In the mid 60's my dad got his first deer rifle, a .303 british. Yup like a lot of kids in his age group he hunted an iron sighted army surplus. That .303 has killed more big deer than all of the guns the rest of our family owns put together. It does hit fairly hard but you can watch the bullet fly. It has army sights with windage adjustments, which with it are extremely necessarily, and again it flat kills. It however is not really pretty. Doesn't sound as cool as a .303 magnum, or .303 ultra mag. It doesn't have a 10x50 scope on it. By no means is it sexy. But it kills. It kills, it kills. BUT, I like guns, I like gun manufacturers, so if it means constantly selling new and improved for them to stay in buisness then good for them. Funny how the pistol guys seem to be much more secure than us rifle guys though. The 1911 is still the shizz. One hundred years later it is still the shizz. A hundred years later and while still popular, the 30-06 seems to never enter the conversation any more, yet when I was a kid if you had the 30-06 you WERE shooting the big gun, I bought into that and still to this day my old 06', kills everything I can hit. I am one of those guys who likes new guns, but I think there is something cool about a guy who has hunted with the same gun his whole life, so I still rock that '06, and still shoot that 870.
