I grew up in NE Louisiana. I did not start deer hunting til 1963 as a kid but my recollection is that almost all the adult hunters used shotguns. (Almost all deer hunting was done by running deer with dogs.) Some Winchester Model 12s and some Browning A-5s. Best I can remember all were 12 gauges and most everyone hunted with buckshot.
One guy had a Marlin lever .30-30 and another had a Winchester 94 in the same caliber. My dad had a Remington Model 722 in .257 Roberts with a Weaver 4x scope and he had the only bolt gun and only scope in the group we hunted with.
Within a few years there started to be some guys who had Remington autoloaders, usually in .30/06.
