King of deer calibers?

After moving up from my Red Ryder pop gun, Dad armed me with a 700 ADL in .243Win, with a 4x Weaver. That rifle became my 3rd arm. When I aimed correctly, I always put meat in the freezer. Dad always had me shooting Federal Premium 100gr PSP-BTs (I think they were BTs). When I got a bit older, I started trying to make neck shots, or not blow both front shoulders out, and I had to track a few.

I then requested permission to move up to a bigger caliber. That's when Dad moved me to the Parker-Hale (in sig), shooting the same thing as he did: .30-06. Again, when I do my part and make a good shot, it never fails to do its job. I use Remington Core-Lokt 150gr PSPs. Dad hunts with a pre-64 Model 70 Featherweight with a Weaver. He hunts with handloads that emulate M2 ball ammunition, with the exception of using 50grs of IMR4895 instead of the listed amount.

So for me, having only hunted with two of the listed calibers, I would vote for .30-06, simply because I can hunt bigger game than whitetail with it.
 
King of deer ctgs?

Probably the .30-30win

Don't need anything more to kill a deer.


Second runner-up is the .22lr. Probably more deer poached with it over the years than with any other ctg.
 
Deer only, in 2014? The 243. When I started hunting I was advised to buy a 270 or 30-06, as were most hunters 40 years ago. That MIGHT have been good advice at the time, but if it were true then, it isn't today. Both of those rounds are way more potent than needed for deer and are better suited for much larger game. They will kill deer just fine, so will a 50 BMG, but neither are needed for whitetail or mule deer.

Knowing what I know today, and with todays bullets and loads I'd use nothing bigger than 243 if I only hunted deer. I don't own a 243. But I'm just as likely to get a shot at a 500 lb bear as a 150 lb deer on most days in the woods. I'd use a 243 for that, but feel a little better with something in a 7-08 or 308.
 
Going back a few years, the 44 WCF or 44/40 in a Winchester 73 or 92 would be hard to beat for a deer rifle. :p
 
Whatever I happen to have available at the time will be fine if I do my parts. Oh and just to play along either a 7-08 0r .280 rem is the obvious answer.
 
Granted there are a whole host of cartridges that perform remarkably well within certain confines, like the 30-30 inside 150 yards, but to be king you cannot be a one trick pony. If my standard of range was 300 yards not 500 the old 300 Savage would be a top contender no doubt, 40gr of powder pushing a 150gr pill 2600-2700fps, efficient, effective, and logical no doubt, might not be all around king material but amongst the very best woods rifles in existence no doubt. In limited range and for larger game the old 358 Win seems to be a real standout too. But the king needs to be something that virtually anyone can shoot, reliably take trophy deer at the outer limits of a good riflemans accuracy, provide a reasonably flat trajectory with minimal wind drift and not have any glaring practical disadvantages like the 264 Win Mag. That is a tall order and I think I picked some of the better cartridges to fit that role.
 
Deer Rifle King Cal.

Deer live in the woods here in the east. 30/06 is my favorite cal. but the real
eastern white tail rifles are 30/30, 300 savage, 35 Rem. In short fast handling
and easy carrying carbines. There are many others in this class, to many to list.
If you are shooting plains or bean fields then these won't work to well. To Hunt
and To Shoot are not the same thing.
 
but the real
eastern white tail rifles are 30/30, 300 savage, 35 Rem. In short fast handling
and easy carrying carbines
Click to expand...

My Remington Model 7 in .260 with an 18.5" barrel is roughly the same length as the Win 94 30-30 it replaced, weighs about the same, and has more than twice the functional range. Yes, lots of deer are still killed with the old "thuty thuty" but there are far better options available today.
 
Look at it this way, what disadvantage does a 260 have vs a 30-30 is extra range and high BC a disadvantage in any way? You could make the case for the larger caliber but a recent study found that as far as deer were concerned there is little if any difference between calibers 243 and up, in fact the 25 caliber had the shortest average distance run after the shot and the 270 cal beat the 30 calibers by a small margin.
 
Well, from what you've offered, I would choose the 270 Winchester. It looks like you got the velocities are about right for 270 and 30-'06, though they could be bettered a little with some select components. I think the others are already indicative of hot handloads. It looks like you show some favoritism to the 308 to have it come so close to the '06. Also, the 25-06 is running a bit closer to the 270 than it should. I don't doubt that you are actually getting that. I've had Hornady 140 BTSP bullets chronographing 3285 out of my 270, but, admittedly, pressures must have been very high; after 2-3 firings, new primers were easy to install with my bare hands. So I abandoned that recipe. You can definitely gain some performance from reloading any of those cartridges. But the one that has the most to gain safely in a modern rifle is the 30-'06. If you load it to the same maximum average pressure as the 270 or 308, it will leave the 308 behind. They're all good cartridges. Perhaps you have them all. Suppose circumstances absolutely dictated you could only keep one. Which would it be, Kachock? Mine would be the 270, and it would be a model 70 Winchester.
 
The 30-30 cartridge has no advantage over the 260 cartridge. But the rifle might. I know darn well that a Winchester model 94 carbine carries a lot easier than a full sized, scoped bolt action, especially at the end of a long day. Anybody here go horseback with a rifle in a saddle scabbard? I guess not, huh? It's the gun it typically goes with that makes the 30-30 awesome. In the terrain where it's at its best, it has no disadvantage to a 270. It will wreck less meat than more powerful cartridges.
 
Then and now...

40+ years ago, I chose the .257 Roberts and have never regretted it. (17 deer) Success at 50-350 yards tells me it is a fantastic choice. In a 22" Sporter barrel on a small ring Mauser it is a good woods or mountain rifle.

But, today, I would pick a 6.5/.260 cartridge. Better bullets are available in 6.5. My favorite is a Nosler Partition for heavy game and a ballistic tip for deer.
 
Not trying to show favoritism to any cartridge, all loads were taken from my Nosler manual, which in general I have found to be the most accurate in terms of speed. Bullet selection was based on highest BC of a a bullet I would actually use in the real world, sure super heavy VLDs, SMKs, and A-Max can push higher BCs but they are more finicky in terms of terminal performance then the more proven hunting designs. If you can think of a more fair way of comparing them please fill me in. I might should have used the 280 instead of the 7mm-08 but to be honest I am in love with that little 7 so maybe I have a smig of personal bias but I don't let that effect my math.
If I could keep just one rifle I would be torn between my Winchester 70 308, Tikka T3 6.5x55 and my Browning A-Bolt 7mm-08.......very tough call.
 
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good choices all around. I usually take the 243 with 100gr soft points for deer but in recent times I've been mixing it up. have very good luck with 6.5 grendel this year, my first DRT animal that wasn't a CNS hit. it's wouldn't look too impressive at 500 yards though, strictly a 400 and closer deer rifle and 200 or closer for anything bigger in my opinion.
 
Since there is no Monarchy in place, there is no King. Another subjective based thread to which there is no right answer but entertaining to say the least. Give me a rifle - any rifle, and let me get comfortable with it and I can make it "king for the day". The only calibers I have not killed deer with are those that I don't own or have never tried. 300 Savage, yep; 22-250, yep; 25-06, yep, 30-06 yep. The one that is "king" is the one I have in my hands when the shot presents itself...

More interesting conversation might be "the ladies in waiting"...:)
 
The Kings boots are hard to fill. So I'll just hang out with a couple of his buddys the 25-06 & the 270 they might not fill the boots but they sure fill the freezer.:D:D
 
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