Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Hunting Deer With Smaller Calibers

I call it irrelephant hunting.

I know that I've read many reports of guys using 25-06 rifles for decades hunting deer, and likewise the .257 Roberts.
A guy's gotta draw a line in the sand somewhere, if he's to put out a question as I did. My main focus of my question is
to learn if you all would choose NOT to take a given shot with a smaller caliber, that you would definitely take if you'd
had a larger caliber.
Years ago a guy told me his thoughts on going on TRAVELING hunts. Because he'd paid a lot of money to go over
a thousand miles away from home for a guided elk hunt, (we were on the east coast) he bought a .338 Win Mag
with the strategy that he could take successful shots with it because of it's penetration and energy delivery, shots that he
could NOT take with confidence using a caliber that delivered less energy, deep enough into the beast. He bluntly said
that he took his excellent elk with a shot from directly behind the elk at just about 200 yards.
He continued by saying that guys who live in elk country might choose a smaller caliber, and might refuse certain shots,
because they can get into the elk forest many more days per year than the guy who has booked a distant hunt of a week
or ten days. The traveling hunter wants to be able to take just about any shot angle, at just about what ever distance,
because he doesn't have a month or three to hunt his quarry.
All this brought me to the general question of intentionally using smaller calibers on deer and heavier game. I appreciate
the many honest and constructive answers that you all have posted up. Thanks as always!

I don't know anybody who lives in elk country that would pass up a shot on a big buck or bull that a travelling hunter would take. Point is, residents often use smaller rifles than travelling hunters, not because they're happy to pass shots because of the limitations of their rifle, but because they've seen enough critters killed to know that the smaller rifles work just as well.

It's all about the bullet and its placement into the critter. The caliber and chambering are secondary considerations somewhere down the list. There are very few shots I would take with a larger rifle that I wouldn't take with a smaller rifle, but there are plenty of shots that I would take with certain bullet designs but not others. For example, several times I've seen the 105 AM pushed hard from a .243AI come apart in the chest of large Alberta WT deer, leaving red soup inside, and many times I've also seen the 85X/TSX/80 TTSX penetrate stem-to-stern on similar Alberta WTs and do enough damage to kill about any game animal in NA. If I'm taking a shot up close and at a steep angle, I know which of the two bullets I want in the chamber. Similarly, if taking a close shot at a steep angle, I'd prefer a .243 and 80 TTSX to a larger rifle with light-for-caliber C&C bullets driven fast.

I havn't mentioned them. Walter Bell wrote about hunting deer as well you know. It wasn't all elephants and sun helmets.

Elephant and FMJ's are not germane to the discussion

There's not a shot I'd take with a 257 Robert's that I wouldn't take with about any 6mm or 22 caliber rifle firing a similarly constructed bullet.

The difference in their killing abilities are minimal to non existent.

I'd go even farther to say that I'd greatly prefer a large 22 cal round or a 243 sized 6mm shooting heavy for caliber, high BC bullets to about anything you can shoot out of a 257 Robert's for deer.

In answer to the OP's question, I was hunting a blacktail buck with a .243 bore and he saw me first and was disappearing into the thick scrub. The only available shot was right up the rear end. I didn't take the shot. At the time I wished I had a 338 Win Mag (or bigger) with me with 225-250 grain TSXs. Then I would have taken the shot.

In answer to the OP's question, I was hunting a blacktail buck with a .243 bore and he saw me first and was disappearing into the thick scrub. The only available shot was right up the rear end. I didn't take the shot. At the time I wished I had a 338 Win Mag (or bigger) with me with 225-250 grain TSXs. Then I would have taken the shot.