What’s the best foxing calibre?

Two questions I see crop up time and time again in shooting magazines or on the internet are what is the best calibre for foxes, and the distance at which you can shoot them. Both of these queries have multiple answers and are further complicated by the circumstances in which the actual shooting takes place. Personally, what colours my choices is not the distance I am likely to shoot most foxes at, but where I am doing it.

To explain this in more detail, the starting point has to be the wide variation of countryside this island has to offer. For example, my good friend and colleague Mark Ripley shoots a lot of his foxes at distances I would be unlikely to even think about taking a shot at, because the land over which I shoot is totally different from the wide open downland Mark shoots over. Few of the fields in the part of Devon I live and shoot in are much