I have a tang safety Ruger in .257R and it's become a favorite of the whole family. My wife has made it clear it's hers to use first.
I used it for vermin shooting the 75gr Hornady HP and pushed with I4064 IIRC. It is phenominal on coyotes.
Deer have been dropped with many different loads and weights with little fan fair. I tried 100gr Nosler BT's when they were fairly new but wasn't impressed. I have not tried them since. I have however used 100, 117 gr Barnes X & XLC's and now 100gr TSX out of it. The 117gr Hornady sp work well, as did the 120gr HP when you could find them. I'm about out of 100gr X's, not that we shoot them much but use a few to verify zero, then one per animal. Then again that's pretty typical. Partitions are very good out of it as well. Mine seems to shoot 100's and 115's well, and 120's well enough.
