

He popped out of the ditch, dropped into a kneeling position and promptly knocked over a nice buck. A couple years back I watched him stalk up a shallow drainage ditch in an alfalfa field to within 300 yards of a small herd of antelope. That’s been my son’s go-to antelope cartridge for years. It’s super accurate and that bullet delivers flawless performance. One of my favorite combos is the 110-grain Accubond loaded with RL-19 to about 2825 fps. Hornady’s 117-grain SST steps out of a 24-inch barrel at 2945 fps and with a 200-yard zero strikes 7.3 inches low at 300. Loaded to +P velocities it is still no slouch. For the cartridges of that era, it struck an excellent balance between low recoil and flat trajectory. It’s a necked-down version of the original high-power performance cartridge, the 7x57mm Mauser and was offered by Remington as a commercial round in 1934. 257 Roberts was hot stuff when it was conceived by Ned Roberts in the 1920s. Honestly, none of us saw the 6mm Creedmoor taking off the way it did, but its advantages were too many to ignore-especially with the rise of the Precision Rifle Series, where it excelled. I envisioned it as an advanced round for target shooting at 1,000 yards and a capable cartridge for predators and small- to medium-sized game like deer and antelope. When I approached Hornady about doing a wildcat in 2007, right after the 6.5 Creedmoor was introduced, we agreed that the brand-new 6.5 would be an excellent parent for a 6mm version. 6mm Creedmoor: Advanced Antelope Cartridge That said, here are the best antelope cartridges out there. Instead, they deserve to be pursued with cartridges as interesting as they are. So, you’ll forgive me if I insist that they shouldn’t be hunted with a run-of-the-mill deer rifle. And when properly cared for and dressed, antelope is among the most delicious game to eat. They are ancient creatures that outlasted whatever predators had evolved to chase them and are one of nature’s true marvels. They are the second fastest land animal on earth and are blessed with the most efficient cardiovascular system of any mammal. Their closest living relatives are the okapi and giraffe. They are neither antelope nor goats, as Lewis and Clark described them, but occupy their own singular branch on the tree of life. Pronghorn antelope are unique among North America’s game animals.
