Boddington believes the .270 WSM, chambered in a Kimber here, is one of the finest mountain cartridges ever--faster and harder-hitting than the great .270 Winchester but able to be housed in a lighter, handier rifle.

My favorite is the long-neglected .264 Winchester Magnum. I had one when I was a kid and thought it was magic. Never mind that it was a Remington with 24-inch barrel, so it was far short of the velocity I thought I was getting. I also used to have a couple of original Model 70 Westerners in .264. I should have kept them, but they were right-handed rifles. Just a few weeks ago I took delivery of the kind of .264 I’ve always wanted. Serengeti Rifles built it for me on a rare left-hand Parker Ackley Santa Barbara Mauser action that I sort of came across, and it has a really good 26-inch Obermayer barrel.

.270
I’ve been a fan of the .270 Winchester for about 35 years, but I’ve had enough flings with the .270 Weatherby Magnum to recognize that while the increased velocity may or may not flatten trajectory enough to matter, the increased energy is noticeable. But when I took a look at the rifles I currently have, I discovered I own several rifles in .270 WSM, just one lonely .270 Winchester and no .270 Weatherbys.

The .270 WSM is far and away my favorite of all the new short magnums, and I like the added velocity over a .270 Winchester. I also like the shorter action and find the increase in recoil to be not enough to worry about. It can be made into a wonderfully light package, yet it packs a whole lot of punch. I have used the .270 WSM on elk with no qualms (and great performance), and I even took it to Tajikistan on my second hunt for Marco Polo, a big-bodied sheep that lives in very open country where ranges are often quite long.

7mm
I find it difficult to warm up to the 7mm, caliber .284, even though some of the finest and most accurate rifles I have ever owned were chambered to 7mm Remington Magnum. I have used just about every commercial 7mm cartridge there is--including ultra-fast numbers such as the 7mm STW, 7mm Ultra Mag and John Lazzeroni’s 7.21 (.284) Firebird--and they have accounted for some of my very best trophies. But they are not my cup of tea.

However, I have a soft spot for milder, soft-spoken 7mms. I think the 7mm-08 Remington is one of our best hunting cartridges, mild in report and recoil and amazingly effective. My favorite 7mm, though, is the 7x57. Part of the reason is pure nostalgia. It generally isn’t as accurate as the 7mm-08, and it needs handloading since most current factory loads are anemic junk. But what I like about the 7x57, aside from its legacy, is that it is mild-mannered and wonderfully effective. Dallas gunsmith Todd Ramirez made me one sort of in the fashion of a 1920s “stalking rifle”--very retro, and I love it.

.30
I have used many .30 calibers, and I don’t think I’ve met a single one I didn’t like. I was tempted to start with the .30-30, but even though I have a couple of .30-30 lever actions, I don’t use them very often. My first instinct was the .30-06 Springfield, one of the world’s most versatile cartridges. It may not be a long-range cartridge nor as accurate as the .308 Winchester, but it’s accurate enough and a bit faster. Due its longevity and popularity, it is the most developed sporting cartridge in the world, with a limitless wealth of loads and loading data.