One of the nice things about whitetails is that they are not hard to kill. As a result, you can throw just about anything at them, and they'll die. It also means that folks have a tendency to witness their first DRT/Bang Flop/Laser Beam/Pole Ax event and announce they've found the ultimate deer chambering. For the one-day-a-year average schmo, it's like getting religion.
You will undoubtedly find folks responding to this with suggestions of everything from a 223 Rem up to 45-70. All of it is going to be true.
If I were a believer, I would have to say that 30-06 with a 165 grain Hornady have knocked over the most whitetails at our camp. The most lost deer have come from 30-30 WIN. The most 50-yard and over runners have come from 35 Whelen with 200 grainers.
Not being a believer in DRT hooey, I will also tell you that all but a very few of the many deer we have taken at our camp either fell where they were shot, or you could at least stand in their tracks and see the carcass. All, and I repeat, all of they exceptions to this were due to poor shot placement.
How can this be? There's got to be a best deer round. The answer lies in the fact that since whitetail deer are so easy to kill, the best parts of the round's performance is expended in the dirt on the far side of the animal. It's easy to punch through a whitetail. I've done it end-to-end going both directions. A simple broadside shot is not a problem for any reasonable modern deer round.
Let me also mention distance as a factor. The whitetail's anatomy is the major reason it is easy to kill. There just is not enough deer there to stand up to a bullet before it plows into vitals. However, the deer have a lifestyle that tends to favor close-in shooting. The average hunter taking the average deer does so inside 80 yards. At that distance, you are not going to see a whole lot of difference. At those ranges, a 300 Savage, a 30-06 and a 300 Win are not going to produce a different result.
