I'll cheerfully admit way back in the late 90s I bought a synthetic-stocked, heavy-barreled 300 Winchester Magnum (Rem700 Sendero if yer curious)...specifically to be able to ethically and legally hunt in any situation I could think of. Light handloads (or the newfangled Managed Recoil stuff) are as close to a 30-06 as makes no difference and are great general-purpose whitetail rounds, while, after a lot of practice, I've used full-bore loads to take fat LA bucks at a tick over 400 yards across sorghum fields. Been through one replacement barrel already and it's getting time for another, when I leave NYC and can reclaim it from safe-storage out of state. Modern is as modern does, dressed up with a field-adjustable scope and bipod it sure isn't a walnut-and-blue .243. I won't even mention my .308 - all I'll say is my hunting rifles have a job to do, which is accurately, reliably and humanely take a deer...beyond that I don't care about looks, action type, or anything else.
That being said, I have less than utter contempt for poachers, jacklighters (true story, my parents were woken one morning by bright lights and a shattering window, a slug landed in the wall two feet above their headboard), car-shooters, "sport hunters" and anybody who doesn't respect that they are killing something and respect the act accordingly - eat what you can, tan or sell the hides, and be thankful that you can have such amazing food (as a trained chef by trade, wild venison is the best single protein in the history of Man - I treat both taking and processing it with the utmost respect). I called in so many reports on car shooters up the road from my place in Maine they knew me by name...and if I ever saw a Jimbo-ass poacher while I was in the field, well, it's a good thing I have a stable personality.
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