Dagny: Looking back at your original post and thinking on it some more, there are a couple of points that oughta be brought out.
Most folks, nowadays, are city guys. I've been amazed at how much I take for granted about the outdoors and hunting that is a total mystery to city folks. Inherent in our culture is a love of gadgetry, and in typical U.S. fashion, gadgetry has come about to aid the hunter.
The attraction of the magnum rifles is the flat-shooting characteristic which makes the ability to estimate range very accurately less of a problem. For instance, assume an elk is across a canyon, and you can't get any closer than 400 yards in a stalk. You don't really know if it's 350 or 450 yards. Iron sights on a .30-30 or such, and you might not eat elk. A scope on a 7 Maggie, and your tummie's full.
Some guys just can't stalk! Hell, they can't even walk in rough country without taking a tumble! But they want to hunt, just as much as I do...
For me, then, the first and over-riding priority in the whole hunting deal is that no animal suffer needlessly. That's part of why I'm over-gunned, generally. That's why I use a scope.
But close range is a lot more fun, when I'm out walking and stalking.
The closest I ever got to any wild critter was one morning on a deer hunt. I sat down and leaned against a tree, trying to imitate a stump. After a while I saw some movement and then recognized a fox. Maybe ten, fifteen yards off. I squeaked like a mouse, and he came toward me. I kept working on him until he got real close. He finally figured out that my boot was a Strange Thing, and sniffed at it. His reaction when I tapped him on the nose was, shall we say, "Cartoon-like". His hair bristled like an electric shock had hit him; he turned inside out and left rapidly through his own fundament...No way would I have wanted to shoot him!
But a lot of guys couldn't sit still enough or know how to squeak--or even that a little squeak would do ya!
From around Uvalde, Texas, on west to around Sierra Blanca, the "real" bucks--whitetail or muley--tend to bed down on the downwind military crest of a ridge, near a saddle. If you don't know this, you'll walk yourself two inches shorter trying to find Ol' Bucky. But how many city guys have any way to find out? So instead of being able to get close enough to use a bow or pistol, they are commonly faced with a need for a "reach out there" rifle...
Ideally, what happens is that guys gain experience through the years and actually learn. Little by little, they get away from "I gotta kill something" to an attitude of taking pride in the skills they develop--stalking, understanding game's behavior, etc.--and begin to leave the gadgets in camp.
I'm getting into that final stage of trying to pass along what I've learned. I have more fun taking somebody out, trying to find and catch some critter than actually finding something for me. That's part of why I hang out at TFL...
Best regards,
Art