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

Since there are so many high horses to get up on around here, I will get up on one of them. I have been hunting deer for 36 years. In that time I have lost a total of 2 deer. One was a PA doe that I shot with a .260 Remington at 12 yards. I was using a Sierra 120 grain SP. I was walking up a power line towards my hunting partner and his daughter. There was soft snow on the ground so I wasn't making much noise. He and his daughter had jumped a couple of deer and they were heading down the woodline right towards me. I knelt down and they passed right by me. As the last doe passed just inside the woodline, I shot. Hit her square in the shoulder (confirmed when we got her up after a fair track job). It ruined her shoulder, but she still managed to go over 700 yards onto property where we could not continue to chase her. I can honestly say that if I was using a "lesser" chambering such as my .243 with a 100 grain Swift A-Frame, or my 7TCU with a Nosler 120 grain BT, that deer would have been in my cooler that evening.

The second one I lost was a bow shot deer. I muffed the shot and hit him a bit back. Lost the blood-trail after a couple hundred yards and before I could get a dog to the property, the sky opened up and we had rain for two straight days. Neighbor on the other side of the road (about a 1/2 mile away) found his dead head the next spring.

And before you say I must not hunt much, I have killed well over 100 whitetails, over 30 pigs, over 50 coyotes, a few Axis deer, and a blackbuck in that 36 years of hunting. I also fire over 3000 rounds of centerfire rifle ammunition every year, and have for the past 10-15 years, so I absolutely know my limits with every rifle in my battery. The largest chambering I have used to kill a deer was a 7mm Rem Mag, the smallest was a .22LR on a "sharpshooter cull hunt" in a city park at night with suppressed .22LRs and varmint lights.

.22 cals are not legal here in Virginia.

I was on a good run with a .243 and the 105 Amax for a while. 17 in a row (deer/black bear) went less than 5 yards.

Finally shot a buck, whose head and shoulder were behind a tree through the lungs, he went about 35.

Decent bullet should be a given, but it's placement, placement, placement. Deer aren't hard to kill, and they're not hard to put down on the spot.

You must never have hunted whitetails in northern New England, where the majority of shots presented are on moving deer under 100 yards in thick cover, probably the reason that pumps and semi-autos are popular among still-hunters and snow tracker.

I don't let my friends from NH carry their rifles on the first day of hunting season when they come to Nebraska, 'cause almost all of them want to shoot the first legal deer that they see. They aren't used to seeing a couple dozen deer nearly every day that they go afield, so they have to learn to be a little selective. I remember the day that I took a high school buddy out to an alfalfa field at dusk during the late antlerless season and there were at least 100 deer in the 80 acre field. My friend said that he'd never seen that many deer in all the time that he'd hunted in NH and VT, much less that many deer at one time and in one field.

Different situations dictate the use of different methods.

I'm much more likely to use a bolt action rifle in Nebraska and much more likely to use a pump or semi-auto in ME, NH, and VT.

I have shot 7 deer this week with a .22-250 and standard C&C 55 grain soft points. Granted they're not big deer, but deer nonetheless and not a damn one took more than a single shot, though I did have to cut one's throat after hitting a bit further forward than intended and broke it's neck. Two fox as well.

Love me a good .22 CF.

This is an imaginary argument. You can't imagine this is the case and then present it as if its a real thing. It's simply not true. Look, it's not a political matter of opinion - if the .22 centrefires didn't work on deer, people just wouldn't use them. You don't get an award for doing it.

Put it this way, I have shot a bunch of big red deer, the size of elk nearly, with a .44-40 carbine and black powder. I cannot give you any stories of stuff ups and wounded game. In fact, a deer shot with one in the rifght place dies as quickly as if you shot him with a .270 in the same place.
Now, a .223 has to be more effective than a black powder .44 -40.

Yeh, yeh, yeh just like all the deer shot at 600-1000 yds with match grade bullets instead of hunting bullets with a 6.5. None of those deer are lost or crippled either are they by all the "expert" shots who do it? Now that's really ethical isn't it? But I don't hear any of you guys jumping up and down about it. Having said that, I do know CH that some of you guys down there are very skilled.

Some of this stuff is internet gold....

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THIS!!

Think I’d go with gold plated zinc……

Have killed Kentucky White Tails with everything from .223 Rem to .375 H&H. From .243 Win up thru .375 H&H, not much difference. +95% one shot DRT's.

Shot three deer with .223 and C&C bullets inside 70 yards. Two required a finisher. Third one was lost, even tho I spent the majority of that afternoon searching for it. .243 Win is my personal minimum for KY WT's... JMO... YMMV...

I been hunting deer forever with me 6mm Rem. I got bigger guns but I chose to hunt deer with the 6. Have shot deer out to 300 yards. I’ve never lost a deer.

We are required by the TPW to survey and control the # of deer on our place, depending on our survey # we kill between 350- 400 Whitetails a year, most we ever had to take was 540, that was about 15 years ago. about 2/3 does, 1/3 bucks, we are not rushed to shoot , and normally only fire 1 shot, which results in DRT. and most shots are inside 200 yards, we choose to use 6mm more than anything else, little meat damage and it kills, we do not want blood trails, we keep tracking dogs, that take all the drama out of finding injured deer, use what works for you, that's what we do. Rio7

"Hunting deer with smaller calibers" Why would you? Unless you are very small or slight of build? My 9 year old grand daughter made a perfect lung shot on a good whitetail buck with a .223 this year that made over a 100 yard run and didn't bleed a drop on the ground. No exit either. She insisted on the .223 but that ain't happening again. I have loaded down some .308W with 125 NBT that don't recoil much.

That deer could have easily been not recovered in heavy brush or if looked for by someone inexperienced.

Hastings,

A perfect example of 1 Rio7

Just curious what bullet and shot placement?

SNORK!

It was a Hornady 62 grain HP sold in bulk by Midsouth. Was advertised as a hunting bullet. I might have done better to load the rifle with the 62 grain Barnes that hit about the same as the Hornady. I started using the Hornady because they seem to work pretty well on hogs and cost a little over 10 cents each versus the Barnes at over 50 cents, but heck what is 50 cents for a deer.

The shot was a perfect lung shot, got both lungs and did not exit, hence no blood on the ground.

I have helped track deer shot with small rifle bullets many times and some of my own with a 243. They will kill. They just don't leave as good a trail as bigger holes do. I prefer to use bigger and just shoot and watch them drop out of the scope.

You have got it 7!!

From THE COMPLETE BOOKOF RIFLES AND SHOTGUNS by Jack O’Connor ©️1961 by Outdoor life



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