Our Legendary Shooting Editor Explains Why Bigger Deer Cartridges Aren’t Better

This story was originally published in the October 1978 issue of Outdoor Life.  

Not far from my boyhood home in the green valleys of East Tennessee there once lived a man who fancied himself as something of a deer hunt­er. By all accounts, he was a rather ordinary man and much given to gentleness and hard work. He was the sort of man you’d like as a neigh­bor except for one peculiar quirk. At the time of year when the swollen necks of antlered deer mark the beginning of their ageless rite, he raged like a man possessed by de­mons. 

I once encountered him in this state and, unwarned of his condition, committed the error of asking him if he’d had luck on deer so far. He fixed me with his fiery eyes and skewered my chest with a bony finger. 

“Hit one smack in the heart I did,” he rasped, ”Not an inch more than 50 yards, but he just looked at me and danced off as well as you are. But I’m ready for the next one.” Then, stepping closer and whispering as if sharing a forbidden secret, he said, “I’ve ordered me one of them three hunnert H. and Holland Man­grums like they shoot lions and elephants with. Next deer I shoot at I aim to cut him a dusty.” 

That was the last time I saw him. The next spring he bought a farm in Alabama and moved there. I’d all but forgotten him until several years later when I was hunting in Alabama and heard about some wild farmer in the next county who hunted deer with a .458 Winchester Magnum. 

My guess is he was the same fellow I’d known before. He had been struck with a classic case of what I call the Iron Deer Syndrome.

Iron Deer Syndrome 

This syndrome is especially insid­ious because it feeds on the weak­nesses of its victims. Here’s how it works. A deer hunter goes into the woods with a brand-new firearm that he believes to be (and actually is) a dandy little whitetail rifle. Let’s say it’s a .30/30. He gets an easy shot at a standing buck — the biggest he’s ever seen. He misses. He misses because the rifle was not sighted in, because he is a poor shot or out of practice, because of buck fever, or simply because he closed his eyes and flinched when he jerked the trigger. 

In his own mind there was no way he could have missed. The deer was just too close to miss, the shot too easy. So he looks for another expla­nation for why the big buck ran away. 

The caliber! That’s it,” he tells himself. “That rifle ain’t got enough power to kill a big deer.” So far as he’s concerned the matter is settled. Next year he’ll use a bigger, more powerful, harder-kicking rifle. And he does. He sees another big deer, aims, flinches, and misses again. His­tory repeats itself. 

I’ve preached this sermon before and I’ll preach it again: Where a bullet hits a deer is more important than the size, shape, or velocity of the bullet. 

No Sure Kills 

I get a lot of mail from deer hunt­ers telling heartbreaking tales about the big buck that got away, and asking me to recommend a cartridge or bullet that will always drop a deer like a poleaxed ox. The sad truth is that there’s no sporting cartridge you’d want to shoot that will unfail­ingly kill a deer in its tracks even when the bullet hits in the heart/ lung area. True, most well-hit deer go down where they stand, or take only a few steps, but there are always ex­ceptions. 

A few years ago when hunting whitetails in the Northeast, I came across a good buck and two does feeding at the edge of a stand of timber about 150 yards away. They were moving slowly, so I took a solid rest and carefully aimed my .270 where I judged the top of the buck’s heart would be. When I fired, all three deer whirled and ran into the cover. The buck looked as if he’d been hit, but he was moving fast. I found him dead in the brush about 70 yards from where he had been when I fired. The 130-grain bullet had done a beautiful job. The heart was all but detached from the major blood vessels, and the lungs were in shreds. 

Another time I hit a big mule deer buck twice with 250-grain slugs from my .338 Winchester Magnum. The buck appeared to be completely un­harmed, and he trotted nearly 200 yards before collapsing. Another time I raked a buck through the chest with a 175-grain bullet from a 7mm Remington Magnum. He went about 50 yards before piling up. 

A hunting pal of mine dotes on the power of his big .35-caliber magnum wildcats, but when I question him about a particular trophy mule deer head in his den he always hedges and changes the subject. It took more than one shot from his cannon to kill that buck, but how many he won’t say. 

All of these were unspooked deer well hit with great cartridges, but for some reason none went down as if the world had been jerked out from under them. True, they were easily found. But the point I’m making is that no sporting rifle or cartridge com­bination guarantees you an instant kill even when the bullet is right on target. (You can drop a deer instant­ly by hitting it in the brain or sever­ing the neck vertebra or the back­bone, but these are relatively difficult targets and you are more likely to miss altogether).

Don’t be discouraged by these examples of deer bounding away after being hit solidly with powerful rifles. A far larger percentage of the deer I’ve hit properly died where they stood. Any deer hit in the heart or lungs is going to go down before he goes very far. With either the heart or lungs ruptured by a bullet, the animal cannot live more than several seconds or a minute or so at the most. We’ve all heard stories about deer that ran miles and got away after being hit in the heart or lungs. This takes us back to the Iron Deer Syndrome; such deer are poorly hit, if at all. 

There are any number of car­tridges that offer all the “knock-down power” a whitetail deer hunter could ever hope for. These range from the zippy little .243 Winchester through such stump busters as the .45/70. Old favorites such as the .30/30, .300 Savage, and .35 Remington are still excellent choices and come in a good selection of rifles. Late-comers such as the .308 Winchester and .358 Winchester-likewise have established themselves as long-run favorites. 

Bullet Placement 

Once a deer hunter realizes that no cartridge contains a magic potion, and finds out that bullet placement, not horsepower, gives the best odds, he becomes a better, more successful hunter. The trick is to choose a rifle that gets you on target quickly and easily and one that you can shoot with confidence. 

For several years now I’ve doted on a trim little pre-’64 Model 70 Winchester stocked by Clayton Nel­son and rebarreled to .280 Reming­ton. This rifle has starred in a number of my hunting articles, ap­parently causing a lot of readers to think I’m touting the .280. 

But this rifle would be just as good, and would have killed as much game, in any of several other calibers. The reason I have been so successful with this rifle is because it points like a custom-fitted English shotgun, and it reliably sends the bullet in the direc­tion it’s aimed. I have confidence in that rifle, and that’s what any deer hunter needs—confidence in his rifle and confidence in his ability to use it. 

This confidence comes from using a rifle you are comfortable with. This is why the really great whitetail deer rifles of the past several generations have been those that are especially light to carry, fast to aim, and easy to shoot. The rifle design is always more important than the cartridge in a great deer rig. The old favorite .30/30, for example, is a successful deer cartridge because it has been chambered in the Model 94 Winchester, Marlin’s Model 336, and the Savage Model 99 lever-action carbines. All are really terrific close­-range deer rifles that make just about any adequate caliber look good. 

Read Next: Where to Shoot a Deer

The “Brush Busters” Myth

The great brush bullet myth is just that—a myth. True, some calibers give more reliable performance in brush than others. But some of the rounds traditionally known as “brush busters” tend to be the poorest per­formers when called on to drill through thick cover on their way to the target. Unless you intend to carry a .577 Nitro Express loaded with 750-grain slugs, you may as well forget about any cartridge being able to bulldoze timber. The best brush busters are rifles that are accurate and shootable enough to enable you to miss the twigs and hit the deer.

Tramping through the woods with a 10-pound rifle has never been the cleverest way of showing one’s strength or deer-hunting savvy. Tests and observations among highly skilled competitive riflemen have shown that fatigue plays a big role in marksmanship. After carrying a nine or 10-pound rifle for five hours, you aren’t as likely to hit where you aim if the rifle had weighed only six or seven pounds. 

Likewise, you can forget any ad­vantages long barrels are supposed to have over stubby ones. The accuracy difference between long and short tubes is surprisingly slight. That’s why I favor the 18 ½-inch carbine versions of Remington’s Model 7 42 autoloader and Model 760 pump over the longer-barreled versions of the same models. It always seems that the last inch or so of barrel gets in the way or snags brush when you’re trying to fire. 

Since the Winchester Model 94 lever-action carbine has made itself the standard by which all deer rifles are judged, it is also the logical stan­dard for comparing overall length. With a 20-inch barrel, its total length from buttplate to muzzle is 37¾ inches. The little Ruger Model 44 carbine is an inch shorter, and most other carbines are an inch or two longer. Rifles much longer than 40 inches overall are too long for effective handling in close quarters. 

Read Next: The Best Deer Hunting Cartridges

Some bolt-action rifles fall into the carbine category. The Remington Model 788 is only 41 ¾ inches over­all, even with its 22-inch barrel. I once owned a sweet little bolt-action Mannlicher that measured only 38 inches overall. Weighing a few ounces under seven pounds and chambered for the snappy 6.5×54 Mannlicher cartridge, this was my hands-down favorite deer rifle until I went back to college to get a master’s degree and had to sell it to keep my belly from nibbling at my backbone. 

Lastly, practice, practice, practice. If you own only one box of 20 shells, practice with 15 of them. The re­maining five will perform a lot better.