Its a good long distance round, over 150-200 yards. I know for deer hunting its not to good under 150yrds. Seen some weird stuff. Bullet travels to fast to properly expand as it should. My dads friend has taken a couple deer under 100yrds with his. Half of the time you will get no blood trail at all. We always found the deer, just no blood. The other times he shot them in the shoulder which usually flips the deer. So make sure you aim for bone if its a close shot
For round selection, you can search to see what others prefer in your model gun. All guns will prefer one brand over another, sometimes a cheap brand will out perform the best brand depending on what your gun likes. Hand loads are a excellent choice also, if you run hot round you will wear the neck out faster on your casings, might get 2-4 reloads on them. But you can tailor the powder for the tightest group.
Scopes, something descent quality, optics will be the most important part of your setup. Fixed power is recommended for sniping and or learning to. Where having a variable will pretty much introduce a infinite amount of corrections for the amount of clicks you need to adjust for cross wind, unless its set at a constant fixed power.
My rifles all have Burris Black Diamond's (with tube locks) on them. For $800 its cost effective, lighting is excellent, and extremely accurate. Alot of people like the SWFA SS Super Sniper fixed power. I've never used one but the reviews are excellent for them. They can be had for 3-4 hundred. All the SS scopes are .50 cal certified so you won't have to worry about knocking it out of zero.
Here is their site, they carry pretty much every quality scope known to man and all accessories for it, at fair prices. Check into a set of range finders also.
http://swfa.com/Riflescopes-C1443.aspx
