The Balancing Act

摘要

One of the things I've learned in this new age of "social media" is that I can answer emails or I can meet my editors' deadlines— and thus continue to make a living—but it's often quite impossible to do both. Still, I do the best I can to answer the mail, and in return I get the occasional pearl that can be turned into a story. Just the other day I received a fairly lengthy email. The correspondent was looking for a cartridge that would be good for deer, elk and perhaps bear, with long-range capability and not too much gun weight. So far so good; I'm immediately thinking of a fast .30 caliber. Then comes the kicker (pun intended): This gent admitted to being recoil-sensitive (good on him!), so he wanted all this capability but with minimal recoil. Now, suddenly, we have a very tall order. It seems to me that there's quite a bit of latitude among cartridges for deer and deer-size game, even at long range, but if the cartridge is also expected to be effective on animals as large as elk and as tough as bears, well, we need more bullet weight and more energy, and we're going to generate more recoil.