King of deer calibers?

Eastern deer rifles

When I go on a out of state deer hunt I always take two rifles. Two reasons I
do this, you never know when something might break and two different guns
for hunting conditions. I usually take m-70fw 308/ 6x scope and Rem 14 35r.
The 308 for open woods and the 35 for the thickets. I shoot more in the thicket.
 
Personally, I'm a big .308 Winchester fan. Accurate, decent range and hard hitting without knocking you around. However, I would say that if your definition of "king of the deer calibers" is based on popularity and the sheer number of deer taken over the last century, it would probably be a toss up between the .30-06 and .30-30. I figure a .30-30 would work just fine in a light lever action out east but in the open country out west, the longer range of the '06 I suspect is a bit more popular. But I would have a very strong suspicion that just these two calibers alone have taken more deer than the rest of the other calibers out there combined.
 
If the king is kind then the king should not kick his subjects, so I ran the math on energy at range devided by the ft/lbs recoil, while that was a close contest the 6.5 Creedmoore came in at 90 ft/lbs energy @500 yards per ft/lbs of recoil, to my surprise the 243 came in second at 89 makes me wounder how much better the 243 would score if someone made a real .500+BC hunting bullet for it. Much as I love my 06 it came in at a 62.38, I had no delusion here, the 06 while great for those of us experienced shooters never has been a super efficient cartridge, kind of like a small block chevy, been working for a 100 years but won't exactly get you the best mpg :)
Next test is efficiency, as a handloader I like cartridges that do the job without burning excess amounts of powder, also meas less muzzle blast in short barrels, so similar to the first test but with a focus on efficiency rather then recoil, this will score out different for several reasons, namely in that should favor the larger calibers.
 
King is thrifty, no wasteful burning allowed, like I guessed the larger caliber shined here, the good ol 308 took first place with 29.98fpe per gr of powder at 500yd, no real supprise there the whole 08 family is hyper efficient and being 30 caliber makes it all the more so, but the real surprise was second place the relatively small 6.5 Creedmoore was hot on it's heels with a 28.11, and my baby the 7mm-08 came in a very close third with an impressive 27.83. everybody else came in the 20-26 range.
The short actions are running the table on the long actions here. Makes me wounder how my 270 WSM would stack up?
 
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OK it was just too much for me and I had to run the math on both the 280 and 270 WSM.
270 WSM 150gr SST 61gr 3155fps 3.46 lbs/sec 13.9 fps 24.01 ft/lbs 1734 ft/lbs -33.2"
280 Rem 150gr SRII 55.0 2995fps 3.22 lbs/sec 12.93 fps 20.79 ft/lbs 1530 ft/lbs -37.5"
As expected the 280 performed amongst the best of them, actualy coming in just shy of the 7mm-08 for effecency, though I did opt for the slightly more streamlined 150gr for the larger 280 case. Effecency numbers were 78.75 fpe per lbs and 27.83 ft/lbs per gr. My grandfather was an avid hunter, and of his 300+ firearms his Rem 700 in 280 was his favorite.
The 270 WSM is a BEAST in terms of downrange performance shooting flatter then the 243 and 25-06 even with a 150gr bullet, and downrange energy is even better then the 30-06, what surprised me though was even with it's slightly overbore case the WSM still packs fantastic efficiency numbers coming in at 72.25 fps per lbs 28.42 ft/lbs per gr. No doubt about it if you want grade A downrange performance with sub 30-06 recoil the 270 WSM is FANTASTIC. On a personal note the WSM is one of my favorites to handload, while I don't get quite the speed listed in Nosler #7 I can shoot cloverleafs all day long with a 150gr SGK over RL22, darn thing is a tack driver even with it's Tupperware Savage stock. If the WSM has any downside it is it's overabundance of power, much like the 30-06 or 7mm Rem Mag at full stroke it can and will make a mess of a whitetail inside normal hunting ranges, left a 6" crater through the last deer I shot with it.
 
Don't know much about the 7x64 other then it is very close to the 280, as far as the 7x57 is concerned I do like it but opted for the 7mm-08, while I know the 7x57 is capable of higher performance I like to stick to published load data for the most part and pressure specs for the 7x57 are a little low, I can push 140gr SGKs to 3kfps in a 22" barrel without pressure signs, while you may be able to top that with the old school long action I doubt it would be by much and burning 50 something gr of powder no doubt.
 
I noticed that all your data is at maximum load, I typically stay mid range and go up a cartridge when I really want more umpf. My personal favorite is actually the 7x65R, but there we're really into exotic for US shooters. And I don't reload that one, a box of 20 lasts me 4 years or so, and I haven't been lucky drawing dear tags lately.
 
Well if I listed mid loads I would have some caliber worsiper putting me on blast screaming he get's more fps out of his loads, you can tone them all down a bit.
BTW what is a dear tag? Does that make it legal to shoot your wife or something, around here we only get DEER tags LOL
 
300win mag would probably be ling, although not very conservative. I would just stick with good ole .308 and be happy to have an easy shooting gun that I am physically capable with keeping in a tight target and being confident in the ballistic ability of the cartridge. 30-06 would be great too.
 
reynolds what exactly do you have against my bullet selection? Ballistic Tips, Speer BTSP, Hornady SST that is something of an A list for open country deer bullets, sure I use more SGKs when hunting in the woods because of the thicker jacket but out at range it is tough to beat the ones I mentioned. What did you have in mind?
 
P71 pilot. I know hundreds of people who deer hunt. By that, I mean I know them well enough to know what they hunt with. I do not know of one person currently hunting with a slug gun. The exception being those traveling to states where centerfire rifle is illegal.
 
I am surprised you all missed the boat on this one. The "King of Deer Cartridges" is none other than the 45ACP! :)
 
RIGHT, the ACP beats out the 270 Winchester in what universe? I have seen two deer and a hog hit with a 45 ACP and in none of the above was I impressed. The hog got stuck in some fence and required a second shot to the head despite a very well placed shot, one deer was never seen again and the other well let's just say if that deer had any run in her at all we would have never found her. I won't even bring someone hunting if they talk about shooting one with a 45 ACP.
 
I picked 30-06 (rem 700 bdl) for my rifle. I picked it because it had range to be my total hunting rifle not just deer. I plan to reload some day, so it in theory beats a .308 (not with factory ammo though...the .308 wins there, but it really isn't enough to mean much reload to reload). The most important reason was I got a good deal on the rifle.

I would recommend .308 or 30-06 to someone picking a rifle. The .308 would be cheaper by if you are going to just target shoot (surplus .308 seems to be cheaper than surplus 30-06).
 
The king of all calibers is the 30-06. But if you limit your game to deer and deer alone, my vote is 6.5 creedmore. I've been looking at that cartridge quite a bit lately and it looks pretty impressive.
 
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