Grew up in South Dakota killing deer with .308 Win, .243 Win, .30-06, and .260 Rem. My favorite of them all is the .260 Rem. Taken deer east and west river with rifle and handgun versions of the .260 Rem. I love it. Moved to Iowa in 2002, shotgun or muzzleloader or straight-walled handguns. Started with a .454 Casull barrel on my TC Encore, then went to .357 Maximum. Both are great. Killed deer out to 200 yards with both. Then moved to shotgun region of Minnesota. The year before we moved Minnesota permitted handguns as long as they are .24 caliber or larger with a barrel longer than 4" and they're centerfire. Yeah - a 5" .25 ACP was legal. Idiotic. That's when I got my 18" .260 Remington barrel for my TC from MGM. Love that barrel. It shoots better than I can. Moved back to Iowa in 2015, kept at it with the .357 Max barrel and 190 gr. Ranch Dog WFNGC bullets I make. Hammers deer. Started with 180 gr. Speer Hot Cors last year and they worked great last year on two nice does and I killed a big 4x4 with it this year. 18 year old daughter told me this year that she doesn't want to share a pistol for hunting any more (we've been sharing the TC in .357 Max for several years) and that "This one is mine. Sell my shotgun and buy another pistol." So now that Iowa has changed regs to allow bottleneck cartridges from .355"-.500" that produce 500 ft/lbs at the muzzle, I am the proud owner of a .350 Rem Mag XP100 with 16" heavy bull barrel. Haven't even fired it yet, but I'm going to slay a deer with it next year during the late muzzleloader season because that's the season I like to hunt and Iowa allows handguns to be used during that season. But I yearn to kill deer with my Ruger M77 MkII in .260 Remington again.
