88, thanks.

Yes, he was busting at the seams!

I was nowhere around. He stalked it from above in thick brush, and finally got a shot as the bull was sneaking thru the timber below him on a lower ridge, going down. The only shot he had was along the spine, and he placed the shot just ahead of the hips in the back. He knew the shot would anchor the animal and it did, the forky dropped at the shot. He added a coup de grāce in the head.

Just another example of the shootability of the 7x57.

I can add another one using the 6.5x55. A few years ago I hiked up the mountain across my hayfield and made a "Blitz Blind" with one of my parang knives just below the ridgeline above what we call the "Amphitheater", a "bench" surrounded on three sides by white fir patches. A chubby spike whitetail slithered down the mountain just at dusk somehwat behind me and to my left. I am left-handed and shoot from my left shoulder, so you can do the math. A tough shot for me, as I couldn't move for fear of giving myself away and I was a bit rusty shooting from the right shoulder.

With even a .30-06 the shot would have been unpleasant, and with a heavier caliber maybe I'd have flinched it away, but with the 6.5x55 it was a breeze. I twisted hard and with the buttstock nearly off my shoulder, merely laying on my arm and chest, picked the spike out of a clump of fir and snapped off the shot. Result; spike in freezer.

Does such an advantage really matter?

Maybe not often, but when you can combine a totally legitimate elk and deer killer with Mama's caress recoil, you really have something going.