Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting whats your ideal whitetail rifle

This. Mine wears a X-2 and I use pretty much any 150 behind the same 44.5 grains of Varget.

THERES a few really nice rifles posted in this thread, but I would not get all that concerned with the caliber used,If you like it and its accurate, and feels good in your hands, its almost a sure deal it will work out fine!
I try almost all my new rifles out on the local white tail, as were allowed, a deer a day in many areas,here in florida,and the seasons a couple months long if you add up archery,front loader and rifle seasons,, now I like venison, if the freezer gets a bit empty, Ive used a 44 mag with 310 grain lee cast bullets ,a 257 roberts, with 100 grain speer and hornady bullets,a 257 wby with 120 grain Remington bullets, a 270 win, with 150 speer, and hornady bullets , a 30/06 with 200 grain speer bullets,and 180 grain hornadys a 358 win with 250 speer bullets,a 375 H&H with 235 grain and 270 grain, jacketed bullets, a 45/70 with hard cast,and 405 remington,soft points, a 458 win with 450 grain hard cast, a 62 caliber round ball from a muzzle loader, and a 32" 700 grain ,arrow with a twin blade MUZZY broad head from my 84lb 32" draw compound bow.

so , my conclusion, is that what you use is almost meaningless,IF you can shoot it accurately and know the games anatomy, simply because they ALL WORKED JUST FINE.
YEAH, lately I grab my 44 mag marlin or my 358 win BLR for most whitetail hunts but I have little doubt that you could use something like a 223 rem if you could place shots well (many of my friends do that regularly)
one of my hunting buddies, (AL) who has been rather successful had a 303 enfield jungle carbine for several decades.


He had used that carbine for many years to hunt deer very successfully, he bragged for years how his old 303 smacked the CRAP, out of our Florida deer that rarely go more than 120lbs.
now keep in mind, the ranges where he hunts seldom exceed 40 yards and 50 yards is a rare long shot, most shots are taken at under 40 yards , in very thick brush. hes killed dozens of deer with that 303,jungle carbine for several decades ,but he had never been to an actual rifle range, he had always set up a beer or coke can on a dirt embankment, backed off about 20-to-25 paces and tried a shot from about 35-40 yards and having hit the coke can, felt 100% sure the rifle was still correctly sighted in, like it had been for years, he had me load the ammo to match factory velocity's ,
http://www.speer-bullets.com/ballistics/detail.aspx?id=107 with these 180 grain soft points, http://www.handloads.com/loaddata/d...amp;Weight=All&type=Rifle&Source
over 45 grains of WW760,In my enfield it shot 2.5" 100 yard groups with iron sites off the bench,
but I totally ruined his confidence in that rifle when I made the bad mistake of taking him to a local range, for thirty years or more he had simply placed an old bottle or can on a hillside, backed off 30 or so long paces and fired at the target, with a high probability of a hit! occasionally he needed two shots to hit the beer can, but that was rare.....well I took him to the range and all his 50 yard targets had nice reasonably tight groups using the issue iron sights that measured about 3" in spread,the problem was most of the holes in the paper were key-holed, or profiles of the bullets ,it was obvious some, even most, bullets went thru at an angle or even side ways, he was very upset.....we pointed out that he had been very successful with the gun, even if it did tend to allow the bullets to tumble, end over end which the paper target clearly showed..
so far hes not been able to locate a replacement 303 British, caliber jungle carbine barrel for his carbine, and careful inspection shows the rifling is all but worn away, in fact it is so shallow, and the bores so eroded, its basically useless!
improper cleaning,improper storage,general abuse, improper solvents and corrosive primer ammo use by previous owners, long before he bought the rifle at a yard sake 30 plus years ago, sure didn,t help either.
so again Id say what you use on white tail deer is not as important as your ability to place shots consistently on the intended target

I've killed deer with a .303 "Jungle Carbine". Those 180 Power Points work nice!

Don't know if it's been mentioned, but the late Francis E. Sell, author of "The Deer Hunters's Guide", had an awesome little full-stock carbine built on a 6.5 Swede, I believe. It wore a detachable scope and peep. In the book, there's a picture of Sell using the Indian Carry, with his hand around the grip and the forend cradled in the crook of his elbow. That, to me personified the woods gun. The funny thing is that Sell was mainly a blacktail hunter, but I guess the two species have very similar habitat over much of their range.

One of the last pieces Sell wrote was on a project to build a lever gun based on a Marlin and chambered in .25/35 or .25/35 Improved, kind of an "Old Man's Deer Rifle". I might be ready for something like that myself, come to think of it.

Anything on the 308 case is about ideal for me. The 260 Remington is about as good as it gets, but I'm a fan of the 243, 7-08, 308 and 338 Federal too.

I also prefer bolt actions while hunting. With that being said, I wouldn't feel out of place with a Savage 99 or Winchester 88 in my hands.

Pappy, another mention of Sell.. Nice to know some still remember him. He was one of my favorites for as long as I can remember..
I think he started shooting deer with a couple .25-35's.. If I remember right he killed like a 125 deer with these two rifles.. Apparently, he filled the tags of his Uncle's crew one fall..
He also used the model 71 .348 for quite a while and a model 64 that was barreled to .25-35 by Winchester.. When I started reading him, he had just made a 20" barreled .358 on an HVA action..
He also had a .300 Ackley short Mag. built in the early 60's for his long range deer/elk rifle.

As you mentioned he built a 6.5X55 in his later years.. And finally the .25-35 IMP. Some time during WW2 I think he did some hunting with a .30-40 Krag because it was the only rifle he could get ammo for.. Great gun man and a great woodsman..

I have to wonder what guys like Sell and Koller would think about all these Whitetail Commandos with their automatic doe piss dispensers, Anti-body Odor Ionizers, and Electronic Ass Warmers.

On second thought, I think I know.

You are right... I read some of Sell's stuff from around WW2.. Bobcat and Mt. lion hunting.. Walking though the mts. following hounds, no tracking collars, sleeping in their clothes, building bark huts and a fire for shelter, and finally a 2-3 day walk back home at the close of the hunt.. Times have changed..

I will have to try finding some of those stories. Thanks for the tip.

Francis Sell was a very talented writer whose stories were always well-written and engrossing. Like others, I doted on him as a youngster. As I recall, his favorite elk medicine was the .348 Winchester in the lever action M71.

Just try convincing today's LR boys, with their turrets and muzzle brakes and fluted SS barrels, that an open-sighted lever gun can kill an elk....or even a whitetail!

SMH

I found quite a few old stories, in the American Rifleman published during WW2.. He also wrote for a mag. called Gunsport.. I have a bunch of articles from that source.. The Rifleman was a find in an estate sale.. Best of luck..

Nothing special here, but I use a faux TI 700 LA in 257Roberts. It's pretty much perfect for the task.

An ideal time for me would be hunting mature deer in an acorn abundant sheltered forest habitat of ample size. Covering the miles of such a beautiful hunting ground would be a great joy for me with a wonderfully vetted and slick vintage model 64 Winchester Deluxe Deer Rifle chambered 30WCF with a Lyman model 21 receiver sight. That would be a rather pure and joyous rifle hunting endeavor.

Best

My ideal one is my Savage 99F in .308 with a 4x scope that has a post and cross wire reticle. I have and like a lot of others, but this one is the ideal one for my hunting.

An ongoing search for me.....and an excuse to keep feeding my rifle addiction My latest "ideal" is a LH Ruger Hawkeye in 7mm-08. I have yet to shoot it. My old standbys are my Savage 99s in 300 or 250 savage.

I remember the sardonic Jack O'Connor writing in one of his books that Francis Sell shot the same crow over and over in his articles.

30-06 with 130gr TTSX and 55grns of Varget. My go to combination on every deer hunt

This made me chuckle a bit.

30-30 is a keeper!

Sherwood