A buddy of mine has a 264 that he uses for deer and moose here in Maine....

   Moosly,

Welcome to the "half moon club".

The 264 Win mag made me a member.It only bit me at the bench,never in the field.But the older I get , the more I like conventional cartridges.The magnums have there place , but for 90% of my use they are overkill.

That story about the .300 Wby mag strikes at home!  My grandfather has a 300 Wby mag he purchased back in 1971.  He bought it to go elk hunting and put a scope ( dont remember the brand ) on it that had maybe a 1 inch eye relief on it.  Anyways my dad would always take guys from high school he wasnt very fond of and let them shoot it prone.  That made them really lean down the old Monte Carlo style stock.  Before they pulled the trigger they would always brag on how big of a caliber they had shot in the past and how this would be a piece of cake.  After the round was sent down range the shooter would look up with a surprised look on his face with a nice bloody ring around his eye.  The gun was then nick-named "stitches."  My other granfather, who was even a competitive bench rest shooter for years, came up from the gun with the dreaded ring around his eye.  Good times.  I had the opportunity to shoot with the US Army snipers at Ft. Hood.   We shot the XM 107.  The Barrett model 82A1.  For those of you who dont know this gun, its a 10 shot semi-automatic .50 BMG.  That is a very large caliber capable of puncturing a tank at 2000 yards with the right round.  Anyways, it in my opinion, kicks less than a 300 Wby with out a muzzle brake.  Sure the noise is 5 times that of the Wby, but the recoil is just not as punishing of that of the 300 Wby. 

I guess one of the nice thing about having so many

choices in life is the idea that you can like what you

like and visa versa! Like the 6.5x55, think the 6.5-

284 is wonderful, it is a shame no major co. thinks

like I do. My Grand pa thought his old 25/35 was

all I should ever need for hunting deer, and my old

uncle was fond of his 250/3000 and I tried both as

a youngster, but found them lacking in my thinking!

up close they worked fine, spent all night once trying

find a buck  I shot across a grain feild with a 250

and since he was the biggest buck I had ever seen

something about him traveling nearly a mile into a

creek on to private property would have got my

mouth washed out if my Mom was nearby. I noticed

where I grew up in central Texas the country had

huge flats and nice size hills for Texas, often on the

over looks you could see deer moving into the draws

several hundred yards, my favorite spot gave a

good 800 yrds of view, deer moving late in the

evening made stalking into the dark creeks to meet

that deer into 25/35 range was like trying to wizz

out the back of a moving truck! The 264 made my

hunts a lot more fun and successful, I knew I could

make that tough shot and I never had to chase one

all over Texas with it! It had a special purpose and

use for me! Now if I was setting in a tree stand and

100 yards was a long shot even if I lied about the

distance that most folks tend to do, that 6.5x55

would be the ticket, but I bet my grand Pa would

say that is over kill for deer, his 25/35 or 38/40 was

all a man needed to kill deer!!!

                                                      Moos