Cartridge With Widest Power Band?

You can take a 378 Weatherby from ~1500 fps with a 249 gr lead slug to 2900 fps with a 300 gr. RN solid using data published in Lymans Manuals. That would be lever rifle 44 mag power (deer rifle) to Elephant rifle power range. Is that enough power range for you? That would be ~ 1200 ft. lbs. to ~ 5600 ft. lbs. for a delta of ~ 4400 ft. lbs.
 
And again, show us your lever-action 378 Weatherby, or else you are off topic. We are still waiting for that 50 BMG lever-gun too. If you wanna chime in with a 348 Winchester, then you're on topic again.
 
I know,.... 35WCF....yeah, everything that the 35 Whelen can do in a '95 Winchester, and you can use light 357 bullets for small game too. Now were really onto sumpthin'! ;)
 
Well if I was looking to go that route, which I'm not, I'd first work up the main load and then do the search for the light load. Whether one can get both to hit at the same point of aim at some chosen distance is a whole nuther something else. What I would do is set my sights for the big game load and work up the light load to where you can hit spot on at say 25 yards. Old Col. Whelen did that with his high powered rifle and had the light load for taking small game while on his extended hunts.
When I had a Marlin 45-70 I ran a 300 gr. cast bullet over 10.0 gr. of Unique. Probably wasn't quite as fast as a .22LR as I never chronographed the load but out about 30 yard it would knock a jackrabbit exhaust pipe over tea kettle..
Paul B.
 
Pathfinder45 wrote:And again, show us your lever-action 378 Weatherby, or else you are off topic.
Click to expand...

The OP wrote:
Posted here because I am mainly thinking leveraction.... but what rifle cartridge has the widest possible muzzle energy powerband?

OP does NOT exclude bolt actions. The second part of his sentance puts me COMPLETELY on topic.

Now to my question: Is that enough power range for you? If the answer is YES and the OP WANTS a lever action; then the OP first needs to get a modern reproduction model 71 Winchester (preferable a Japanese made one) Chambered for 50-100-450. You would be outside of SAAMI for that old BP cartridge but one can load one of these up close to those power levels with smokelss loads. Or wildcat a 348 Win (which is based off of the 50-110 case) and make something with bullets that can handle that power like a 450-348 Ackley style wildcat.

So how much bandwidth does the OP want and how much is he willing to spend to get it.
 
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