.220 Swift is pretty shit for anything with even medium thick skin. It fragments before it can penetrate deep enough to be fatal.
Why are there two different black bear sizes? Do people handgun hunt black bears?
Each type of game is given a range of chambering a so that you have some sort of sense of choice.
.444 Marlin would be ethical for black bear hunting, but nobody does. Bass pro is trying to sell guns with this image.
Is the choice mainly for cost reasons, or just personal preferences?
.444 has superior ballistics and a longer effective range, but is quite a niche chambering.
.45-70 is pretty easy to find and a hell of a lot cheaper.
Thanks for the response, still super new to this sort of thing.
In some states hunting is restricted to straight-walled cartridges like the 444 Marlin & 45-70. Because the bullets are larger and less aerodynamic, they have a much shorter effective range. This isn't that big of an issue because most whitetail deer are taken within 100 yards.
444 Marlin & 45-70 are perfectly capable of killing elk out to about 250 yards, and they are also somewhat popular in forested regions where long range shots are less common. Large bottleneck cartridges are generally recommended for elk hunting because they are effective out to 350-400 yards or even more.
.444 Marlin was created to be a 45-70 with better ballistics. Bass pro is not just trying to sell guns. People actually use these cartridges.
The two different sizes are for different ranges, which is related to the Ballistic Coefficient of each cartridge, or how effective they are at different ranges.
I like how the .243 WIN is a baby cartridge next to the .308 WIN... 🙄
So, say I have a .223, should i not expect to take elk or bear with it? Would it be necessary to get something bigger?
I don't have any plans to hunt right now, but I'm just trying to get some perspective
In 8 of the 17 states that have elk hunting .223 is not legal, and most hunters would consider it unethical outside of survival situations.
To be legal for elk and bear hunting in every state a rifle would need to be at least .27 caliber, carrying at least 1700 ft-lb of energy at 100 yards. That basically matches the recommendations in the picture.
Also in straight-wall states (DE, IA, public land in IN, MD, Southern MI, OH) hunting is restricted to cartridges of at least .35 caliber. Of these only Michigan has elk hunting. That's through a lottery, though, and this restriction doesn't apply in the upper peninsula where I'm guessing most of their elk are taken. The straight-walled cartridges that are required in these states generally aren't recommended for elk hunting because they drop too much, lose energy too quickly to make a long range shot.