You have laws stating you have to hunt with a fugly rifle?
If you live in IA and want to hunt whitetails with other than stick 'n string, it's with a shotgun and slugs, a muzzle-loader, or handguns chambered for most of the straight walled cartridges.
While I have and do pursue them from time to time with a RRH in 45 Colt, I forsake the slug seasons for reasons both of self preservation and solitude--they are short seasons with a lot of truck hunters and "enthusiastic' shooting.
That leaves muzzle loaders, and because I'm not a traditional purist of any degree (though I admire it when I see it), that leaves the so aptly described charcoal burners.
