Are you just selecting what everyone else is using or are you conducting your own research and finding out what the projectiles minimum velocity is for proper expansion and seeing where that falls on your range card?
Run what bullet you plan on hunting to familiarize yourself with it, if you are using these matches to sharpen your hunting abilities.
Grew up shooting a .30-06 because that’s what my dad did. Got into competition and have used a 6.5cm the last couple years. Probably build a 7 PRC next for hunting. But honestly, I haven’t thought super hard about it.
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If your family eats a lot of venison, consider going to a copper bullet, or at least bonded. Cup and core sucks because it easily fragments and then sprays lead all over the meat.
I get a lot of deer each year because 3 hungry boys and I go thru a lot of venison, especially the college-age boys because charismatic #1 son turned them all into “carnivores.” A couple years ago #1 son’s bloodwork came back quite high in lead. I went and got the same test done and my lead numbers were pretty high too. We were shooting cheap Winchester cup and core ammo. I switched the boys rifles (.308) to copper and mine (7PRC) to bonded and lead #’s returned to normal. So no more cheap cup and core ammo for us.
The only reason I didn’t go to copper with the 7PRC was that in testing 7 different kinds of ammo (4x 10rd groups), the best copper bullet in the test placed 4th in group size.
I keep it simple: I pick a bullet that shoots accurately in my rifle first, then one that’s built for the game I’m hunting. I want consistent expansion, enough penetration, and a load I know exactly where it hits. Shot placement matters more than chasing the latest bullet.