Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting 30-06 too much for deer?

If you think the 30-06 is to powerful then use the 308 Win or 300 Savage

One of the guys who favors small calibers mentioned that he was concerned about the lack of a blood trail when game was taken with a small caliber.. So far all had gone well for him.. But given hunting it is only a matter of time..

Just curious here. Because you are so anti-22 caliber on big deer, you must have a decent amount of experience using it under those conditions to come to such a conclusion?

or a 30-06 shooting reduced loads with the 125 BT

Here's where I saw all I wanted to see. Location: Cimarron River Oklahoma Panhandle, a place where huge whitetails live and where I hunted for 5 years in the mid 1990's. My friend and his son were coyote killing machines, with greyhounds, rifles, decoy dogs, you name it. They killed a few hundred per yar. The kid was 11, and loved his 22-250 and I did too for 'yotes and prarie dogs. Hunting wheat fields up there is a big deal. I don't personally like to sit still that long, but me and the boy (Pedro we called him) had spotted a huge whitetail(180 class) buck several times coming in and out of the field, so we set up on him. We set up on the field very early one morning, and for some unknown reason all the kid brought was that -250, with core lokts (IIRC, granted it was not a Barnes anything). Nevertheless, he hit the buck at 150'ish yards on the money, and we watched the buck run for about a mile. We obviously trailed him as far as we could, then bailed to get reinforcements. A full day and a half later, no deer, no buzzards, no nothing. A couple of years later, same thing, on a 170'ish buck chasing a doe.

So in my experience of exactly 2 occasions, on huge whiteys, my narrow minded, hard headed self saw all I want to see, once again, granted no Barnes were present.

On the other hand, I've seen several animals get up and run off, never to be found, when clients shot aoudad or muleys with bigazz calibers like 30-378's and 300 Wby's, but they were overgunned flinchers, which is just as bad as being undergunned IMO.

Anyway, you asked and I am just being as honest about it.

I'd think had the right bullet been chosen for the 22-250... corelokts would be my last choice as a big game bullet at those speeds, then for a standing still broadside shot you'd have been fine.

But when you get to the ones you have seen/shot, that you jump up and have only the choice to put a big one in and need it to penetrate and break bone, well thats not the territory I'd trust a light bullet regardless the caliber. Heck for what you have done at times, my experiences with the 300 wtby and 180 partitions on deer and nilgai would make me think my best choice might be a 338 win mag and 210 barnes ttsx...

shot placement is key. just cause one can whack prairie dogs all day long with a rifle doesn't mean buck fever won't kick in and make him less on that day. without a recovery, it's hard to say. every deer we've recovered after the fact (that was lost til the birds found it) was due to poor shot placement. I personally have never seen a "bullet failure", it can happen, but gets the blame more than it should I think. At least IME.

I recently built a 6x45 for my wife because I wanted a heavier bullet and the 70 grain NBT sure beat out the smaller .224 partition by a good 16% in bullet weight. I'm sure glad I did that because she cleanly took a nice whitetail buck last fall and the shot was head on. it only got 24" of penetration on the deer, and no discernible blood trail, but that was ok because the deer only went 4 bounds from the shot site before piling up (so we never looked for blood).

I was also unaware that an increase in antler size meant they are more bullet resistant. is 150" the threshold?

There's no such thing as a core-lokt in 22 caliber. Classic bullet failure which was blamed on cartridge failure.

prairie goat, I haven't shot many over the years, but are the 55 grain Rem. factory loads not core-lokt??? I don't know, been 20 years since I bought a box and just figured that is what they were..

The wheat field buck was standing still, broadside. A 7mag with 160 partitions would have killed the livin' schittt out of him...

Hey, like mudhen mentioned. Why should we care what people use....I don't. Could care less. However, in my world, where it's relatively flat, open, windy, very unlikely to have a standing broadside shot, big bodied game and possibly be mega racked trophy size if you're lucky......I personally am in no way toting a .223, ever.


I'm obviously not the only one who feels this way. Copied and paste job from Jicarilla Indian Res...home of some of the biggest muleys on the planet, and more B&C's than any other place on the planet by far.

Straight from the Jicarilla Game and Fish:
� General Mule Deer Draw Hunts $17,500 7 permits total.
16. Minimum caliber for all elk, deer, and bear is .243,

Note the IIRC in my post?

Those are Remington Pointed Soft Points, which are a varmint bullet.

Have seen very good performance from the Hornady 55 grain and 60 grain, as well as Winchester white box 55 grain 22-250.

The one thing that gets me is in every pizzing match about caliber size we get the same arguments. The small bore crowd will argue bullet placement all day long like those who chose larger calibers can't shoot. They will brag about there will power to pass a bad angle or low percentage shot. Well I have not killed the amount of game many of you have being I live in PA and we can only kill a few deer a year and have no hogs.

But I know enough to know a 30-06 allows more room for error that a .223. I read guys talking about seldom getting a DRT and how rare they really are! Well I am here to tell you pucky! I have dropped deer in their tracks at 300+ yards with shots that were pulled into the liver. Weather I pulled the shot or the wind caught it or the deer moved. The shot was not where I wanted it but the 165 grain NBT out of my .300 Win Mag. has so much shocking power it turned the insides to soup. I just don't believe a .223 would have done that. JG is talking large deer not because they are harder to kill but because he knows if someone pays $7K for a trophy deer hunt they want to shoot if they get a shot and that shot might most likely be one that is NOT going to be a perfect shot. I for one want every advantage if I pay that kind of money for a hunt.


I lost a deer years ago using a .243 with light spitzer bullets. The gun was my father in laws and I used the ammo they always used. I got what I thought was a great behind the shoulder shot as the deer went up a hill 50 yards away. The was not broadside but straight down on the back. I obviously missed the spine. The doe dropped to both front legs and then took off like a freight train. Blood petered out after a hundred or so yards. I know without a doubt in my mind I hit her good. My brother in laws reply was you got to hit them in the ribs with that gun! Well had I still had my 30-06 at the time my shot would have put meat on the table. Wrong bullet maybe and wrong placement for said bullet! This year 400 yards give or take a couple I dropped a big doe with my .257AI and 115 grain Partitions. Broke a rib going in and out. 10 feet death stumble and she was in the snow. Proper bullet and proper placement.

So, 243 = bad and 0.014 more diameter (.257) = good?

Yep

No proper bullet and placement = good. Bad bullet and bad placement = Bad

However had I been using a larger caliber like the 30-06 I believe bullet placement would have been fine. Who knows if they had better bullets for the .243 back then maybe the .243 would have been fine.

Point is had I been paying for the hunt and that doe had been a huge trophy I would have lost it. That has taught me alot. Now this was over 25 years ago I lost the doe to the .243 I have learned much and know better how to match my situation to the gun I use. I knew that my .257 had enough to make a clean kill on a standing broadside unaware doe.

The old 30-06 is a great killing machine.

But as to using lighter chamberings on deer, you have to use a good bullet. Any of the responses talking about light bullets blowing up on broadsides simply means that a varmint bullet was being used.

22 and 24 calibers with good bullets penetrate just as much as a 30 caliber, if the same type of bullet is used (say a Barnes or Partition). The small caliber just doesn't make as big of a hole.

I am never gonna give up my rem model six pump 06. I killed my first elk at 407 yards in very heavy winds and my first deer at 466 yards. My dad gave me the gun after trading a puppy for it. I shoot nosler ballistic tip 180 grns pushed by accurate 3100. This year for my elk hunt I'm taking g my new bud 300RUM sendero. It will be hard to leave the 06 behind in the safe. So no its not too much gun. I am a believer in heavier bullets from all I have read so I'll stick too what works in my gun.

Back in my early graduate school days, I needed to retrieve a collar from one of our radio-collared deer. Because I didn't have a collecting permit, I called the local game warden. He told me to go ahead and shoot the deer. All I had with me was my .30-06 and some 125 or 130 grain Speer hollow points that I had been using on coyotes. I shot the buck (a large south Texas deer) in the neck. The deer died, but I found a large piece of the bullet jacket stuck in the deer's ear. That taught me all I needed to know about selecting the correct bullet for the job at hand.

For twenty years I used a tang safety Ruger m77 in 30-06 with 165 Remington corelok factory loads with a walnut stock to kill 100s of hogs and approx 25 deer until I started learning on the internet and in hunting camps that the ruger is not accurate, the 30-06 is a lobber ,that you cant rely of factory ammo and im totally screwed if it rains because my wood stock will swell up. So after I learned all that i spent thousands and thousands of dollars on new rifles and calibers only to get a real education. That I had the right rifle for me to start with. I will admit , I did have a lot of fun along the way.