Confessions of a deer hunting small-bore convert.

When I started hunting deer in the last quarter of the previous century the .30 calibers (or something pretty dang near) were the overwhelming choice for the Northwoods. It might have been Grandpa’s .30-30, it might have been a .30-06, occasionally somebody would turn up to deer camp with a .270, or even something old-school-exotic like a .35 Remington. Even the occasional surplus .30-40 Kraig or a Mauser would occasionally make an appearance.

But let’s be honest, the .30 bores ruled the deer camp roost. I believe I was 14 when I joined the club, my father found a very nice used Remington 742 in .30-06 which my parents gave me for Christmas. After what I viewed as many long years of paying my dues with slug guns and borrowed rifles, I had arrived.

And I used the old 742 to deadly effect, racking up deer every year including some rather fantastic multi-deer efforts on deer drives where the auto really excelled. Why would I ever mess with success?

25 years passed and I had sons of my own whom I desperately hoped would join me at deer camp someday. And so I took a step on what proved to be the slippery slope of the small-bore. I bought a Tikka in .243 Winchester. Just for the boys, you understand. I’d never really even thought of hunting deer with anything smaller than a .30, but for the kids it seemed ideal.

First, I did my usual load development work at the reloading bench, coming up with a dozen test batches to get the rifle properly sighted in and find the load it liked the best. To my astonishment, the answer to the latter question was simple–the .243 liked EVERYTHING. One load proved to be the winner, but not by very damn much. Everything I tested was way beyond acceptable.

And then I made a big mistake. Purely to make sure the .243 was suitable for a young hunter, I took it to the stand with me one year. When a nice, big-bodied 6-pointer walked out on the far side of the field, I took aim, fired, and to my astonishment the deer absolutely dropped as if it had been hit by lightning.

What followed was a number of years where the .243 served as the “camp rifle” and various hunters racked up deer after deer after deer. But beyond that, what I noticed most was HOW the .243 killed them. Deer after deer never knew what hit them as they tipped over in their tracks. Speed, as it turns out, most definitely kills. In fact, it kills way better than the old .30 caliber fan in me would have ever thought.

And curiosity may or may not have contributed to the demise of the cat, but it certainly got the best of me last year. With all the crazy kids these days jumping on the 6.5 craze with reckless abandon, well, I just had to see what all the hype was about. So I bought a Creedmoor.

Again, to my astonishment, I loved the Creedmoor even moor. Get it? Moor. Anyway, it may have helped that i took the biggest buck of my life with the Creedmoor, but I like to think I’m a little more objective than that. If the .243 was easy, the Creedmoor was easy-peasy. When it comes to ammo, it loves everything. Honestly, rather than finding something that my new Creedmoor shoots well–which is basically everything–the more challenging thing would be to see if there’s anything that it shoots really poorly. So far, I haven’t seen any signs that that is even possible. s

So count me among the converted. My conclusion is that with modern bullets and modern manufacturing, I love the smaller bores and I ain’t goin’ back to lugging the old .30, no way no how.

Has anyone else joined the temple of the small bore?

Grouse

When I started deer hunting, I was 12. I used a marlin 30-30 lever action rifle mostly because it was an affordable weapon and it had little recoil. I had that rifle and used it for about 10 years. Most of those years were spent hunting in northern MN where it was a fine “brush gun” in heavy timber. Rarely did I take any shots longer than 100 yards because rarely could I even see that far.
When I got into my 20’s, I started hunting more in zone 2 which is more open country. It consists of patches of timber mixed with brush, grassland, and agriculture. I had much longer distances to shoot. The first time I tried shooting at a deer 250 yards away, that 30-30 was dreadful. I watched the bullets hit the dirt in front of the deer.
I had a full time job by then and had entered the work force, so I got rid of that 30-30 for a Remington model 700 bolt action in 7mm-08 caliber based on the advice of my grandfather and uncle. I needed long range distance, velocity, and accuracy. This gun was up to the task with minimal recoil. I’ve had it for 16 years now and can confidently aim and drop deer at longer distances.
I’ve got nothing against that 30-30 I started with, but the landscape I hunted changed, and I needed a better tool for the job.

Great write up.

My first deer rifle was a model 700 in .243 that my dad bought me 24 years ago. I now own other rifles but that .243 will always be my favorite and my go to rifle. I’ve killed somewhere around 25 deer with it, including 200+lb bucks.
I’ve never had one leave my sight after the hit.

The 243 is an awesome deer caliber! I use my 243 Browning BLR, every late season doe hunt I go on in northeast Iowa. I use 100 grain Core Lokt ammo and they just thump the deer. Everyone I’ve pointed at fell where it stood, like you mentioned. I tried using monolithic bullets but the lead cup and cores seem to do the job better. My 45/70 guide gun is still my deer gun of choice, but I don’t sneeze at the 243.

We shoot everything from that same 742 woodsmaster in 30.06 to a .243 and my new favorite is the tikka .270
I prefer for my all around deer gun for it to be the 270. It’s just my all around gun of choice. And it shoots so dang nice. It shoots most every round through it beautifully. As where the 742 was and is picky. But the 742 was my grandpa’s and I make it a point to carry that gun out once or twice a season. That 742 dropped 2 beautiful 10 points last year or the year before, 1 from me and one from my at the time 11 year old. That was sub 100 yard shots with iron sights. And I will keep that old gun in the hunting rotation for as long as I can. I haven’t jumped on the 6.5 bandwagon yet just because I have no reason to. The tikka .270 will do everything that Creedmoor will. I’m a Minnesota woods hunter, I don’t hunt over food plots and I don’t rifle hunt over fields. It’s all backwoods thickets.
I did add the savage 220 this year for the new land we get to hunt and I’m excited to see what that gun will do. We have yet to get it tightly sighted in, but it’ll be nice to be able to poke 150 in shotgun territory. And I have a mass stock of the accutips I’ve been buying every time I find them.

Steven Krapfl wrote:

he 243 is an awesome deer caliber! I use my 243 Browning BLR, every late season doe hunt I go on in northeast Iowa. I use 100 grain Core Lokt ammo and they just thump the deer. Everyone I’ve pointed at fell where it stood, like you mentioned

I think the difference as far as the killing power of what many traditionally considered borderline deer calibers like the .243 is that whatever their performance was in the past, it’s way, way better today with modern bullet designs.

I use a 90-grain Nosler Ballistic Tip in the .243 and the same Nosler in 120-grain for the 6.5 CM. Both of these bullets shoot like match grade FMJ bullets, but they hammer game like an old-school cup/core bullet.

I’ve killed 4 deer with the .243 and others have used it to kill about 8 or 9 more. None of them have gotten more than 100 yards, but that’s an outlier because 8 of them have literally died in their tracks without taking a further step.

Last year I had 150+ yard shot at Mr. Big, the biggest buck I’ve ever seen in person. Talk about a confidence crisis, here I am sitting with a brand new rifle, brand new scope, and in a caliber I’ve never killed anything with, and out walks Mr. Big.

Well, I shouldn’t have worried. I managed to keep it together enough to do my job and the 120 grain Nosler absolutely savaged that buck, laying him out flat in the middle of the field, he didn’t even get one good leap in before he folded up. You couldn’t have folded him up any faster had you hit him with a bazooka.

The consistency of the bullet performance these days is what makes the difference.

I can say I am not very knowledgeable in ammunition ballistics. I have found out what works in my guns and what doesn’t. I enjoy reading alot of these types of posts just to further build my brain. I know out of the .742 that thing likes 180 grain Cort lock rounds. Never messed with any thing else. My .270 like the same but in a 150 grain. And I do not remember what I shoot out of my .243 but I thought it was 100 grain.
The longest shots I may be presented with are 100 yards maybe 150 on the perfect line.
I’ve always thought my set ups are good enough, but I would love to play with that .270 and try 250 yard to 300 yard pokes some times. What round should I look in to, or will that Cort lock perform good at that range ? This is for future use further west

I built a 6.5 grendel a few years ago. I still have not hunted with it but it will be hitting the stand this year.

Grouse, where is your shot placement when dropping all those deer in a heap?

nice write up grouse, I learn a lot from your posts. I’m someone who didn’t hunt growing up – I played hockey and that was life in the fall and didn’t have anyone around to teach me to hunt. I’m an adult onset hunter which presents challenges a lot of folks who grew up hunting and were taught by dad/grandpa/uncle didn’t have. I didn’t have any guns or knowledge handed to me. I had to blaze my own path. I basically bought a Remington 783 30.06 off the shelf, bought a couple a boxes of ammo, and went to the rifle range to site it in after it was bore sighted, and started shooting deer with it. Every deer I’ve shot at has dropped. Your post about all the different subtilties in ammo and guns makes me wonder if I’m over simplifying things or if others are overthinking it.

what makes a guy determine one certain ammo or gun isn’t working well enough? do you guys shoot at deer that don’t die? not able to shoot a tight pattern grouping at the range? if you shoot at a deer and it doesn’t drop, how do you determine it was the ammo and wasn’t the shaking/nerves caused from buck fever?

like I said, I’ve dropped every deer I’ve ever shot at and that’s with a cheap 3-400 gun and whatever ammo I can get my hands on (the covid years made it so beggers can’t be choosers as far as ammo goes). I also don’t take long shots – my longest shot is probably just a hair over 100 yards, but most of my shots are under 50 yards.

Bearcat89 wrote:

I can say I am not very knowledgeable in ammunition ballistics.

I’m with you man. at least when it comes to rifles anyways. I know a decent amount about shotgun loads.

Same experience as the OP with .243 cal. My mom used a mod 70 Win .243 and when I very young and I would go in the stand with her or my dad before I was old enough to hunt. She killed a ton of deer with that (most dropped on the spot as well) and it was my first year gun. After my first year I got a 270 for whatever reason but I do think the .243 is the ultimate whitetail round. After she quit hunting when it was too cold (WI seasons) and over many years after I think every neighbor kid around us used that .243 their first year hunting and many ended up buying their own. My dad always loaded nosler partitions and now it’s passed on to my daughter with many boxes of those hand loads.

Yeeeeep. You and I have always been on the same page on this topic, Grouse.

Fact of the matter is, there isn’t a deer walking the earth that a small to moderate cartridge can’t kill at typical hunting distances, and even much further than most of us are comfortable shooting. Hell, the guy at Nosler who designed the 95 grain 6mm/243 ballistic tip designed it with ELK being his primary quarry. There is a forum thread (on a popular western hunting forum) that is close to 30 pages of kills on critters up to and including moose/elk with 6.5 bore cartridges, most of which are 6.5 creed or 260 rem. Lots of guys now are even jumping on the high BC 6mm train, and there are lots of deer/elk being killed by 243 and 6mm creed even out to 500-700 yards.

My .270 Tikka has always been my #1, but I’m in the process of adding to the stable, and I’m going DOWN in power, not up.

We just got done sighting in my wife’s new 243, and once I decide if I want to go 6.5 creed or 7mm-08, I’m going to pull the trigger on another Tikka.

I’ve never been a fan of bigger magnum rifles. They beat me up at the range, create a hell of a lot of ruckus, and burn way more powder than is necessary for 98% of hunting scenarios. I’ll take the 243/6.5/308/270 that I can shoot all day, every day, and twice on Sunday. Put a good quality bullet in the boiler room and watch critters tip over, regardless of what the headstamp on your brass says.

Gitchi Gummi wrote:

nice write up grouse, I learn a lot from your posts. I’m someone who didn’t hunt growing up – I played hockey and that was life in the fall and didn’t have anyone around to teach me to hunt. I’m an adult onset hunter which presents challenges a lot of folks who grew up hunting and were taught by dad/grandpa/uncle didn’t have. I didn’t have any guns or knowledge handed to me. I had to blaze my own path. I basically bought a Remington 783 30.06 off the shelf, bought a couple a boxes of ammo, and went to the rifle range to site it in after it was bore sighted, and started shooting deer with it. Every deer I’ve shot at has dropped. Your post about all the different subtilties in ammo and guns makes me wonder if I’m over simplifying things or if others are overthinking it.

like I said, I’ve dropped every deer I’ve ever shot at and that’s with a cheap 3-400 gun and whatever ammo I can get my hands on (the covid years made it so beggers can’t be choosers as far as ammo goes). I also don’t take long shots – my longest shot is probably just a hair over 100 yards, but most of my shots are under 50 yards.

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Bearcat89 wrote:</div>
I can say I am not very knowledgeable in ammunition ballistics.

I’m with you man. at least when it comes to rifles anyways. I know a decent amount about shotgun loads.

Kudos on starting hunting later in life! I also enjoy Grouse and a few other guys that have, imo, Doctorate level knowledge of guns, calibers, cartridges and loading. I grew up hunting and still would say I just have a pretty solid basic understanding of that stuff, but nowhere near Grouse, Randy, Waldo or a bunch of other guys here. It’s their hobby/passion, and they are really deep into the details and knowledge. Personally I think as long as you have something that you get tight groupings at your standard in-field ranges, you are good to go, but if you want to go further it’s a rabbit hole with no end with twist rates, loads etc etc. Venture down that path as much as you would like. I’ve shot deer with a 30.06, 30-30, .44, 30 Remington, 20 gauge, 12 gauge, a 70’s era Jennings bow with aluminum arrows, a modern Hoyt compound and a Ravin crossbow, and as long as you put the projectile where it needs to go, the deer will die. There are just some ways that make that happen a lot faster and more efficiently/effectively, which should always be our goal as hunters.

As someone who grew up hunting the shotgun zone, then only bowhunting, then not deer hunting at all, I finally bought my first rifle last summer and was completely overwhelmed by all the cartridge options. Tough time for someone completely green like me who is also prone to over researching and analyzing everything. Analysis paralysis to the max! I still think it’s absolutely wild and silly the amount cartridge offerings and the debate around them.

I really just came here to say I appreciate Grouse, Randy and others sharing their experience and knowledge on here. Super helpful to a rifle idiot like myself.

Oh and I don’t want to derail this thread on “small bore” deer rifles, but is .224 cal still too small?? Seems to me .243 is a lot closer to .224 than it is to .308

Bearcat89 wrote:

I know out of the .742 that thing likes 180 grain Cort lock rounds. Never messed with any thing else. My .270 like the same but in a 150 grain. And I do not remember what I shoot out of my .243 but I thought it was 100 grain.
The longest shots I may be presented with are 100 yards maybe 150 on the perfect line.
I’ve always thought my set ups are good enough, but I would love to play with that .270 and try 250 yard to 300 yard pokes some times. What round should I look in to, or will that Cort lock perform good at that range ?

My 742 also likes 180-grain bullets and only 180 grain bullets. The combination of the twist rate and a relatively short barrel, I think, limits the range of bullet weights that will work well in these rifles.

Also, with the 742, it helps if we understand and accept them for what the vast majority of them are–a minute–of-softball rifle. With some tinkering, you may or may not better this a little, but they are a “good enough for deer” type of accuracy.

And before all the 742 fans gather their torches and farm implements and start heading my way, let me just say these 2 things. A) Not that there’s anything wrong with that, and B) This “good enough” accuracy was common across many, many rifles back in the day. While we may pine for the fit and finish of pre 64’s, old 700s and the like, the reality was not all of them were fantastic shooters and many of them were simply not capable of shooting the MOA levels that have now become the norm even in very inexpensive rifles.

Regarding the ammo choices for the .270, 300 yards is not a particularly long shot as shots go, so looking at a handy ballistics calculator, here’s what’s published for the 150 Rem Core-Lokt (zeroed at 100 yards)

200 yards – 4 inch drop
250 yards – 8.8 inch drop
300 yards – 15.7 inch drop

All of these seem pretty manageable. IMO, if heading west I’d be tempted to zero at 200 yards to reduce the holdover required should a 300-yard shot present itself.

tswoboda wrote:

I really just came here to say I appreciate Grouse, Randy and others sharing their experience and knowledge on here. Super helpful to a rifle idiot like myself.

+100!

Gitchi Gummi wrote:

I didn’t have any guns or knowledge handed to me. I had to blaze my own path. I basically bought a Remington 783 30.06 off the shelf, bought a couple a boxes of ammo, and went to the rifle range to site it in after it was bore sighted, and started shooting deer with it. Every deer I’ve shot at has dropped. Your post about all the different subtilties in ammo and guns makes me wonder if I’m over simplifying things or if others are overthinking it.
what makes a guy determine one certain ammo or gun isn’t working well enough? do you guys shoot at deer that don’t die? not able to shoot a tight pattern grouping at the range? if you shoot at a deer and it doesn’t drop, how do you determine it was the ammo and wasn’t the shaking/nerves caused from buck fever?

First of all, welcome to the sport and it’s great that you’ve joined us.

As far as rifles and rifle performance, you have started hunting just after the confluence of two big changes that really changed everything for the hunter/rifleman.

First, in the early 2000s, there was a sudden change in rifle manufacture with makers finally getting fully on board with modern machining methods and mating these methods to new designs that offered dramatically increased accuracy and consistency AND these rifles came in at very affordable prices.

While they weren’t the first, Sako’s introduction of the Tikka line set the absolute benchmark for this new generation of affordable, highly accurate rifles. I saw the Tikka in Europe where it first came out a few years earlier and reports from over there came back with stunning reports of accuracy given the price tag, I knew it was going to be a winner.

I ordered my first Tikka 2 days after they went on sale here in the US, I paid $650 for a Tikka Lite in .22-250 and what I got for that money was astonishing. After a brief period of load development, that rifle was shooting ragged hole 5 shot groups that I had previously only been able to obtain with a custom Savage 12 with a custom heavy varmint barrel and literally years of load development work.

Other makers followed with their own lines, Savage, your Remington, and Ruger, they all introduced new entry-level designs around this time. What they may have lacked in aesthetics, they more than made up for in accuracy that prior to that period could only have been obtained consistently at a much higher cost.

For some perspective into how big of a shift this was, I will now risk offending basically everyone who has ever picked up a Remington 700. What you need to understand is that even though the 700 is a design classic and deserves its place among the best rifle designs ever, the fact is that out of the box in, say, 1975 you may have gotten a great one as far as accuracy goes. Or it may have been just so-so. The consistency simply was not there like it is now.

Variations in manufacturing tolerances and materials also made finding the best loads much more challenging in many cases. The Savage I mentioned above always shot reasonably well, somewhere around 1.1 or 1.2 inches, but dad and I went through DOZENS of test batches with no real improvement on that mark until a friend of my dad’s suggested we try Winchester 760 as he’d had good luck with this powder in another .22-250. I cooked up 2 test loads using 760 powering a Sierre Match King 55 grain and the first time on the bench I put 5 shots into a ragged hole. Finding the right load took that rifle from over MOA to sub-.5 MOA. By the standards of the time, this was a tremendous level of accuracy for a non-competition rifle.

The other thing you have going for you these days is that there have never been so many great factory loadings available. Including really premium factory ammo loaded with bullets that were previously only available to hand loaders.

Bullet performance, as I mentioned, is also just so good now and so consistent that when it comes to ammo we really do have our cake and eat it too.

So no, you aren’t over-simplifying it. You’re just reaping the benefits of two trends that basically changed everything.

Now, if you can’t make a rifle shoot at 1 inch or better at 100, it’s considered an epic failure. Rifles are just THAT good. And, and, and… many manufacturers even guarantee this level of accuracy, which was previously unheard of even for custom shop rifles.

Like I tell my kids, it’s a great time to be alive and hunting because IMO when it comes to rifles, the golden age is NOW.

Awe the memories.
Grouse and BC I own a 742BDL that I bought 52 years ago.(I think) I quit gun hunting in 1987. Not enough time for family, work, fishing, etc.
My 742 liked 180 grain bullets also. Shot was OK for deer. About 20 years ago took my son and his friend to Wyoming on a public land bare bones MD hunt. My sons scope worked loose so the 742 came out of retirement. The famous “back up gun.”
Well getting it dialed in for my son was a challenge and long story is we needed to buy some ammo. No 180 to be found in Podunk, WY. Had to buy some Federal 165g. My 742 loved it. Best groupings ever. Needless to say my son now has it in his safe and it is to be passed to my grandson.

fantastic write up Grouse. I have significantly increased my [very basic] knowledge and understanding of the basics from yours and others posts in this thread and on this forum. When factoring in the historical context, your posts make a lot more sense.

now let me ask a somewhat dumb question… when I’m looking for ammo for my .30-06 for deer hunting, what should I be looking for? Really all I’ve ever considered in the past is the grain, and pretty much anything I can find for sale fits my very broad [and uneducated] acceptable range of specs.

Gitchi Gummi wrote:

now let me ask a somewhat dumb question… when I’m looking for ammo for my .30-06 for deer hunting, what should I be looking for? Really all I’ve ever considered in the past is the grain, and pretty much anything I can find for sale fits my very broad [and uneducated] acceptable range of specs.

My knowledge is limited but have had a couple guys that shoot a lot more than me say that 150 grain is on of the best to run in an .06. After talking to an engineer at Federal, they recommended trying the Fusion. One of the guys at camp switched his 270 to the fusion and he dropped two deer in there tracks first season running it, so I bought a box. They only had 165 grain, so we will see how this season goes.

suzuki wrote:

Grouse, where is your shot placement when dropping all those deer in a heap?

Sorry, I didn’t see this until now.

I can’t recall the placement on every one, but the 4 I’ve shot with the .243 have been 3 heart/lung shots and 1 base of the neck shot. I would not normally take a neck shot, but when a deer stops broadside at 85 yards and puts his head down to feed, it’s such a chip-shot with the 243 that I thought why not.

My son shot a deer last year that ran the farthest of anything this rifle/load combo has ever taken, it got just over 100 yards. Goes to show that anything can happen, the boy’s shot was dead center of the lungs, but somehow he managed to punch in between ribs AND the bullet exited between ribs. Unbelievably, he never hit bone, so basically the expanded bullet drilled a roughly 35 to 40 caliber hole right through the deer neatly taking out both lungs.

My neighbor joined hunting late in life and he took his first buck at my farm with the .243. He clipped the back radius of the shoulder at 125 yards, so he was a little far forward, but he ended up taking out the whole heart due to the angle the deer was standing. I was proud of him, it was a nice shot at fairly long distance for a new hunter and the deer literally tipped over where it stood, so I ran out with the UTV and threw the deer in the trailer and 20 minutes later we were all back in the stands.

My shot on Mr. Big last season was a little tricky. He trotted into the field and I didn’t have a shot until he stopped, but then he immediately turned and was grazing while heading directly away from me. He finally gave me a little angle, it wasn’t quite quartering, let’s call it “eith-ing” so I aimed well back behind the rib cage and sent it. I took out the lungs, through the upper heart, and exited just up the neck from between the shoulders, taking out the spine at the base of the neck on the way out.

I will say that with the Nosler BT bullets, they seem to retain all their weight as I don’t find any fragments, but I think with one or two exceptions, they expand and pass completely through. Which is what I guess I would expect at the speeds I’m shooting at.

When I first started shooting and hunting, factory ammo was pretty bad. Most of the people doing their own reloading were doing it to get accuracy. Then the industry caught up and good accuracy could be had with factory ammo. Now I read about modern bullet design, and it’s obvious that the game has changed once again. What we “knew” isn’t necessarily true anymore.

I bought a Ruger M77 the first year they came out. 30-06. And it’s another gun that shoots 180 grains very well does not like 150 grain ammo at all. I wonder how it would behave with modern stuff.

SR

Steve Root wrote:

I bought a Ruger M77 the first year they came out. 30-06. And it’s another gun that shoots 180 grains very well does not like 150 grain ammo at all. I wonder how it would behave with modern stuff.

1:10 twist rage was very common in .30-06, Rootski, and if Ruger ever used anything else in the 06 M77, I haven’t seen it.

A 1:10 twist is certainly in the sweet spot for 180 grain bullets. Generally a 10 twist was fine for 150 grain bullets, but there were exceptions and especially the old style round nose bullets that don’t have as much length to contact the lands.

So yes, it may do better with modern spitzer type bullets in 150 grain. Or split the difference. For a number of years I’ve loaded a 165 grain bullet for a .30-06 hunter, replicating a load that his dad developed and swore by since the 1970s.

Gitchi Gummi wrote:

now let me ask a somewhat dumb question… when I’m looking for ammo for my .30-06 for deer hunting, what should I be looking for? Really all I’ve ever considered in the past is the grain, and pretty much anything I can find for sale fits my very broad [and uneducated] acceptable range of specs.

Gitch, the thing about whitetail deer is that setting aside tall campfire tales about the mythical buck that went all cape buffalo and charged a hapless hunter who was training him, the reality is that whitetail deer are not especially hard to kill. That means there aren’t really a lot of bad choices in hunting ammo.

You Remington in .30-06 is a traditional 1:10 twist rate, which will stabilize a large range of bullet weights depending on the bullet design. Basically, there isn’t really a 06 load that WON’T kill a deer, so you have a lot of room in which to work.

I really start with bullet selection and in my opinion, this involves considering the animal and the hunt conditions, including the expected maximum distances at which shots may be taken.

Again, anything the .30-06 will digest will kill a whitetail, so basically your only considerations are bullet design and bullet weight. Do you want a modern ballistic tip bullet, a “cup and core” style, or there are some that still use the traditional soft point.

Then pick your bullet weight. There is nothing wrong with 180 grain bullets, they will thump a whitetail with considerable authority. It’s really only longer distance shot potential that might make you consider something in the 150 grain range, simply to get less bullet drop out past 300 yards.

All of this matters a lot more to, say, the western mule deer hunter, or someone hunting wide open bean fields in the south, but in Big Woods country, rarely does “long range performance” really come into play in any meaningful way.

In 40 years of deer hunting in Minnesota, I’ve had exactly 2 times when carrying an 06 that I had to think about hold-over. I shot a decent buck circa 1990 across a swamp at just over 320 yards. The second time was deer hunting but the target species was a surprise encounter with a pack of coyotes that broke out across an alfalfa field. They were at 400 yards minimum because they were all the way on the other side of the section fence and they were on the run. I was holding several feet high and never touched one, but my father tagged one with his Remington pump.

The final test is really the only one that matters. Does the ammon that you want to shoot, actually shoot in your rifle? In this day and age, with a modern rifle and modern scope, in most cases, your rifle should be shooting at least a 1.5 inch 5 shot group at 100 yards and better is, of course, better. I can’t recall the last modern rifle that shot or helped work up loads for that wouldn’t shoot under 1.5, such are the fat times we live in.

You would be amazed at how often I’ve encountered individuals who are hell-bent to force a certain load to shoot from their rifle and they simply won’t take the hint and move on. Just last week I was on duty at the gun club and one gentleman with a brand new long-range .300 Win Mag setup was desperately trying to get the load that his buddy told him was the best choice to shoot well from his rifle. He already had a Federal load that was shooting wonderful groups, but he was determined to make this other load work. After 2 boxes of $70 ammo, he finally came to the obvious conclusion: Go with what works.

Grouse I did a semi- custom 243 on a Howa 1500 action as a gift for my neighbor’s daughters. It’s a heck of a killing tool. In just a couple years they’ve dumped over a dozen deer, few coyotes, and some other critters. That also includes a 1400# steer that needed to be put down.

I worked up two loads for them. Barnes tsx for hunting and VMAX for plinking. Both loads shoot almost identical. At 200 yrds POI varies about 3/4”. Both loads are sub .5 mOA.

They’ve shot deer out to 300 yrds with it and the average has been probably 125-150yrds. Placement has been head, heart, lungs, and liver. Still no bullet recoveries. Every one has been pass through and very good damage to affected vitals.

For the two young ladies, 11 and 13, it’s been a confidence tool. Enough loud crack and a little recoil to learn with. Just had them here at my place shooting steel out to 500 meters. Trajectory after 300 meters shows significant drop but manageable. Awesome rifle to learn form and technique with.

I started in ’66….have used many calibers, smokers, slugs, sabots, revolvers, ad nauseum for deer and in many states. Have killed more whitetails than I could ever count with an integrally suppressed 22LR rifle (dead center brain shots inside of 25yds over bait) and .223’s with a can, but those were culled animals in town, airports and golf courses. A good number of those culls were shot with .223 and 55gr Vmax projectiles. From 40-200 yards and waiting for a picture-perfect broadside shot, that Vmax was pure poison. None ever made it beyond 40yds and most dropped instantly. I DO NOT condone using that varmint bullet for deer hunting….this was used on calm animals and I had the luxury of waiting for just the right shot. I took no chances in that regard.

That said, a 223/556 with the right bullet will kill every deer you shoot at as long as you know deer anatomy and can make perfect shots unerringly. The 62gr Federal bonded Fusion or the heavier 64gr Winchester Power Points are the most readily available at gun outlets. They are a 200yd cartridge and will put them right in their coffin. They afford an extra safety factor over a frangible bullet.

Shot a few with the 243 and with a basic cup/core bullet design, will strike whitetails down like the Sword of Gideon. Will turn everything north of the diaphragm into chilli on a center lung hit. It emulsifies everything. The 223/556 does pretty much similar.

Have shot them with bigger, but it really isn’t necessary. The largest whitetail that I shot was a beast that dressed at 242# in Buffalo County WI. I shot it with a soft-loaded 6.5X06 and a 129gr SST at 20yds broadside. Had a golfball-sized exit hole and it went flat on its chin after 40yds. They aren’t armor plated……

I can’t seem to choose one caliber and stick with it. I like experiencing things and where the bulk of my deer hunting has been just my dad and I, it’s not like I got to admire or test drive much in the way of someone else’s hardware. So, I have a caliber farm.

I have taken deer with 30-06, 308win, 20ga, 6.5 Creedmoor, and 243.

I did experience what poor bullet design does in .243 so I now insist on premium designs and bullets. The best “hit-and-drop” I’ve used so far is the Winchester Ballistic Silvertip in 95gr.

In 6.5 Creedmoor, my rifle is a bit finnicky and only likes the Hornady Precision Hunter ELD-X in 143gr.

In the 30cal experience, it’s all been close range with soft point 180gr bullets. No issues. No runners beyond 30yds.

There is no doubt in my mind that shot placement is still king, but beyond that, I’m of the persuasion that energy, energy, energy is what produces death. If the foot pounds are there, let ‘er rip! Use the calculators to determine energy to distance and choose accordingly. Up close, almost anything will get the job done.

I also must second Tikka rifles. My most recent is a T3x Roughtech in 7mm Rem Mag. The muzzlebrake is loud but the recoil reduction is amazing! I put a better butt pad on and shot it just today against a 270win, 35 Rem, and 350 Legend. It was the softest of the four! It also came from the factory with a 1.5lb trigger break. Can’t say enough about how well it shoots, feeds, carries… no complaints whatsoever.

These types of post are always good to see where less can be more. One thing I always found funny was the guys that would buy the big magnum caliber rifles for hunting “up north” where their shots are 100yds or less. We hunt farm country in a slug zone and I can literally see from one end of the property to the other on an 80 acre parcel and we use shotguns where the average shots have been 100yds. I have slug hunted all my life just due to where I have hunted so that’s what I’m used to and now with the savage 220’s it’s about as close to using a rifle as you can get just shorter ranges. My FIL had some land up north so my wife grew up rifle hunting. She has a 243 and 220 and my kids have 7mm-08 and for when we hunted up there and now have slug guns. I also bought a tikka 270 that I used 2yrs up north and that is great gun and super smooth and accurate.

stillakid2 wrote:

I can’t seem to choose one caliber and stick with it. I like experiencing things and where the bulk of my deer hunting has been just my dad and I, it’s not like I got to admire or test drive much in the way of someone else’s hardware. So, I have a caliber farm.

I have taken deer with 30-06, 308win, 20ga, 6.5 Creedmoor, and 243.

I did experience what poor bullet design does in .243 so I now insist on premium designs and bullets. The best “hit-and-drop” I’ve used so far is the Winchester Ballistic Silvertip in 95gr.

In 6.5 Creedmoor, my rifle is a bit finnicky and only likes the Hornady Precision Hunter ELD-X in 143gr.

In the 30cal experience, it’s all been close range with soft point 180gr bullets. No issues. No runners beyond 30yds.

There is no doubt in my mind that shot placement is still king, but beyond that, I’m of the persuasion that energy, energy, energy is what produces death. If the foot pounds are there, let ‘er rip! Use the calculators to determine energy to distance and choose accordingly. Up close, almost anything will get the job done.

I also must second Tikka rifles. My most recent is a T3x Roughtech in 7mm Rem Mag. The muzzlebrake is loud but the recoil reduction is amazing! I put a better butt pad on and shot it just today against a 270win, 35 Rem, and 350 Legend. It was the softest of the four! It also came from the factory with a 1.5lb trigger break. Can’t say enough about how well it shoots, feeds, carries… no complaints whatsoever.

I 100% agree on shot placement, but I actually disagree on energy being worth much in terms of determining how effective a cartridge is at killing.

Destroyed tissue/vitals = faster loss of blood = faster incapacitation. There have been PILES of government studies done (both FBI and military) that have concluded that energy isn’t a significant contributor to incapacitation, but tissue destruction being the largest contributor. Energy alone doesn’t do that, but bullets impacting above their minimum velocity threshold DOES do that. And quite honestly, cup-and-core and/or target bullets do it incredibly well.

If energy was that important, then magnum rifles should be the “easy button” of short track jobs, yet there are many instances where that isn’t the case. Conversely, if energy was a significant factor, then how have so many people over the years killed critters with short/minimal tracking jobs with 243/7mm-08/308 etc. type cartridges?

Not trying to be argumentative or hostile, but trying to pose the honest (somewhat rhetorical) question.

Again as stated above, shot placement trumps ALL, and I will 100% of the time take a decent bullet put into the vitals from a moderate cartridge vs. anything from a magnum placed in the guts. And the truth of the matter is that if you take identical rifles in say….308 vs. 300 Weatherby, most if not all of us will shoot the 308 better and more often; which leads to more practice, which leads to a higher likelihood of putting that projectile where it needs to go.

Realistically, the less structurally sound bullets like Bergers, Hornady ELD-X/M, really most cup-and-core bullets will destroy more tissue at any given impact velocity in comparison to bonded or mono-metal bullets…leading to quicker kills and shorter tracking jobs. The balancing act in all of this is that most of us like to eat these critters that we shoot, so we need to balance how efficiently we want to kill these things with how ok we are with destroying tissue and losing a little meat.

Honest to goodness we’re in the golden age of hunting cartridges and projectiles. No longer does anyone NEED to shoot the 338 thunderf$%^er to effectively kill things, as bullets are so much better than they were 40+ years ago.

I say all this as someone who has had really no issues killing things with mono-metal Barnes bullets out of a 270. HOWEVER, I have seen some funky things happen on occasion that is steering me away from them for pretty much anything other than killing deer under 200 yards, but if that is the bulk majority of what you do then they are perfectly sufficient and lead to not much blood shot meat.

Has anyone used a lever-action in a pistol caliber to shoot a deer?
.357 or .44 I have been intrigued by this for years. Always wanted a matched set (pistol and rifle) that use the same cartridge.