Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Your favorite deer caliber and rifle?

I sometimes pick the rifle the yells the loudest when I open the safes.

Living in new England depends on what state/season I'm in. Rifle hunting Ruger M77 stainless 270, Shotgun Savage 220 I really love this gun, can't understand why anyone would use any other slug gun. Accurate, easy to carry, deadly and relatively inexpensive. Muzzle-loader CVA Accura V2 50 cal. Not a light carry but accurate.

30-06
Overkill for deer? Usually, but they all die
Reliable? It won several wars
Easy to reload? they don't get much easier
Ammo easy to find? Until covid anyway
Useful for other game? Like anything in the lower 48 and most stuff in Africa?

Savage 99 in 284 for deer and bear, but I use others as the mood strikes me.

Have too many favorites ! 270 in a pre 64 Win 70 featherweight, custom Win 70 in 264 Mag, savage 99 in 250, JC Higgins in 30-06,and so on. As someone else stated, depends on the terrain and weather mostly.

264 Win mag


250-3000

JC Higgins (Husqvarna) in 30-06

As others have said, depends on what and where I’m hunting but my go to is my old Model 700 in .270. That’s the one I grab when I want to kill something.

Can't wait to see pictures of the rifle when finished.

Actually I use 6 calibers in 8 different rifles. When I kill the first deer of the season I swap rifles. On and on through out the season. We can kill 13 per season.

+1 on that!!

I have a Griffin & Howe and Clayton Nelson Kurz action Mausers in 250-3000 that I use 100 grain Hornadys in - in my world that is a perfect rifle/cartridge combination for deer.

PennDog

My current favorite is my Ruger Hawkeye in 6.8 SPC. It recoils like an air rifle suppressed.

Ruger M77 in .243 Win

Ruger 77 in 6mm Rem.

My favorite hunting rifle Mauser, favorite caliber 30-06. They go together like peaches and cream!

1970's Remington 700 ADL .30-06, it belongs to my Dad, I used it to shoot my first dozen Deer or so including my first Mule Deer Buck. I took it on my first Elk hunt also. I wish I would've dropped the 5x5 that came out at 75 yards or so when I had it in my hands. I ended up shooting a smaller raghorn 5 with my own 7mm Rem Mag.

I've used that 7mm for about the last fifteen years or so to shoot Antelope, WT and Mule Deer, and Elk. It currently sits in an H-S Precision Stock. I added a Geissele Super 700 trigger, with a Vortex PST on top. It started off as an SPS Stainless with the cheapo injection molded stock and a Burris FF II on it.

That would be my 783 Remington long action in 375 and a Leupold 4x12

M70 in 30-06 for 35+ years, but the last 3 years I have used a Bergara B14 in 6.5 Creedmoor. Both work just fine but the older I get the less I like recoil.

Favorite caliber: 30

Favorite rifles and cartridges: Savage 99 (30/30, 300SAV, .308win), Kimber Montana (.308win), Rem 700 Classic (300SAV)

Favorite caliber: 30

Favorite rifles and cartridges: Savage 99 (30/30, 300SAV, .308win), Kimber Montana (.308win), Rem 700 Classic (300SAV)

Marlin 1894 in .44 Mag. Hands down my favorite for swamp, thicket hunting here in Florida, Georgia and Alabama

I've shot smaller deer like fallow and chital with cartridges from the .257 Roberts up to the 9.3x62. The ones shot with the .25 and .26 cals died as easily as those shot with 7mm, .30, .311, .35 and 9.3 cartridges. So I'd pick a mild 6.5mm like the Swede, Mauser or Creedmoor with a 120-130gn bullet at 2800/2850 fps. Low recoil and pleasant to shoot. I find as I get older (50) I'm hunting a lot with 25 and 26 calibre rounds as they do what I want (deer and pigs) and are easy to shoot.

But a nice .257 Roberts or 7x57 would do OK too.