Got curious about this question after the thread first disappeared for a while.
So looked through the big game hunting notes I've been keeping since 1966, after taking my first deer. The arbitrary cut-off was a maximum of 50 yards, and here are the results from all the deer since then:
The closest range, the 12 feet with a .30-30, was accomplished with an old outside-hammer drilling made by Sauer and imported by the original Charles Daly firm, which had both open sights and a flip-up tang aperture sight. But the 10-yard shot with the .270 Winchester was accomplished with a 4x scope.
“Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans.” John Steinbeck