Here in Montana the deer are apparently both getting tougher and smaller. When I started hunting in the 1960's a .30-30 was OK, but real deer cartridges started with the .243 (for some reason considered a lot more powerful back then, shortly after it first appeared) and a lot of guys were trading off their inadequate old .270's and .30-06's for 7mm Remington Magnums.
Now the used rifle section of any gun store is filled with .243's and 7mm Remington Magnums the guys traded in for short mags. This is because they were told that the the short mags are a lot more accurate, and everybody knows that for hunting deer today you need all the accuracy you can get. Three shots in 1/2" at 100 yards is just barely acceptable.
I guess this is just evolution. Apparently all the big, soft deer were killed off in the 1960's by .243's and Big Sevens, allowing only the really tough little bastards to breed.
