So you want a new Deer Rifle, huh?

[shaman]

You can't beat the Savage 110 for a good deal. The ones with the Accu-Trigger are easily the most accurate new rifle for the money.  KYHillChick has one in '06 that she uses to shoot milk jugs at 400 yards.  I've heard some people malign them, but the arguments come down to  "they're not a Remington."  In all honesty, you'd have to add about $200 in custom 3rd party add-ons to get a stock 700 BDL to the level the Savage 110 is out of the box. 

Savage sells a package deal with a scope already mounted, but I have to say KYHillChick's scope fell apart this summer, and I had to replace it.  I'm big on Bushnell Banner scopes for a cheap solution. For most uses, I like the 1.5-4.5X -- I've never had one fail in 27 years. 

That's the new and shiny route.  I actually prefer the used route.  Used 30-06 rifles are going to be cheaper than some chamberings, because the round is so ubiquitous. 

[Massdeer]

Shaman,
 
Thanks for the recommendation, the information and reviews I've read on the Savage seem good.  I found a dealer that has them new for about $540.  I figure I'll pick one up and if I get a season out of the scope I will be happy and pick up a better quality scope in the spring.  Thanks again.

[shaman]

I'm still waiting to hear how this Savage package did.  Send pictures.

If you see John Kerry out in the woods, crawling  around in the dirt with his shotgun, do me a favor and kick him in the ass and tell him to get off the ground.  You can tell him I put you up to it.

[mightyfofaad]

The Shaman: So you want a new Deer Rifle, huh?

As usual, you cover a subject so well, there isn't much to add. However ... you knew there was going to be a "However" coming ... there are many beginners & strangely people who have been at it for awhile who really have little to no knowledge of ballistics whatsoever.

Therefore, I'm afraid that your joke: "Although I do not recommend this practice, a 25 ACP will kill a deer." could give some folks the wrong impression about the most useless cartridge ever produced. Inasmuch as it is a center fire cartridge, most folks don't realize it has literally half the power of a .22 LR round.

Yes, you could probably kill a deer with a .25 ... if you held it tightly behind it's ear before pulling the trigger ... and you still might have to chase it!

I mention this because folks actually buy these guns for defense & your joke leaves somewhat of an impression that this worthless cartridge has a place in this world.

Good luck to all. [:)]

[Mlong84]

I agree. It doesnt have to be a super fast magnum or a Monster Bore shoulder cannon. Im a young man in my mid-twenties. I have killed deer with most of the standard cartridges built off of the .30-06 case. some with the .308 family of cartridges. And one with the old .45-70 Government. I will admit that I own a 7mm Rem Mag and a .300 WSM and never hunted with either. But when it comes time to get serious about deer hunting I grab either My .30-06 or my .30-30.

[buckfarmdude]

ORIGINAL: cdn1

 If you are legally allowed to use a .30cal then do so. Not that the .243 isn't capable just that the 30cal is alittle more effecient in its ablity to remove a ungulates will to live. Which
in some cases is quite extreme.
Cdn1

I don't want to be a thread-hijacker, but I feel I must state my case about this post.

With all due respect, a .243 is an awesome deer caliber. The one I use is a Rem Model Seven. This gun has killed countless deer in the last ten years (we're talking rugged Maine deer here). Deer have dropped dead in their tracks and the hands of this gun out beyond 170 yards. I've done it, my brother has done it, my sister has done it, and the list goes on. It's low recoil, which makes it extremely shooter friendly.

I bought a new rifle this year. Remington 700 .308 SPS. It has the SuperCell recoil pad, which is just plain the best in the history of the universe. I went with the .308 because I like it's versatility. I could hunt bear or even moose if I want to. And you can say that I'd be under gunning moose, but when a .243 does what it does to deer, a .308 can do the same to moose; it all comes down to shot placement. 

BTW, the SPS is a great budget rifle, too. I paid $512 for it on gunbroker.com, brand spankin new.

[mightyfofaad]

ORIGINAL: buckfarmdude


I don't want to be a thread-hijacker, but I feel I must state my case about this post.

With all due respect, a .243 is an awesome deer caliber. The one I use is a Rem Model Seven. This gun has killed countless deer in the last ten years (we're talking rugged Maine deer here). Deer have dropped dead in their tracks and the hands of this gun out beyond 170 yards. I've done it, my brother has done it, my sister has done it, and the list goes on. It's low recoil, which makes it extremely shooter friendly.

I agree. Never owned a .243, but two of my shooting buddies did. I've shot the gun at the range & it's very user friendly.

They both used to shoot Rem Exp 80 gr HP's but they tended to blow up at close range. They both switched to Rem Exp 100 gr Core-Lokts PSP's which really seem to do the job & are wallet friendly.

I've met a lot of hunters who consider the .243 the best deer rifle. Of course there are many good deer guns.

[shaman]

I would also agree that the .243 WIN is a great deer killer.   The only thing that makes me wary of it is how many people who own them seem so interested in the subjects of premium bullets and bullet failures.

Any centerfire rifle cartridge will kill a whitetail.   If you look towards the middle of that spectrum you see the .308 bores.  If you go up or down from that you can see the trade-offs in things like velocity, energy,  effective range, recoil, etc.    Deer are similar to humans in size.  That which kills humans well at a given range also can kill a deer.  If you look at what the world's engineers came up with in the late 19th century as a response to smokeless powder, you can see pretty much the epitome of not only military cartridges but also  deer killing cartridges.   However, they were predicated on a bunch of things we as hunters do not generally have to face. We don't have to worry about load weight-- we carry only a handful of rounds.  We don't have to worry about the other side firing back.  Somewhere in all of that, the world's armies mostly armed themselves with something close to a 7.62mm rifle.

I'm not saying the .30 calibers are IT.  I'm not saying 30-06 or 300 Savage are IT.  What I'm trying to do is establish a continuum with these sorts of rifle calibers at the center.  It is isn't the best-- it's just a convenient starting place.   From there, you can talk about the trade-offs.  One guy wants more velocity and is willing to trade bullet mass for it. He buys a 25-06.  The next guy wants lots of mass and doesn't care about anything else. He goes and buys a 45-70. By the time you get down to the .243/6mm  realm, you have optimized about as far as you can go for light recoil and flat trajectory.   What is given up is bullet mass and retained energy at a distance.  Does this make 243 WIN weak?  No. Does it kill deer? Yes.   It is the single best selling deer cartridge in Britain.  I'm not going to try and take on that crowd.

Me?  I  generally stick in the middle.  I am also a reloader  and  I frequently knock off a few grains to make my 30-something rifles recoil less and cost less to produce, but still take deer.  Flat?  What do I care about flat?  I have a hard time seeing out past 100  yards in my cedar woods, so what's flat to me?  My rifles are set to shoot 2" high at 100 yards and they're good to go out to about 225.  That's just fine for me.

.243 WIN.  If I wanted to stick it in a deer's ear at 200 yards, 243 WIN would be a good choice.  I know that, because I have a neighbor who likes to do just that.  If  I were shooting my Savage 99, I'd have to be absolutely sure of the distance-- from 200 to 220 yards the bullet would be sinking 3 inches.  On the other hand, I once shot a deer at 5 yards with a 30-06 180 grain.  It was freak thing, a doe ran into the path of the shot on a buck as I was pulling the trigger.  Not only did the bullet hold together, but it went from just under the tail all the way through and came out between the shoulder blades, carrying a couple vertebrae with it-- all this without disrupting the innards.  Fluke?  Yes.  Do I deliberately go out and take Texas Heart Shots?  No.  Please, hold the flames-- it was my first deer.  My point is simply that in the vast array of what's out there for deer, everyone has trade-offs. 

While I'm on this, have a look at the 358 WIN. It is what you get if you go to the other end of the spectrum from the .243 WIN.   It's what you can do with a .308 WIN case stretched in the other direction.  Where the .243 necks it down to take a 6mm bullet.  The .358 WIN stretches the case to take a .358 bullet (same as a .357 magnum pistol or a 350 Rem Mag)   Look at what that buys you versus what it costs.  The .243 WIN is a light round that will double as a varmint load.  The .358 WIN is a deep woods deer killer, the 35 REM on steroids, and is not under-powered even for elk or bear.  It has lots more retained energy, but it sacrifices flatness.   Instead of a deer/varmint load you have a deer/bear sort of thing going on.  By the way, I load my one rifle in 35 Whelen to mimic the .358 WIN-- it's an awesome deer killer too.

[shaman]

Therefore, I'm afraid that your joke: "Although I do not recommend this practice, a 25 ACP will kill a deer." could give some folks the wrong impression about the most useless cartridge ever produced. Inasmuch as it is a center fire cartridge, most folks don't realize it has literally half the power of a .22 LR round.

I quite agree.  This dates back years. There was a guy on a forum somewhere that had successfully killed a deer with a 25 ACP.   The forum turned on him like bad cottage cheese, despite his claim that it had been a bang-flop kill.  The fact of the matter is it is possible, but not recommended.   It's always in interesting anecdote to bring up when someone starts bloviating about how a 300 Win Mag should be the minimum acceptable deer round.

There are a bunch of cartridges out there that just aren't fit for deer-- if for no other reason than nobody likes the idea.  Yeah, you can do it, but. . .  One of the classics is 45 ACP.  Another I saw was a video somebody had taken of hunting deer with a 12-pounder Napolean civil war cannon.  Yeah, it'll drop one, but please do me the favor and don't start a thread on D&DH talking about it.

One other anecdote about the 25 ACP:  Back in the mid-fifties there was a murder one night outside of Music Hall here in Cincinnati.  Symphony was letting out. A gang of ruffians started picking on a little old blue-haired lady trying to get to her car.  She pulled out a pearl-handled 25 auto pistol from her clutch purse and emptied it into one of the assailants and then put it back in her purse and disappeared.  The ruffian fell down dead. Everyone saw it happen, but no one could give a description of the old lady-- she was just that little old lady.  Despite a major row in the paper, the perp was never caught, and the story remained as one of the great unsolved murders of the decade. 

[nhdeerchaser]

ORIGINAL: shaman

Therefore, I'm afraid that your joke: "Although I do not recommend this practice, a 25 ACP will kill a deer." could give some folks the wrong impression about the most useless cartridge ever produced. Inasmuch as it is a center fire cartridge, most folks don't realize it has literally half the power of a .22 LR round.

I quite agree.  This dates back years. There was a guy on a forum somewhere that had successfully killed a deer with a 25 ACP.   The forum turned on him like bad cottage cheese, despite his claim that it had been a bang-flop kill.  The fact of the matter is it is possible, but not recommended.   It's always in interesting anecdote to bring up when someone starts bloviating about how a 300 Win Mag should be the minimum acceptable deer round.

There are a bunch of cartridges out there that just aren't fit for deer-- if for no other reason than nobody likes the idea.  Yeah, you can do it, but. . .  One of the classics is 45 ACP.  Another I saw was a video somebody had taken of hunting deer with a 12-pounder Napolean civil war cannon.  Yeah, it'll drop one, but please do me the favor and don't start a thread on D&DH talking about it.

One other anecdote about the 25 ACP:  Back in the mid-fifties there was a murder one night outside of Music Hall here in Cincinnati.  Symphony was letting out. A gang of ruffians started picking on a little old blue-haired lady trying to get to her car.  She pulled out a pearl-handled 25 auto pistol from her clutch purse and emptied it into one of the assailants and then put it back in her purse and disappeared.  The ruffian fell down dead. Everyone saw it happen, but no one could give a description of the old lady-- she was just that little old lady.  Despite a major row in the paper, the perp was never caught, and the story remained as one of the great unsolved murders of the decade. 

Point of the story is never mess with granny, she might be packing!

Mike