60
by MaxWyatt
soooo..... I'm hesitant to wade into this, but for a person that might go hunting once a year or hit range occasionally with a max distance of 200-300yds, is there a practical difference? A 6.5 should easily dispatch a deer and under 300yds a .308 is still decently accurate. I grew up hunting in sage brush and junipers and a 300yd shot would have been on the upper end. If I recall, we were generally sighting our rifles in at 150yds. Since a rifle is sighted in at a given distance, the relative difficulty of the shot will increase the farther away you move from that distance. If the rifle is sighted in at 100 yds, for example, you would have to estimate the amount of bullet drop to make a shot at 300 or 400 yds and aim high to compensate. Certainly possible by a skilled shooter, but more difficult. Likewise, if a rifle is sighted in at 800yds and you try to shoot a target 100yds away, you will over shoot it unless you compensate drastically and aim low. Seems to me that having the rifle sighted for the distance is actually more important than whether it's a 260/6.5/308/etc FWIW, It'll likely be a while before I buy a center fire rifle, but I like the idea of less recoil and a compact and efficient round, so for me that's the factor that tips the scale in favor of 6.5, not the fact that it's more accurate at 1000yds. Am I missing something?