My cousin killed a button buck with his .45, but he took seven shots to do it. His load was pretty puny, to my notions, with a 185JHP (Hornady, I THINK) It was an older bullet, of pre-XTP design, and it did a poor job, but most of the problem was his load of Unique, which IIRC was 6.5gr. At the time, I was loading 8.5gr of Unique with another bullet, so I knew his load was puny. I had a chronograph, and he didn't.
I wouldn't be afraid to use a .45 on a deer, if I was close and the deer wasn't too fat, and I was 100% sure of the zero. I'd prefer the 230s, instead of 185s, though.
