I love many of the caibers mentioned in this thread, and many of them would serve as a great caliber to take most big game found in Texas. After some serious consideration, I think the majority of Texans target Whitetail and hogs, with some also getting the opportunity at exotics, like Aoudad, Axis, Fallow, Sika, and Blackbuck. Some also are blessed with the opportunity to take Mule Deer and Pronghorn, while an even smaller handful will get the chance to take larger exotics like Nilgai, Red Stag, and Elk. Since some of the terrain these species live in is vast an open, I believe a flat shooting caliber that retains a significant amount of energy out to several hundred yards is necessary. While a magnum caliber like the .300 Win, .338. Win, 7mm Rem, etc. would certainly kill any of the above animals, recoil can become problematic for the average hunter, so while fully capable I axed the magnum calibers, and decided to concentrate on standard calibers with good commercially available ammunition, especially since many hunters don't handload. The smaller bore calibers like .243 Win/6mm, .25 calibers, and 6.5mm are excluded in favor of calibers with larger frontal diameters capable of shooting heavier bullets. This narrows the field to 7mm-08, .308 Win, .270 Win, .280 Rem, and .30-06. Commercially available. 280 Rem ammo is sparse, so the. 280 Rem is axed, leaving 4 calibers. For full disclosure, I am a .270 fan, and use it almost exclusively for deer and hog hunting in Texas. After much consideration, I come down to the .30-06 as the best single caliber for medium/big game in Texas. It has the ability to shoot 150-165 grain bullets for medium sized game and 180-200 grain bullets for the larger species like Nilgai and Elk. I know there have been many valid opinions, and all are not wrong. I passed over my favorite caliber in favor of the .30-06, which I think has more going for it than the other calibers I considered, and I think its recoil is at the upper end of what most average hunters can comfortably tolerate without developing a bad flinch (understanding that rifle weight, stock design, recoil pads, muzzle breaks and suppressors can all affect felt recoil).

bigfootwolff, I think your comments are excellent. I say that knowing that many on here may disagree. I think the 5 you narrowed it down to are worthy and the ones that didnt make your cut I basically agree with you and your reasoning. I do shoot only a 3006 but the other 4 would be fine. Im about to go to a 708AI as my backup gun. Thanks for your comments. Only 6 posts, where have you been?

Thanks for the affirmation Freerange, I kicked around the idea of some of including some additional cartridges like the .280 AI and 7mm PRC, but the availability of factory ammunition in those calibers nixed them from my short list.

I joined THF about 13 years ago, at the same time I joined Texas Bowhunter, and I'm not even a bowhunter. I really enjoyed TBH, and found myself rarely getting on THF over the years, thus the lack of posts. TBH recently underwent some site changes, and and was actually offline for 4-5 days. I needed my hunting forum fix, and gravitated to THF and have found that I really like THF, and definitely like it over the new TBH site, which at times is painfully slow. Happy to be here and I want to wish you good luck on your 7mm-08 AI acquisition!

6mm. 243 or 6cm

bigfoot, from your few posts, you seem like a good contributor to our forum. I think you will like it.

My 1st CF rifle was a SAKO 243, that I had received as a wedding present from my grandfather and learned to shoot it with no supervision or training except for advice from strangers at the range or from the guys who hung out at Smitty's in oak cliff, or John Chambers gun shop across the street from from Love Field, and handloaded it's ammo using a Lee Loader on my dining room table in our 1st Apartments, at the Dallas Shooting range west of Harry Hines as each target bay was completed, gotta be 50+ going on 60 years ago or so. I'll turn 78 in early September.

I am still shopping & buying/trading for rifles and shotguns whenever available if they are different or I am frustrated from what I've been using .... just never got the bigtime bug for lot's of handguns though, just enough to feel competent enough to not too scared & worry about the bad things that go on in some places we've lived or worked.

I was in Archie Van Wey's shop in Buffalo TX all afternoon yesterday trading and shopping for a couple shooters ....and Archie now has a couple of my shooters that Including I was never going to hunt in rough country with was not satisfied with the effort necessary in keeping the Tikka Swede in it's pristine condition. I learned how easy it was to permanently damaged several lesser rifles to the point I was almost ashamed of some the rifles conditions after some the more successful Hunts, and will being switched most, if not all of my rifles and shotguns into Composite Stocks.

But the
Tikka 6.5x55 and a few others too would have required way to much $'s & time to change all of my shooters all at the same time into composite stocks, and even the wife had gotten under my skin with more and more frequency too about the damage she saw occasionallyand is agreeable with my shopping for something new or buy or for a perceived fill in a hole the gun case.

That very 1st SAKO 243 satisfied my needs for 10-15 years, but as I widened my hunting areas and gained more and Lease Partners I realized there were some things I could do to expand my success or prevent coming home empty handed, while watching Lease Partners having successful Hunts, and began to buy new to me more powerful rifles. Right now I'm chasing deals on a 7 Rem Mag & or another 300 WinMag to use in far west Texas.

My best mid power shot on game was when I won a Hunt from Weaver scopes in Wyoming and I scored leaning against the guides truck on a Pronghorn at plus 300 yards that was escaping PDQ and I scored on an off hand shot with a Ruger 77 25-06 I'd bought years earlier in Florida to shoot crows with that were devastating Citrus Tree crops, and the Grove owner paid us 25 cents a dead bird too.

Yes I am also a dedicated 270 shooter, and will never be without one, but have used too many different calibers & rifle brands to bother talking about them. Yes I did Rep for Stoeger Industries, the US Importer repping SAKO in 6 STATES for 7+ years and trust the Brand implicently, even if Beretta is now is the source for most of the product, & can't say the same about Tikka ONLY for lack of CURRENT information. Tikka was always built at another facility back in my pre Stoeger Days ,with SAKO parts for the most part.
Ron