Make the Pronghorn Fun to Hunt Again

[mental glacier]

I was recently playing on SRP again and it made me remember back when the Pronghorns were added to the game not long after SRP first came out. Their drink time was in the daytime and you could hunt them with any Class 4-8 rifle. They were the perfect species to hunt if you were new to the game and wanted to grind XP or even just to hunt something for fun. They were easy to hunt, fun to hunt, and had me coming back to SRP over and over again for some fun Pronghorn hunting.

Now, they're a Class 3 species, which makes very little sense from a realism standpoint because they're commonly hunted with calibers like the 7mm and .308 in real life. The best weapons for hunting them in the game now are weaker weapons like the .243, or the .44 magnum rifle that has a shorter effective range. This makes them a chore to hunt for. Combine this with the fact that they now basically only drink at night, and now this beautiful and well-designed animal is really not fun to hunt at all, unless you get lucky enough to come across some while they're feeding.

Make them Class 4 again, and make them drink during the daytime (preferably from 12:00-16:00 like the Bighorn Sheep, since the two species are found in different parts of the map so there won't be too much overlap). If those two changes happen, they will once again be one of the most fun animals to hunt in the entire game.

[prisma crow]

Please

[gusty drum]

12-16? That’s overlapping with like 8 other species…

In the same area too

[prisma crow]

8-12? thats only bison right

[gusty drum]

Mule Deer, Bison, Bighorns, and then pronghorn

Yes, bighorns and mule deer share quite a few lakes with pronghorn.

[devout violet]

If anything, have them drink the same time as Muleys and extend it an hour to 19:00. Might mess up a Muley grind, but both species often drink together at the same time IRL. Class 3 is perfectly fine for Pronghorn, just fix the bottom range of the .270 and .308.

[gusty drum]

Or just make pronghorn class 4… so we can use every caliber people normally use while hunting them IRL.

[devout violet]

They're not as big as Whitetails. The rifle classes are the problem, not this species' class.

[gusty drum]

The whole system is a problem not just pronghorn or the weapons.

[atomic apex]

Some people use 300 win mag for pronghorn irl

[devout violet]

Same reason why I'll use a 10 gauge on ducks - the goal is to cook the animal on the way down.

[atomic apex]

No, they use .300 win mag on them because pronghorn dump an enormous amount of adrenaline when shot, causing the meat to spoil if not killed very quickly or dropped. Hunters are willing to sacrifice some meat in exchange for having the animal die quickly

[lapis oar]

Me when i'm wrong

[gusty drum]

So confident yet so wrong.

[smoky flax]

Pronghorn bucks are 88-140lbs or 40-64kg with some 70kg specimens being reported. That's only "small" compared to old mature northern, upper midwest, and rocky mountain whitetail (even then WT bucks ages 2-4 are about the same size as pronghorn throughout much of their range).

Southern and southeastern whitetail as well as coues deer fall in the same weight range and are often hunted with .308, .30-06, and .300 magnum.

In addition, I feel it necessary to point out that the world record pronghorn, the Mike Gallo Buck taken in 2013 in New Mexico that scored 96 and 4/8ths, was shot with a 7mm Magnum.

[devout violet]

It's why I use a .30-06 or .308 instead of a .243. But I've seen them just as easily drop instantly with the .243 - so it's all about shot placement not bullet caliber.

[lapis oar]

orrrrr just make them class 4 again. still use 243 AND .30-06 or .308

[atomic apex]

You know, like the calibers used irl on them

[devout violet]

Six in one, half dozen in the other. Gun ratings should just expand. People use .223 and .22-250 on them IRL all the time, too.

[atomic apex]

You would still be able to use the .22-250 and the .223 on them if they were made class 4…

Both of those rounds are 2-4

[devout violet]

Right, but I wouldn't use those on deer. Not confidently.

[smoky flax]

I wouldn't use either on any animal that weighs more than 50lbs confidently

[atomic apex]

The .223 is used on whitetail irl

[gusty drum]

.223 is used on Walrus irl

[smoky flax]

people have used .22 LR on them to shoot them in the head while subdued with harpoons to be fair though, so that's expected

[devout violet]

That doesn't make it a smart idea. Overall, as two distinct species, the average pronghorn is still considerably smaller than the average whitetail, smaller subspecies aside.

[gusty drum]

You know what is a smart idea… speed goats in class 4

[smoky flax]

not really, overall whitetail bucks are about 130-140lbs on average since the 6yrs or older mature bucks that exceed 200lbs are a small subset of the population. Pronghorn bucks hang around 105-120lbs, which isn't that much smaller

[devout violet]

The thing is, it isn't.

[gusty drum]

You have yet to give a singular good reason lol

[lapis oar]

Pronghorn and wt are hunted with basically the same calibers

[smoky flax]

they're hunted with the same cartridges as class 4 animals like whitetail so it makes perfect sense to me

[devout violet]

Then you haven't been reading. Lol

[gusty drum]

I’ve read this entire thing!

[lapis oar]

Me when i can't give a good reason as to why pronghorn shouldn't be in class 4

[atomic apex]

.223 is a valid whitetail round in states with lighter whitetail, such as Texas or Florida. The size of whitetail varies greatly across the US

[smoky flax]

dawg you deadass have not given a good reason

You started with a joke about atomizing ducks with 10GA birdshot, then moved on to say that you're more confident in .30 cal cartridges than .243 for deer, then said gun ratings should expand seemingly so .223/.22-250 can be used on pronghorn even they already can be used on pronghorn in game.

After that you said you wouldn't use either .223 or .22-250 on whitetail confidently then (incorrectly) claimed that the average pronghorn is signficantly smaller than the average whitetail (the majority of North American whitetail are the smaller subspecies as the larger bodied ones are smaller populations that get outcompeted by mule deer; my home state of Colorado for instance, is home to big bodied mtn whitetail with bucks that often exceed 200lbs but there's only 8-10k throughout the entire state because mule deer are simply better at cold weather survival than they are)

[smoky flax]

exactly this

I would trust .223 rem on a georgia or texas buck, and especially on those tiny little ones down in Florida, but I'd tote .30-30, .308, or .30-06 for the bucks here in CO

I rarely see a buck here in CO lighter than 170lbs, but that's extraordinarily heavy for much of the Southeast and Southwest where about 70% of the country's WT are

[vestal idol]

Maybe just coming from someone who hunted whitetail and pronghorn. I use relatively similar calibers on both the pronghorn is a bit smaller but they’re also fast so you want a larger caliber to drop them quicker, so therefore making them class 4 is the better choice here.

[mental glacier]

bump again

[hollow token]

This would be a simple yet effective change. Pronghorn are so cool, but I hate night hunting (Unless I’m hunting predators) All EW has to do is change them back. How hard can that be?