What DOES make the perfect deer rifle?

I’ve tried to answer this several times over the past couple of decades. Most of those thoughts ended up on this weblog. The question continues to haunt me. Part of that is that I spent so many years trying to come up with an answer. Part of it is that, as a writer, people kept wanting to know an answer from me. A big part of it is that despite decades of searching and a room full of deer rifles, my answer is still full of qualifications and provisos.

 

Why is that?

Well, the best answer to that question stems from the simple truth that just about any centerfire rifle will kill a whitetail so long as you take proper care.

— THERE! Did you see it? Even that had a proviso stuck in it.

However, it is true. There is no perfect gun or chambering. They’re all good for something. None are good for every circumstance– unless maybe the 30-06

. . .Dang! There I go again.


The other thing is that we are all approaching this from different circumstances and we have different experiences. What works for you may not be what works for me.

Let me examine a few cases for you from my own experience, and maybe you will see what I mean.

Take 30-06 as an example. I was introduced to the sport by a Marine Armorer, a gun writer, and a veteran of The Bulge 40 years ago. Between them, I really did not have much of a choice in picking a 30-06 for my first rifle. It was just what you used. No one else in my family hunted deer, so these fulfilled the role of ersatz crazy uncles in my life.

It was true. If you shot a deer with an ’06, it went down. It went down almost as fast and as using a 12 GA slug. Ah! right there, you can see a bias. I’d started out hunting in Ohio and in those days, hunters were limited to using shotguns. 12 GA slug was the gold standard. 30-06 did as good as a 12 GA slug inside 50 yards and I never had a shot past 50 yards, so 30-06 seemed to be the ultimate whitetail deer cartridge to me.


When I started to think for myself about things, almost 20 years later, I decided 30-30 was a good choice. I had horrible luck with mine. Deer did everything but spit at me. If you lookup 30-30 as a category on this weblog, you’ll currently find over a dozen articles.

30-30 Winchester Articles

If you start at the back and read through it, you’ll find plenty of reason for me to distrust this chambering. Now mind you, I’ve never said a 30-30 was a bad choice for anyone. I just had a rotten experience with it. Here it is, 18 years later, and I’ve still not carried it again. I am working up a new load for a Savage 340 I picked up a few years ago. We will see. I am keeping an open mind.

In the meantime, I’ve tried several other chamberings. Some I bought as a result of years of careful research. Some I picked up on a whim.

Over the years, I have also stretched out more in a lot of ways. I spent my first quarter-century bow hunting out of treestands. Come gun season, I used the same stands. If I was not in a stand, I was pounding the ground in heavy cover. Shots were under 50 yards. A lot were inside 10 yards. After I gave up the bow due to a bum shoulder in 2007, I started expanding my horizons. I also discovered the Garden of Stone– that magic tennis-court size place out in the middle of one of my pastures where deer just loiter around, begging to be shot. The average shot to the GofS is about 150-170 yards. While overlooking the GofS, we’ve taken deer as close as 10 yards and a little past 250 yards. Deer have stuck their heads in the window of the blind.  It is the perfect testing ground for figuring out what works.

So what worked? Well, really everything. There really is no great need to worry.

What have we tried at camp?

30-06
300 Win Mag
35 Whelen
308 WIN
25-06 REM
7.62X54R. . . and a bunch of others

What we have not tried out there are the more limited rounds like 30-30, shotgun slug, 44 Mag. It is not that we don’t think they’re possible. It’s just that we’ve got tried-and-true choices right there and the Garden of Stone is in the middle of a pasture that runs more than 250 yards. You never know what’s going to pop up where. 35 Whelen really did no better over 10 seasons that 30-06. Neither did 308 WIN or any of the others. There is a bias there. You can see it building. I gave my sons each 30-06 Winchester model 70’s when they came of age. When SuperCore first came out, he tried a 30-06 and has stuck mostly with it over his decade out at the JagendeHutte. It all goes back to my days 40 years ago with Bob, Jerry, and John feeding my head with dreams of the 30-06.

So it’s 30-06, right?

Not so fast. Here’s an example of the bias starting to work in a different way. Take 44 Magnum. Bob, the gun writer, died a year ago, and I inherited his Ruger Model 44. Many folks have written that this 44 Mag semi-auto carbine is the ultimate close-in deer gun. The catechism says 44 Mag will do in a deer a little better than 30-30 out to about 80 yards. At this point, 30-30 starts to work better and the 44 Mag starts looking for the dirt. I took Bob’s rifle out last fall and nailed a nice buck with it out of a new stand. Just like that, I had a new favorite. I’ll definitely take it out more. I’m completely sold on the 44 Mag. It is really more limited than the 30-30 except for yardages less than 80 yards. However, I’ve got a data point of exactly 1 and I’m running with it. If my first experiences with 30-30, back in 2002 had been similar, you’d be reading a piece from the biggest 30-30 fanboy out there.

So why am I writing this if none of it makes any real sense, and really everything works?

Let’s say you talk to a buddy and he says 6.5 Creedmoor is the shizz (or 450 Bushmaster, or 350 Legend- whatever) and you think this might be the one for you. Remember the following:

1) They all work, given the right conditions
2) Dig. Question.
3) Be more worried about how this or that works in real-world scenarios.
4) Whitetail fall over pretty easy. You’re not hunting an elk at 500 yards. You’re not going after a grizzly bear.
5) Don’t buy anything that give you “that winning edge.” Nothing substitutes for practice and time afield scouting. Nothing makes up for a bad shot

In the 3 examples I just gave, each have their strengths; each has their warts:

1) The 6.5 Creedmoor is the new long-distance wunderkind, but that is an important qualification. It s better than a lot of others at performing at extreme distances. Most deer are taken by most hunters inside 80 yards. If you see a deer at 300 yards, chances are, you can get closer. At 300 yards, the benefits of the Creed are not even showing yet.
2) 450 Bushmaster is awesome. However, it was built to fit in an AR-type semi. It is legal in PCR states like Ohio. It’s got a wicked punch to it in a bolt gun, and the performance is not going to be significantly better than 44 Mag inside 80 yards.
3) 350 Legend– Yes, it is a cool concept. Again, this was built for AR-type systems and it is legal in Ohio. It is below the 30-30 Win and 35 REM in performance. That may or may not be a problem, but is worth investigating before you hop on the bandwagon.

Ammunition:

I’m going to deal with the question of ammo in a later installment, but let it be said that I have gone nearly 40 years and never lobbed a premium bullet at a whitetail. I used to say go to Walmart and look at what they sell. Then Walmart stopped selling ammo.  The point is, whitetail ammo can be pretty common and cheap and still do the job and then some.  I’ve got outliers on my rack. I have a 35 Whelen that costs $45/box for the cheapest Remmie green-box stuff.  I have a French MAS 36 that shoots stuff I’ve never seen for sale anywhere.  It’s okay. I’ve got brass, and I reload.  However, think twice before you pick a rifle that has $3/round  ammo.  Also, never buy a rifle that requires special ammo. I used to see guys wanting to buy a 300 WIN just so they could shoot Remington Managed Recoil ammo?  Why?  Why not buy a 30-06 and be done with it. The same goes for 7mm Rem Mag.  Buy a 7mm-08 and take your wife out to dinner on the difference.

What it all boils down to is that if you stay in the middle of the road and stay within the operating parameters, any centerfire chambering will work.  To answer the question, the answer is “yes, one of those will do nicely.”

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