on the record-book cartridge charts. I think this is largely because of how long it takes for a cartridge to take record-book animals. The list of cartridges responsible for record-book animals isn’t a reflection of the cartridges most hunters overall are using. It also takes a long time for new cartridges to be adopted by hunters.
For example, the .300 Win. Mag. was introduced in the early 1960s, but it didn’t really start stacking up record animals until the early 2000s. On top of that, the cartridges on this list have been used to take the most exceptional examples of a species, which is a rare thing in itself. With some entries, such as four 12-gauge shotgun kills for elk, the weapon of choice was probably just what the hunter happened to be carrying — otherwise known as pure dumb luck.
The 6.5 Creedmoor is the leader among newfangled cartridges. It’s already accounted for 188 record-book entries, the most of which is for whitetails at 60 entries. It’s also been used for several kinds of sheep, mountain goats, five elk, and a few black bears. The bulk of 6.5 PRC kills was for desert bighorn sheep at 15, which fell slightly behind the 28 Nosler at 16. As with the .270 and 7mm Mag (which were high tech for the 20th century), it looks like these cutting-edge cartridges are being adopted by trophy hunters who need high-performance ammunition on mountain hunts. I expect them to trickle down to deer camp eventually.
SOME OTHER INSIGHTS FROM THE BOONE AND CROCKETT DATABASE
We could get into the minutiae of each animal and their favorite (or least favorite) cartridge. But there is a lot of data here to go through. Instead, I thought it would be a good idea to pick a few of the standouts and share some insights from each.
Cartridges responsible for record-class sheep include many specialized long-range rounds. But .50-caliber non-inline muzzleloaders, and compound bows with draw weights of less than 40 pounds? It’s true. Photo by David McGowan.
BLACK BEAR
Next to whitetails, the list of cartridges behind the B&C black bear records might be the most diverse. In it, there’s everything from a .223 Remington to a .375 Ruger. The king of them all, though, is the .30-06, with 332 entries. You’d think that the .30-30 Winchester or another classic lever-action cartridge would be near the top, with many record bears taken at close range over bait and dogs, but they’re not even close.
Second place goes to the .300 Win. Mag. (173), third to the .270 (164), and fourth to compound bows 56 to 65 pounds (140). Of the whole list, my favorite are two entries for 8x57 Mauser. Without a doubt, those hunters were likely carrying sporterized military surplus Mausers, which were an affordable alternative to more mainstream commercial rifles after World War II.
The 7mm Rem. Mag. has accounted for more record mule deer than any other cartridge. Photo by Kirk Geisler.
PRONGHORN
Why someone would shoot a pronghorn with a .338 Remington Ultra Mag is beyond me, and why two people would do it is even stranger. Still, two record pronghorn have been taken with this humongous cartridge. In fact, record entries for one the smallest of big-game animals in the United States have logged some pretty big cartridges, such as the .300 RUM (41), .338 Win. Mag. (2), and the .30-378 Weatherby (15) — a screaming-fast, 3,500-fps .30-cal. What’s the meaning of this? Probably long shots.
Instead of hunting pronghorn up close, many like to pick them off at long range. Big, honking cartridges with long bullets (like those listed above) buck the wind better than smaller ones. You’d think some of the latest long-range wonder cartridges would be responsible for more pronghorn kills. But I don’t think loads such as the 6.5 PRC (with nine pronghorns) have been around long enough to really make a dent. The 6.5 Creedmoor is climbing the ladder, though, with 25 pronghorns to its credit. But the clear winner is the 7mm Rem. Mag., with 155 entries. It has 60 more than the .270 Winchester in second place.
ALASKA YUKON MOOSE
When it comes to game animals, everything is bigger in Alaska — not Texas. That especially goes for the Alaska Yukon moose. They stand at nearly 6 feet tall at the shoulder and can weigh up to 1,600 pounds. They’re the biggest moose you’ll find in the world, and if they’re in the B&C record book, they are exceptionally big.
The cartridges responsible for record Alaska moose show that cartridge/caliber size and “stopping power” is kind of a silly argument. Several have been taken with what many would consider deer rifles, such as the .270 Win., .308 Win., .30-06, and 7mm-08. What’s funny is that some believe these cartridges aren’t powerful enough for elk or even whitetails. To put this in perspective, a bull elk weighs around 600 to 700 pounds on average, with only some tipping past the 1,000-pound mark. If a .308 could drop not one but three record-book bull Alaska Yukon moose, it’ll do just fine on an elk — if you know how to shoot.
When it comes to Alaskan brown bear entries, the .375 Holland & Holland tops the list. Photo by Menno Schaefer.
SHEEP SLAM CARTRIDGES
Instead of focusing on one kind of sheep, I decided to put the data together for a sheep slam. This includes four North American species: the Dall sheep, Stone’s sheep, Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, and desert bighorn. For those who don’t know, sheep hunting can be very expensive. Many who can afford to do it or save up enough for a once-in-a-lifetime hunt obsess about cartridges. Shots can be long, at steep angles, with howling winds — making cartridge selection even more of a sticky subject among sheep hunters.
Specialized long-range hunting cartridges populate the list of the most popular sheep cartridges for record-book entries. Looking at the list is like staring into a bowl of alphabet soup, with plenty of SAUMs, RUMs, WSMs and PRCs. The far-and-away winner, though, is the trusty 7mm Rem. Mag., with 227 entries. The ever-present .300 Win. Mag. is in second place with 177 big dead sheep to its credit. And Jack O’Conner fans will be pleased to know the .270 is still trucking in third place with 128 sheep.
The ultimate mountain man award should go to the two crazy bastards who shot record-book Rocky Mountain bighorns with .50-cal non-inline muzzleloaders. But the strangest method-of-take is compound bows less than 40 pounds, which were responsible for four record desert bighorns. I can only guess the hunters were children of very wealthy parents, or they had grown so old saving money and collecting preference points they could no longer draw a bow heavier than 40 pounds. Either way, hats off to them. They would’ve had to get pretty close to seal the deal with just a 40-pound draw weight.
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COUGAR
The mark of a good mountain lion gun is probably packability. Shots are often up close and personal over a pack of hounds. Cougars can run ahead of those hounds for a long time before they’re treed, and you’ll be happy if your gun is light and easy to tote after you try keeping up with them mile after mile.
The top cartridge for cougars in the B&C book is the .30-30, and it’s easy to understand why. Many cougar hunts happen on horseback, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a better saddle rifle than a .30-30 lever-action. Several record-book cougars have been taken with handgun cartridges, with the .357 Mag. topping the list at 21 lions. Many were even taken with the .45 ACP, .40 S&W, and 9mm. But the .45 Long Colt took more than each, at five cougars, and the .44 Magnum took more mountain lions than all four cartridges combined, with 13.
Cougar is one of the only entries on the B&C list that includes a rimfire cartridge. Six record-book lions were taken with a .22 Magnum. Twenty-two caliber is popular among record cougar hunters (probably because small calibers do less damage to hides) with several hunters using the .222 Swift, .223 Remington, and 5.56 NATO. A few hunters brought out the big guns, though. Eight cougar record holders shot their lions with a .45-70 Govt., seven used a .300 Win. Mag., and two used a .300 RUM. They must have skilled taxidermists.
The .300 Win. Mag. ranks No. 1 for having taken the most record caribou of all subspecies. Photo by Michelle Holihan.
BISON
Sadly, more record bison have probably been shot in the mid- to late-1800s with .50-90 Sharps, .45-70 Govt., and .50-caliber muzzleloaders than anything else. But frontier buffalo hunters were more concerned with selling hides than logging entries with B&C. The list of cartridges most record holders shoot is stacked with magnums. (Still the .270 Win. and .30-06 account for a combined 21 entries.)
The .300 Win. Mag. leads the way again, with 27 entries. But the .375 H&H, granddaddy of all belted magnums, isn’t a pushover. Eighteen bison hunters used it to tag record-book animals. The big upset, though, is the .45-70. Only five record-book bison have been taken with this classic buffalo cartridge — at least, five that we know about.