A friend of my Dad's was a govt trapper, professional hunter for the CCC camps of the depression, Duncan Montgomery, swore by the Savage .22 HP. Years later I found one at a price I could live with. Apparently I wasn't as good a shot as the old trapper, because I had some failures on smallish deer. The rifle was plenty accurate at the ranges I encountered deer, but anything less than a ribcage fairly precision shot was a crapshoot whether it would turn into a drama. I hate animals suffering, gave the rifle to my son, 20 yrs ago, I doubt he has shot it. Too bad, but the cartridge just doesn't have a lot of margin for shooter error. Sometimes tempted to borrow it back and try Mule Deer's tip of shooting .224 bullets in the .228 barrel...but maybe not, deer hunting is hard work where I live nowadays...long gone are the days when you would pick and choose which one to kill.
