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

Gotcha. I agree with that. But mostly, I hunt with what I want and mostly make good choices.

A good one that’ll change a lot of folks mind is the 77 TMK in a 22-250 or 223 on deer. If you can tell it apart from a 280 or even my 7 Mashburn Super you’re definitely better than I.

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A hole through the airbags is a hole through the airbags, IMO.

Give me something north of 3000 fps, preferably something 3400 or more with a 22 caliber and stuff dies rather quickly.

Especially with a 55 grain Sierra Gameking. The 60 grain Nosler Partition is about as fast killing. This in cartridges from 223 to 220 Swift.

Same with every step up in caliber but once you get over about .264 combined with 3000+ fps it gets pretty rough on deer sized game.[/quote]

I agree with this except I believe anything over .257 gets rough on deer sized game. Especially here in Texas. Our deer are small. When I use my 25-06 for a shoulder shot on deer, you might as well throw the front quarters to the dogs because that 25-06 tears up too much meat. I’ve been using a 220 Swift with that 60 grain Nosler partition and it does a fine job on our little deer.

I just finished reading "how to bag the biggest buck of your life" by Larry Benoit. Larry
advocates for shooting into the ribcage, and not into the shoulder. And he's a guy
that shot BIG bucks, 200-250 pounders. He wrote that he does not want to destroy
meat unnecessarily. He says shooting into the rib cage works perfectly effectively,
while preserving great shoulder meat.

Very true, but sometimes local conditions dictate that a buck be dropped "right there" and even a 30 or 40 yard death run can be problematic.

Years ago, I built a 250-3000 for my three sons on a Win 70 Compact action, they killed upwards of ten deer with that rifle, typically 100 yards or less, all one shot kills with Rem factory 100 PSP ammo. I could not be more impressed the 250-3000 for killing deer and easy on the shooter too. What I consider an ideal "young hunters" deer cartridge.

The Benoits and Berniers were snow trackers, so a blood trail was much easier to follow. The were also pump gun shooters, so they probably kept shooting as long as the deer was in sight and there were cartridges in the magazine of their Remington 760/7600s.

Bright red blood on white snow is easy to follow.

I'm not young or small anymore, but I do love my 700 Classic in 250-3000.

This is exactly the same argument that Jack O'Connor used when recommending a .270 with 130 grain bullets through the ribcage, as opposed to those such as Elmer Keith who recommended a bigger and heavier caliber through the shoulders. The counter argument to O'Connor was that they run more when shot behind the shoulder and you might not find them, and that you can't often get that 'behind the shoulder" shot in thicker cover such as in Idaho where Keith did much of his hunting (usually for bigger game on average), as opposed to the desert areas such as in Arizona and Sonora where O'Connor did much of his hunting in the early days.

IF you like chasing wounded animals shoot them with small calibers. Plenty of asshats do.

Yet more internet gold!

Nice hat in your avatar....

I enjoyed that myself and admire the heck out of the way they (Benoits) go about things.
But folks need to read betwixed the lines when it comes to tracking and putting down bucks and the "wait for the front leg to move forward or the animal to turn perfectly broadside" crowd would surely take serious offense.

You aren’t kidding. I know some folks will get wadded up but if you can get them leaking on snow they’re usually recoverable.

The use 30-06’s and 270’s cause that’s what they have found the most of in Rem 7600’s.

+1. They are legendary in the Northern New England Woods. I've read that book many times, and others by and about them.

I'm sure people will always take offense to something. A lot of people base what they believe off of their experiences. I prefer to shoot broadside and break both shoulders due to the fact that I've seen whitetail deer do some amazing things when shot. I helped my father in law track a deer for 200 yards one time that was shot behind the shoulder with a 308. I gutted the deer and it had no heart or lungs. That's why I like to break at least one of the front legs if not both.

Never chase a wounded animal that i personally shot with anything bigger than a .223, just sayin partner

"My three sons.... sorry I could not resist
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053525/

charlee

I have a good buddy who lives in Billings...

I got to meet one of his local friends, whose Grandma was with him one morning when we had breakfast together. She was Indian and lived on one of those reservations up around where Sam Olsen from the campfire lives.. NE Montana...

old gal was 4 ft 10 inches tall ( or short)... lives on the Rez and pretty much most of the meet she has ever eaten, was game animals.. she can shoot them year round on the Rez evidently.... she has owned one game rifle here entire life.... a 22.250 Remington...

Her favorite game meat is elk.... she pretty takes one, out in the yard when they are grazing or into the hay....when the freezer is getting low...
factory 55 grain ammo...uses a window sill for a rest.... pulls the trigger and calls one of her grandkids to come over and gut it for her... and then have it taken to where ever they process it....

she does take deer and antelope also.. but prefers elk meat the most...

no one ever told her that a 22.250 won't work on elk.. she just shoots them from the house within a 100 to 150 yds or so.. and gets on the telephone to let the grandkids come over to take care of the rest...she figured long ago about bullet placement and where that would be on an elk evidently....

she is not guilty of having plenty of them walk off wounded....

people who are rural and don't listen to, or read what 'experts' say all the time... seem to do pretty darn okay out there....

My step grandmother in WVa use to shoot deer out the window of her place when she needed more venison, she just asked her son Benny to bring over his 22.250 for her to borrow...she could shoot that...

Benny had his wife Gloria's family up every year from Florida to hunt in WVa in deer season.... Benny tells of the one season they all skunked... on the last day of open season, they come home all pissed off from skunking. She tells them there is a dead buck on the opposite end of their property, under the apple tree.... its across 5 acres worth of field from the house... they send one of his nephews up to the apple tree, which is uphill from the house...not believing Gloria...

the kid comes back with his pants on fire, with there is a dead deer up there under the tree...

Benny asked her what the hell did she shoot it with.... the only gun you left in the house.. that one over there... the 22.250...

shot it off the window sill.... when asked where she shot it at... her response, was you told me that this gun wasn't that good for a deer so I shot it in the head, where you said it would quickly kill it... I aimed at the eyeball.... they got up there and it had been hit in the eyeball....

other than that, a 22.250 would never kill a deer either.. just blind luck.. everyone knows that...
see what I did there with the blind luck comment?

You can tell who has used a modern 22 caliber bullet on deer and who hasn't. Those that have know that they work and work well.

Anyone in the northern woods found with a 223 chasing a 300 lb mature buck would be in for a rough time. Louisiana maybe not.