Most overrated deer calibre?

The final word

At the end of the day, we owe it to the animals we hunt to shoot them as humanely as possible.
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Trxxx--I think you have said the final word on this. One uses what will most humanely kill the quarry, in one's own hands. If one is a sportsman, he will have practiced sufficient, and have sufficient anatomical knowledge, that the caliber of his rifle is of quite secondary importance.
 
For me, the 7mm Magnum and .300 Winchester Magnum serve one very useful purpose: Wind cheating.

It is said that many Eastern and Woods hunters have a problem judging ranges if and when they come out to the more open Western part of the United States. If that is so, then add a Great Plains gusty 20-25 mph wind chasing up and down and swirling. Your sub MOA groups off a bench on a crisp, quiet morning don't mean squat now. Big slippery bullets moving fast are more accurate in the wind then little slippery bullets moving slower when humans launch them. Why?

Well, can you judge the difference between a steady 15 mph wind coming off your four o'clock as compared to one at 23 mph. at your 3 o'clock? Me neither. Now let it gust, swirl, and chase up and down the hills. How are you doing now? Those shiny bullets look pretty puny to be throwing across the field during an Alberta Clipper.

Federal's best .243 bullet for deer (95 grain Nosler Ballistip) will move 7.6" in a 10 mph straight crossing wind at 300 yards. The best 7mm mag. will move 5.1". The .243 drifts about 50% more. If we are talking a 20 mph wind, then you can (I think) double these figures.

If we go to a more moderate 200 yards, then we are talking a difference of only 2" of accuracy you are giving up. Would you rebarrel a rifle to gain a couple of inches of accuracy off the bench? Yes? Then why wouldn't you pick a different caliber to gain some accuracy inches in the field?

If you don't live where you have to deal with longer range shooting in the wind, and never plan to go where you might, then disregard all of this. The bigger magnums ARE more than adequate there. But they aren't too big when you are going up against a wind as big as several Western states.

BTW, I see the word "overkill" used a lot in this thread. What does an "overkilled" deer look like compared to just a plain old "killed" deer? A .338" bullet between the ribs looks a lot like a .277" bullet through the ribs. The lungs and heart look the same. (Unfortunately, because deer heart is great eating). Both bullets are ghastly angling through a hindquarter and into the paunch. If a wind bucking 7mm Magnum keeps the bullet in the ribs and away from the quarters, while the .243 might drift back that ways due to the wind, then guess which one I am taking antelope hunting.
 
ditto on the wind the TX panhandle aint too forgiving either. And the lack of trees makes for some good long shots. 190 and 220 grainers moving around 3,000 fps does cut the drift.
~z
 
I know in advance I'm going to get flamed for this - but my vote for the most over-rated deer calibre is the 7mm Remington Magnum.
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The only flameworthy thing here is that this is a thread spoiler. Its just not fair to give the only answer in the opening post of the thread. :p

My sentiments exactly about the 7mmRM. You see a whole lot of these at Wally World, then you see a whole lot of them in the newspaper or being carried around gun shows about halfway through the hunting season. Too much bang, too much fire, too much kick, too much throat erosion, too much target penetration, too much of everything.

Maybe for elk or African antelope if your .270 or 7mm08 gets lost in the airline baggage.
 
Too much bang, too much kick--You need to shoot more, if the 7mm Rem Mag bothers you. My son is a sack of potatoes shy of breaking 100 pounds, and the 7mm Remington Magnum is what he used to take his deer. (He actually was more interested in the good scope and excellent trigger pull, to be honest) If you can shoot a shotgun, then you can handle a 7mm Magnum.

Too much throat erosion-We are talking deer, not prairie dogs, right? I refuse to believe that a 7mm Remington Magnum could be shot enough in the field to wear out the barrel, including practice.

Too much target penetration-You can't penetrate a deer too much. The bullet HAS to go all the way through. If there is something behind the deer you don't want to hit, then you dang well better not be shooting ANY caliber at the deer.

The 7mm Remington Magnum wasn't dreamed up by some guys in a marketing bull session, but by Western hunters who hunted a lot of game in a lot of places, and knew what they wanted to fulfill a need. Thes are some of the guys behind the cartridge:

"There was Warren Page who had many friends at Remington and who sang the praises of a wildcat called 7mm Mashburn Super Magnum in many of his hunting articles. There was Les Bowman who also had many friends at Remington and who necked up the .264 Winchester Magnum case to 7mm and had a rifle built in what he called .280 Remington Magnum. Jack O'Connor's name probably should be on this list since his gift of a rifle in .275 H&H Magnum is what sparked Bowman's interest in a 7mm magnum cartridge."

Okay, they screwed up by not leaving off the ridiculous belt. :rolleyes:
 
Any magnum is overrated for most deer in the east anyway, most factory loaded magnum bullets also have jackets that are too heavy for deer. I feel the 30-06 is not overrated but over used. The 06 will put a deer down fast but in my 30+ deer kills no faster than the 257Roberts, 30-30, 270, 280 and even the 243 with the right bullet. Like anything else its all about bullet placement and not over extending your range. I have seen deer shot 3-4 times with a 7mm magnum and yet the hunter never recovered the animal due to poor hits. I can see the use of a Magnum in the vast open plains as longshots aren't uncommon, but bullet selection is still critical. The gun looses velocity and a heavy jacket will not expand properly.

One of the fastest demises I ever saw outside of headshots was a 120lb dressed buck I hit in the boiler room with a 30-30 130gr speer FN, the deer went down like someone hit a switch. I have hit deer in the same place with a 06, 280, 270, 308 and none dropped like this one. The damage was massive in the internal organs. I think due to the velocity and the bullet being designed for 30-30 velocity all the enrgy was deposited in the animal and expansion was textbook. The bullet has to be matched to the game and to the velocity range of impact. Most boattails are more for long range shooting and I have seen some including 30cal. explode at close range impact on deer sized game. I use only flatbase bullets as in N.H. 90% of the shots are under 100yds, out of 30+ deer I have taken only 3 have exceeded 100yds.

I find more young hunters using too much gun due to being influenced by some gunwriters and more so idiot gun salesman who never shot a deer in their life! Walmart for one comes to mind lol. It kind of reminds me of the newbie who has a footlong knife to field dress a deer, they also need a 300 winchester magnum to drop the beast!!!
 
.30s

the .308 Winchester. every time i hear people talk about how wonderful the .308 is i just roll my eyes and walk away.

any modern .30 is too big for deer and the .308 is too small for moose and elk. stop kidding yourself and either buy a .30-06 or a .270
 
I wasn't going to jump into this fray BUT, here I am. I have been at this game for 55yrs. I have killed my share of game animals from the caribou to the moose, from the whitetail to the black bear AND I have seen all of them taken with the 243 win. Check the inuits and see what they pack for heat and money goes it's a 243 win. I have taken Eastern whitetails to 240lbs with a 243 one shot. A 380lb black fell to a 100grs of 243. And I saw a native American alaskan kill a bull moose that went 1400 if he weighed a once with a 100 gr hornady handload with one shot to the neck. So if you please, a little respect for a great little rifle LOL My Two Cents Trapperl
 
From Remington's Ballistic Table, 150 grn. soft-point Core-Lokt round:

ENERGY (ft-lbs) .270, .308, .30-06
Muzzle 100 200 300 400 500
.270 Remington Express 150 SP CL 2705 2087 1587 1185 872 639
.308 Remington Express 150 PSP CL 2648 2137 1705 1344 1048 810
.30-06 Remington Express 150 PSP CL 2820 2281 1827 1445 1131 876

As you can see, the .308 is really close to the other calibers in foot pounds of energy. I hope that it will not be "too big" for deer, and if the .308 can't kill elk or moose, then it looks like the .270 and the .30-06 will be insufficient, too.
 
You don't really judge the practicality of a cartridge by what is possible, but by what is probable.

At one time, the biggest bear on record was taken by an Alaskan Native girl with a .22 single shot, at arm's length in a berry patch, catching the bear unawares. The barrel was under six inches fromt the bear's ear when she fired. I am sure this girl didn't spend the rest of her life scoffing at anyone using a centerfire cartridge on Alaskan Brown bears, because their are plenty of stories of rimfire vs. big bear, most without a happy ending, unless you are the bear.

One of the biggest moose shot in Canada during one season was shot by a guide who had a rusty .30-30 with no front sight on it anymore. I don't think this condemns anyone who has a scope or front sight, because there are more misses and failures with unsighted rifles than successes.

Plain flat out, a .243 and a 7mm Magnum can both kill deer and elk, but they are not equal. A 7mm Remingon Magnum is going to give you better odds of success at longer ranges, windier days, and bigger animals. If you pluck off 400 pound deer at 900 yards with a .243 during a gale wind with surprising regularity, then you should be able to shoot 500 pounders at 1200 yards during a hurricane with the same fantastic results, unless a 7mm Remington Magnum intimidates you from shooting as well. It is bigger and faster, period. It drops less, drifts less, and gets their faster with more foot pounds. That doesn't matter most of the time, but it will matter some of the time.
Now, in some situations, the 7mm Remington Magnum will have to go to the back of the bus while a better suited cartridge for the task at hand is called upon, let's say pelt hunting coyotes at long ranges. Then the .243 will be the star.
 
NO,NO,NO. a 55 gn HPBT fired from a 22-250 with a MV of 3500 fps is the ONLY acceptable round for pelt hunting coyotes at long distance. Thats it period (.).
Seems the debate will rage on for a while longer. Use enough gun, but not too much. Is that the answer?
~z
 
I officially say use whatever legal gun gives you the greatest satisfaction.

I always thought the 6mm Remington was a distinguished looking cartridge, and it took the first coyote I ever called and one of the biggest does I have ever shot. If I had the money, I would buy a second one, a Ruger.

Actually, I think I will be hunting with a H&R Ultra Slug Gun Hunter this year, as I will then have access to several pieces of public land closed to rifles and pistols. They sell them at Wal-Mart for $217, and I am just short a little over $200 of acquiring it :rolleyes:
 
Use enough gun, but not too much. Is that the answer?
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I think it is, it's just not a very precise answer. "Use the gun that's right for you , and for the hunting you do" would be my take on it - doesn't pin it down much better, really, does it?

The logical conclusion of saying there is no such thing as too much gun, and that the hitting power of larger magnum calibres can compensate for less than adequate shot placement, is that we should all be using artillery rounds. That way, even if our shot placement was off by a couple of yards, we should still have adequate stoppping power.

Clearly that is nonsense. Even the magnum brigade don't suggest using 50BMG or artillery rounds on deer, so they obviously do accept the concept of too much gun - they just set the bar a bit higher in terms of calibre than I would.

Now, if someone says to me that they prefer to use a 7mm or 300 Mag on deer, and if they can shoot it accurately, I will say to them "de gustibus non est disputandum"* and happily accept it. The problem I have is with people who CAN'T shoot these calibres properly but still insist on using them. There are plenty of reasons why people would do that: bigger must be better, it's macho to use a magnum, more power can't hurt, the salesman/gun magazine told them they needed one, plus the whole collateral damage argument. And it makes a REALLY BIG BANG when it goes off, so perhaps if I just point it in approximately the right direction the deer will drop with fright.

Here's a thing I've noticed, here in the UK. Over the last few years, sound moderators have become widely used on deer rifles. Guess what? People who have fitted them say they improve accuracy. By reducing the report (and to a large extent the recoil) of their full bore rifles to something approximating a .22 rimfire, they are finding them gentler to shoot and thus shooting much better. That's true even at the lower end of the calibre spectrum, down at the .243 end of things. There is a culture shock effect from using a sound moderator, however. The rifle doesn't SOUND powerful enough to kill a deer. Thankfully, ballistics are unaffected.

There is a conclusion to all this, and here it is: recoil and muzzle blast affect everyone's field shooting, perhaps to a greater degree than they would recognize or acknowledge. Deer are not particularly difficult to kill, and magnum power is not essential to do the task. Bullet placement is key, and for most people this is facilitated by using a rifle which doesn't kick hard or boom too loudly.

Use enough gun, but not too much. And enough gun might be less than you think.


* To save you looking it up:
De gustibus non est disputandum - There's no arguing matters of taste
 
Deer Caliber

Hunted quite a bit with a Son-in-law, he used a Remington
autoloading 30-06 I'd have given my eye teeth for. I used a Mini-14 in .223.......Everything either of us shot at dropped either on the spot or very nearby.

Now skinning them was a different proposition, those he killed with the 06 were a nasty mess in the shoulder,heart lung area to skin out. Mine were clean but I prefer a .30 caliber whether its a 30-30, 30-40 Krag, or 30-06 and I will add Sks 7.62X39 .
 
What I see here is some confusion as to the meaning of 'over rated'. Inappropriate, mis applied, under or over gunned does not mean 'over rated'.
Many cartridge examples offered in this thread are more about using the wrong gun in the wrong place, than about being held in higher esteem than a given cartridge merits.

Now the .35 Remington is over rated. I could not tell you the folks down South that think the Remmy has mystical killing power.

Using a .300 WinMag on whitetails is over gunned. There is a difference.

I think placing the 30-30 in the 'over rated' category is certainly incorrect also. Where I hunt, and keeping within the cartridges performance envelope, I find that its just about ideal.
 
"Recoil Phenom"

If recoil is such a problem, why not try the modern day version of a "kick pad", the LIMBSAVER? It works for me!!
TWK
 
to UK

Uk, You and I seem to be saying the same thing only differently. I do not say the 243 win is the ideal cartridge for every game animal or occasion. I do however say, that in the hands of the right person it will do all that is asked of it. I have heard through out this thread terms that should not be in a true riflemans or sportsmans vocabulary. Margin of error? will not penetrate a ham? 400yds in a gale? Drops too much? Me thinks more time should be spent knowing when not to shoot than hopeing we have enough gun in our hands to compensate for our short comings in the precision bullet placement dept. No offense meant just my two cents Trapper
 
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