Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Which '06-based cartridge is best for deer out to 200 yards?

If he were sitting next to you at a campfire, or across the table from you at dinner, would you call him an idiot to his face? I would hope not.

Why the need to be be less polite on the interweb? I guess it's the safety of anonymity?

One could load a little, round, rabbit turd into a brass case of the '06 family and it would be a deadly sumbitch out to the 200 yard line.

Maybe the .400Whelen would be knocking over trees enroute to said deer. Something to think about.

This. They all will work. The deer won't know the difference. Choose the bullet wisely.

Laffin'.

Please don't try that on purpose. Nothing short of a bulldozer will "clip off bushes" and continue on a straight line. Higher velocity rounds have survived better in uncontrolled experiments. None qualify as a "brush buster", as the false myth suggests.

no contest the 270win wins easily.its also the best over 200 yards.

I just added a .280 Rem and .338-06 to my inventory. So, now I own all I referenced -- .25-06, .270, .280, .30-06, and .338-06. I used to own a .35 Whelen, too.

So, I'm not prejudiced against any one of these calibers, and I think a strong case can be made for the .338-06 using the 160 gr. TTSX. This caliber drives this bullet to 3100 fps (vs, for example, the .30-06 driving a 150 grain bullet to 2920 fps).

You gain the shocking power of speed and bullet diameter and give up SD (penetration) and flat trajectory (BC), neither of which are very important for deer close in.

I'm not the first one here to have this thought.

.338-06 with 160 gr TTSX

Some other velocity figures that might be interesting:

.25-06/120 gr - 2990

.270/130 gr - 3060

.280/140 gr - 3000

.30-06/150 gr - 2920

.35 Whelen/200 gr - 2675

I have been shooting out of the same luxury box since 2009, filling my late season tag. The shots are 150-200 yards. The deer are usually beefy doe, with a few nice bucks thrown in. I've shot them with a bunch of rifles and loads. I'm also throwing in results from my buddy and my son Angus, who spent a good part of his Yute seasons in this blind.

The short of it is that 30-06 with a 165 grain Hornady has produced the best results, usually producing runs under 10 yards and the most toes-up DRT's. The runner up is a 150 grain Rem Core-Lokt that Angus shoots.

25-06 has not been in my collection long enough to say, but it did the job. The one doe I shot only ran 60 yards.

The list of also-rans include:

30-06 180 grain
30-30 150 grain-- produced 2 that put their head down and went back to feeding.
300 WM 180 grain
308 WIN 165 grain-- downloaded to 300 Savage levels. This is my favorite treestand gun, but the 30-06 is better for open-ground situations. I include it here, because I have taken deer from the stand firing out into the same field.

These all produced good results with no single stand-out good or bad. No deer were lost and no bullets recovered in any I've mentioned so far.

35 Whelen? I used a 7600 in 35 Whelen shooting 200 grain Rem Corelokt for most of a decade. It certainly has killed the most deer of any rifle in camp. However, for all the extra noise and recoil, it did no better than the 30-06. I also had some runners that I was not expecting.

Bush-busting? I lost one deer in the past decade. As best as I can tell I clipped a 1/2" sapling about a dozen feet away from a doe I was trying to hit broadside at 40 yards from a stand. I was using the Savage 99 in 308 WIN with 165 grainers. Nada. I found the spot in the leaves where she was standing, and the clipped tree, and was able to follow the trail for a while, but never found any blood.

This.

You could neck the -06 case up or down, spending hours fiddling with cases, and shoulders, and not one bit would matter on a deer at such a range.


Or you could grab the original and spend the time mentioned above, at the range practicing your field position shooting.

I think there's a good argument to be made for the heavier,wider expanding bullets of medium bores vs anything 30 cal and under, but don't think it starts with deer of any size.

Even the biggest of them aren't that big and the 30 calibers and under just overwhelm them.

Kinda late to the party but I have been deer hunting. I have all the listed '06 based rifles and two '06's and 338-06's. Each time I have gone I have taken two a 280 and a 338-06 both on pre 64 action and McMillan stocks with leo fixed 6's on board. All hunting has been done with rhe 280.

.280 I've shot one for 20 years. Never had areason to change. Killed lots of Elk with it also.

06

25-06 117 grain hornady sst will do a great job.

Which ever one you have in your hand, the deer won't know the difference.

I would take the old 06 then the .270!!

280 AI for the cool factor alone, not to mention the burn and brass advantages.