best moderator calibre?

mattic

Well-Known Member
What's the opinion on which calibre is the most effectively moderated? I've done a thorough internet search but can find little quantifiable. So deer legal only, which calibre is the quietist moderated?
Matt:-|
 
Deer legal, but not in Scotland, would be a big thumper 45/70 or the like, running a heavy slug subsonic. BIG, slug.
 
View attachment 46493Single shot .577 NE, .510 whisper or .458 win, short barrel, integral or custom large reflex moddy, pure lead cast bullets (expansion) with a weight over 750 grain. Pushed at 1050 fps. Deer legal by a nice margin.
You can even go to 950 grain cast in 510 whisper.
Gives this kinda deal...I've thought about this a lot ;)

With proper twist, should be stable aswell depending on which option you take.
Sorry i feel this may not have been what the OP meant.

Deer legal is tricky mate. Muntjac and CWD is achievable easy though.
 
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I would look for a reasonably low pressure cartridge that pushes a reasonable sized bullet with minimal amount of powder and that is already pretty mild. Two cartidges come to mind - the 6.5x55 and 7x57 in older loaders with long heavy bullets. You have less amounts of gas and lower pressure and speed to deal with.
 
Well if velocity is the same, the smallest bore is the quitest ie .243@3000 vs .30@3000
That may not work with the mk1 ear but it is the case. Smaller bored are easier to moderate.

The amount of powder burnt (when using the same cartridge) affects it.
Dramatic bottlenecks are also louder ie 223 vs 223 WSSM.

I'd be looking for something between .24 and .28 give or take with a small bottleneck, or even none, which burns less powder than it's rivals.
 
Interesting stuff but I was referring to supersonic loads

To what distance? All deer legal rounds will be supersonic at normal deer stalking distances,. 6.5x55 with 156gr ammo with circa 2,500fps MV will still be supersonic at 600 yds (about 1,400 fps which is around plenty over 1,126 fps supersonic speed)
 
I'll say again - there is no perfect solution.

It all depends on which compromises you want to make.

To give you an idea of the limits of what can be acheived with a moderator, fire HV .22LR rounds through a moderated rifle: you still get a significant crack.

So perhaps the approach would be as follows:

1. You will never get rid of the supersonic crack of the bullet in flight. So decide on the maximim noise you're willing to tolerate from this.

2. From that, you should be able to work out which bullet size and velocity will give you that. There will probably be multiple answers.

3. Pick the cartridge and load that gives you the bullet size and velocity you've decided on.

4. Find the most effective possible moderator - ideally one that effectively gets rid of all of the detonation nosie, so you're still only dealing with the supersonic crack of the bullet in flight.

I'm going to hazard a guess that you will end up with a bimodal distribution of 'best' calibres: a handful of small calbres using small amounts of powder to chuck large for calibre bullets quite slowly (.222 with 60 grain, for instance), and a handful of large, really old calibres throwing heavy bullets at very low speeds (bottom end being something like .30-30 with 150gr).
 
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