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Best deer cartridge

  • 243 Winchester/6mm Remington

    Votes: 7 3.8%
  • 250 Savage

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 257 Roberts

    Votes: 8 4.4%
  • 25-06 Remington

    Votes: 16 8.7%
  • 6.5x55 Swedish/260 Remington

    Votes: 21 11.5%
  • 270 Winchester

    Votes: 46 25.1%
  • 7mm-08 Remington

    Votes: 19 10.4%
  • 30-30 Winchester

    Votes: 23 12.6%
  • 308/30-06

    Votes: 40 21.9%
  • Other

    Votes: 16 8.7%
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Best deer cartridge

23K views 215 replies 48 participants last post by  MikeG 
#1 ·
What do you think?
 
#39 ·
Hot 24's, 25's, 26's, 27's, 28's, 29...err, 30's. Find one that feels right to you, shoots accurate loads and you just about can't go wrong. Killing a deer with a centerfire rifle in those calibers is only slightly more difficult than getting my kids to eat chocolate cake.
 
#41 ·
Hot 24's, 25's, 26's, 27's, 28's, 29...err, 30's. Find one that feels right to you, shoots accurate loads and you just about can't go wrong. Killing a deer with a centerfire rifle in those calibers is only slightly more difficult than getting my kids to eat chocolate cake.

I agree wholeheartedly!

I was on a management hunt back in August shooting whitetail does that were destroying an alfalfa crop and I shot 6 with my Ruger MKIII 22/45, I only used 6 shots for them.
 
#40 ·
i would consider the .243 to be on the light side, with proper shot placement it works well, but its not an ideal choice for any deer weighing more than 160 pounds or so, IMO anyway.
I believe deer cartridges kinda start at .25 cal and when you get up to .26 cal and above it really starts to become ideal.
 
#42 ·
I agree with you, in principal, but I have found there are two schools of thought when it comes to making a clean kill on a deer. The old-school guys will tell you that a medium-bore round at moderate velocity will expand well, leave a great exit wound and not result in a whole quarter of meat being bloodshot. The high-velocity crowd will claim a small, pointed bullet going nearly twice as fast as the old round-nosed stuff will cause a ton of "shock" when it hits, resulting in spectacular kills! The interesting thing is, they're both right, and both claims are absolutely true.

The .243/6MM Remington class of cartridges is hotly debated and many people will claim that they can't be relied on to kill really big deer. Hogwash. If a hot 24 fails to kill ANY deer, at less than 400 yards, it was because the shot was not placed where it's supposed to be. In the majority of those instances, a 338RM probably wouldn't have performed any better.

Like I said, killing a deer, whether it's white-tailed, mule-eared, tiny or huge, north or south, is simply not that hard to do. Deer are fragile critters and if you can hit that imaginary basketball between, and slightly behind, their shoulder with anything from a .243Winny up to a 45-70, the thing just ain't gonna go very far.

Now, if you are sometimes compelled to take shots at deer that are facing straight at you, straight away, or steeply quartering, larger caliber bullets will have more power to push through that extra bone and muscle to reach the critical heart/lung area. I've taken those shots, when that was all I felt I was likely to get, and I will probably do so again, in the future. That's why my favorite deer gun is a .270, even though I'm not allowed to hunt deer with it in this dumb state of Indiana.

However, my dad has shot a .243 for his deer hunting ever since I can remember...at least 30 years. Of the very few deer that did not die immediately after being shot with that gun, the dramatic demise of all the others strongly suggests that the failure was not one caused by the cartridge, but by the hunter. I'm sure we can all understand that.
 
#43 ·
Well, my choice was 25-06 from first hand experience. Yeah, they all are great rounds and in the right hands all work well.

I loaded up some hot 257 Roberts loads for my wife's Montana. The load is a 100 grain TSX with 48 grains of RL 19, Rem case, and Winchester primers. From the bipod today she was able to harvest 2 watermelons ( 5" diameter little ones) at 100 yards. The first one exploded 30 yards into the air, second one went east AND west. Groups were 1.5 from the pod, she is ready for deer in a couple weeks I would say.
 
#44 ·
yeah, i agree and also believe the .243 will kill the deer just as dead as any other gun but in many instances, it just does not kill the deer fast enough. My reasoning behind this lies in the following story.

My uncle was hunting on the edge of an apple field in late october, he was set up on the top left hand corner of the feid, he was watching the bottom of the field, which was borderd with an alder thicket. Deer often like to enter the field from this location through skid roads punched through the thicket, so area my uncle was posted up on gave a nice view of one of these roads, at around 40 yards, well about 20 minutes before dark a nice 4x4 blacktail bucks walked out, offering a broadside shot, which was taken, resulting in what is believed to be a single lung shot (there was foam in the blood). The end result was 3-4 guys in the woods till 2-3 in the morning with lanterns, ended up following the blood trail for 150 yards or so then lost it.

Now that story doesnt suggest a ,243 is a bad deer rifle, but when a marginal shot happens (single lung shot) and the animal being shot is a buck in the prime of his life, with an enormous amount of tenacity to life, a larger cal such as a .308 winchester, i believe would have worked better. with a different end result
 
#60 · (Edited)
You can find hundreds of virtually identical stories where the deer was shot with anything from a .308 to a .375. I have performed fairly extensive field research with the .243 on whitetails, and I can safely report that all the deer I shot with it where just as dead as those shot by much larger guns. None ran far enough to be of any concern.

Unfortunately, your uncle's shot was right before dark, so he didn't have much choice, but if daylight allows, I wait one hour to go after my deer. If not pushed, they will generally lay down and die on their own. When injured, their instinct is to lay down, not keep running.
 
#45 ·
Well.....

I got a deer through one lung, once. Chased it through 200 yards of thorns and like to never found it.

Shot it with...... a .30-06. If the shot hadn't broken one of the front legs, also, I doubt I would have ever caught up with it.
 
#57 ·
From reading a different post, we learned that that would not happen with the belted 7MM mag the deer are deathly afraid of those! LMAO.

Hey but you found it right. So good job. Mike G and the 30-06!
PS thats when a follow up shot in each helps he can't see where to out run too! LOL
 
#46 ·
I understand your logic but I am going to have to respectfully disagree with the end result part. A single lung hit with any weapon will have the same result in most circumstances. I will give you an example.

I was hunting mule deer in late October with my 280 Ackley Improved, 140 grain Nosler Partitions loaded hot as humanly possible. I got to my waiting point an hour before the sun was up, its an area where the deer escape people, kinda like an escape funnel. Well, shortly after it starts getting light enough to legally shoot, a buck was quietly slipping through the funnel. I flicked a small rock down the cliff and it was enough to get the deers attention for a shot. I put the crosshairs right behind his shoulder and fired. I saw the blood spray against the rocks on the other side of the deer and he went down hard. I hiked down to where he was only to find the area vacant. He went back the other direction and I caught up to him 200 yards later. I had to fire one more shot to put him down for good.


The first shot only hit one lung because of the angle that I didn't think about at the first shot. Lesson learned.
 
#47 ·
Hunting is rarely a world of absolutes... I wouldn't hesitate to shoot a deer with any caliber, but I know my limitations and I practice enough to never have to worry about it. I know where that shot is going the instant I pull the trigger. I've shot enough to be confident in that.

A bigger caliber isn't going to make you a better hunter or put more deer down, if anything it shows a lack of understanding and basic shooting skills, except Tang.
 
#48 · (Edited)
i dont know about that, theres nothing wrong with wanting a little more in a deer rifle, i have been using my .338 WM this season exclusively, i have taken one deer with this rifle previously 2-3 years ago. It doesnt ruin any meat, kills them cleanly, im not saying its required, but there is certainly no disadvantages to using the larger calibers. I have always done most of my deer hunting with a 30-30, and one deer each with .338 and .308.

I agree using larger caliber cartridges arent going to make you a more succesfull hunter, but i fail to see how you percieve using a larger caliber as being a foolish thing to do, and it only demonstrates inexperience? To be clear, i think anything .25 cal and up is good for deer, thats only my opinion i know many people have had success taking deer, along with elk using .243 cal cartridges. I just tend to consider the .243 a great pronghorn caliber, a long with predators.

If i was limited to one cartridge for deer, it would be a 30-30.
 
#50 ·
The danger in hunting deer, or other thin-skinned medium game, with a 338RM, is bullets in that caliber are heavily designed and typically will not expand well on lighter targets...they will just punch .338 diameter holes in one side and out the other. You're right about one thing though; that won't ruin any meat.

If you are 100% confident in your ability to hit within an inch or two of where you aimed, the caliber you choose for deer hunting becomes irrelevant. What Matt was alluding to is that quite a few of the guys who choose a large magnum make that decision based more on machismo than shooting ability or confidence. The reasons the .243 has been used to kill a great many deer, often in spectacular fashion, is that those who shoot it have no fear of the recoil. So, the bullets go exactly where they aimed and 100gr projectiles going that fast penetrate 4 or 5 inches and then frequently go to pieces. This is rather like detonating a very small frag grenade inside the chest cavity of a deer. The end result is, quite often, a DRT deer, or one that goes almost nowhere before dropping.

I will even go so far as to say, that more deer hit with a .243 will not take a single step, than deer hit with a 30/30. Also, I will claim that a deer hit in the right spot with a .243 will require less tracking than one hit in the same spot with a .338RM. How's THAT for starting an argument?! :)
 
#49 ·
One of the two lost deer I've ever had (that I can remember) I shot twice with a .35 Remington at about 35yds. First shot was right behind the front shoulder and it was still standing/staggering around, fired again into the chest area and spun it around, and it staggered/ran off. The blood trail was so wide we could see it in the moonlight and we trailed it until the blood stopped. I know it had to be dead somewhere near but we never did find it. We must have looked for that deer for six hours or so that night and I looked more the next day. The other lost deer was with a .45cal muzzleloader. We looked for an hour or so for that one and never found blood or hair or anything so we gave up and figured I must have missed it. A few days later we found it by the buzzards.
 
#51 ·
that would sure do it ..the argument ,,i mean:)
while we argue the deers just makes sure we don t get a clean shot..
can t you just see a crowd of deer listening to a bunch of hunters,, argueing caliber,,eyes rolling by all...
they probably say ,,now how did they ever be smart enough to
get even one of us..:D thats if they could talk ,,u know...:) slim
 
#52 ·
Some .338 ammo, at least, is fine for deer. I have shot one pig with factory Rem 225gr. loads and it sure didn't go anywhere :D

I have a friend who occasionally deer hunts with his .338 with no problems. He got a turkey with it, also, last season. I will have to check and see what loads he was using, but I am pretty sure they were plain white box Winchester. I gave him those rounds as they would not shoot in my .338.
 
#53 ·
If the loads use .338 bullets that are designed to expand well on thin-skinned game, they would work fine, which is why I added the disclaimer about "most bullets for the .338 caliber" being constructed for heavier game. I am comfortable with anyone hunting deer with a 338RM, but if ever there was a definition of "over-kill" that would be it. I don't drive in upholstery tacks with a 5lb sledge-hammer. :)
 
#61 ·
Good info Sandman, I'm a fan of not beating myself up. Out here there is a lot of prairie and deer really don't have much of a place to run off to, I've never had a muley take more than a few steps and the few whitetails I've shot have only gone 50 yards or less.
 
#64 ·
I have a 10 year old German Shorthair who is an ace on deer. Only thing is you have to trust your dog. When the deer makes the "death hook" to circle back she goes from a hound type track to her bird dog ways and winds the animal nose high and leaves the blood trail. I just have to remember my K-9 training and trust her nose.
 
#65 ·
Well i ended up lending my 30-30 to my uncle as he doesnt have any other rifle available to him at present time, i thought, hey no big deal, im using the .338 WM but i am sorely missing my 30-30, with its 16 inch barrel its very handy, the .338 with a 24 inch tube makes it almost impossible to hunt the woods. Guess i shouldnt have spoiled myself on the 30-30 all these years, one reason i want to exclusively use the .338 for deer this year is to become more intimate with the rifle, for elk season, but is this worth it?
Uncles season ends a week before mine so i will have the rifle available to me the last week of season, i did plan on using the .338 exclusively this year, but in the woods, i feel handicapped without my little carbine.
 
#67 ·
good idea....my mom has a .308 vangaurd with a shortened stock. would make a nice .338 federal. I like the idea of the ruger compact though. I'll finish this deer season out with my .338, shouldnt be to big of a deal, ill just hunt more clearcuts.
If all goes well, ill have a nice 4x4 blacktail to post up, just to prove the .338 is the best >.O
 
#77 · (Edited)
.338 win mag has drawn blood this morning, caping now pics later

Also the deer never had a chance to even think about taking a step, it hit the ground so fast, no bloodshot meat and destroyed the heart lungs and liver, was using 225 grain speer bullets, obviously no recovery.

I have pics on my gf's camera, will post the beautiful blacktail up sometime this afternoon.
Was about a 30 yard shot.
 
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