Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting 22-250 to light for Deer ??

The .22-250 certainly can kill a white tail. That's not a question that anyone should ask. The question is whether *you* can kill a deer with a .22-250 under your usual hunting conditions. It's far better to use a rifle with which you are very familiar and very comfortable than anything else. If I was teaching a new hunter, I'd prefer to give them a .22-250 they were able to shoot often and become proficient with than to give them a .30-06 they were going to shoot less than 20 times a year. Even though I regard the .30-06 as the "one cartridge to rule them all" for North American game, a lot of people just won't use it enough because it's a bit expensive and kicks a fair amount.

Growing up, I never had the luxury of having specialized rifles the way I do now. I had a .270 Winchester which I used for everything. I shot ground hogs with it all summer and then shot white tails with it in the fall. Later on, I picked up a .25-06 with which I became even more proficient. I'd shoot at anything in North America with that .25-06 with 117/120 grain bullets knowing that the bullet is going to go exactly where I want it to go with that rifle. I'd be better off with that rifle than with any of my others (which I frankly don't need, but it gives me joy to have them).

The smallest caliber I have ever personally used on a deer was a .22 LR. A deer walked up to me with no face the day after black powder season ended - someone had tried a headshot on it and blown off its lower jaw and most of the snout - he was clearly in extreme distress. I ran to the truck and grabbed my Nylon 66. I shot him between the eyes and he dropped. That doesn't make .22 LR an ethical deer cartridge. But proper shot placement matters more than anything. I found out later that one of my neighbors had shot the deer with one of those scope-mounted modern muzzleloaders that sends a heavy solid copper bullet at something like 2600 FPS. It doesn't matter what you use if you miss the vital parts. But it makes me sick to think that his weapon counts as a "primitive weapon" while my .45-70 or .50-70 Govt doesn't.

And even with proper shot placement and a good bullet, there is no guaranteed one-shot drop that works every time. I've seen a deer run 800 meters after taking a .270 Winchester to the heart and lungs. We followed the blood trail from point of impact to the downed animal. It was a good strong blood trail the whole way. My brother swore he placed the bullet just right. Under my breath, I was cursing my brother for gut-shooting the damned thing, but it turned out he shot the damned thing through the heart and both lungs. The deer didn't have much inside his chest cavity besides pink and red clots, but he still ran. That kind of stuff can happen no matter what cartridge you use.

I've also had a deer show no sign that I even hit him with my .25-06, leave no visible blood trail, but drop dead after 50-60 yards. I could have sworn I somehow missed him, but out of diligence I started sweeping back and forth the direction he ran. I found him crumpled behind a fallen tree. Again, solid shot through the heart. Bullet performed as expected, but not every deer will drop with one well-placed shot.

Here in Virginia, it's illegal to use rifles below .224 on deer. It hasn't stopped a lot of bubbas out in my neighborhood from using a .223 or .22-250, but I have too much to lose to do something contrary to the laws of the Commonwealth. As someone who carried a 5.56 and depended on it for my life - and know that it works just fine on 150-250 pound animals - I would never doubt that a hunter can kill deer with that caliber. I've never understood why the Commonwealth forbids it, but it's been that way forever. I think a certain amount of the hate stems from the old-fashioned distrust of the 5.56mm NATO when compared with the 7.62 NATO. I still run into a few old-timers who grumble about how the military should have never switched from the M14 to the M16/M4 platform. I suspect it's the same old-timers who wrote the hunting regulations back in the 1960s-1970s.