For whitetail I LOVe the 7mm-08. Never had a problem w. it and it's extremely light. Now, for fun I like a .50 muzzleloader.........[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

I am shooting a remington 700 bdl lss with 7mm rem mag. Still getting used to the caliber but love it so far. I changed over from a .300 sav. that was my dads that I also really liked.

 

I ussually hunt in thick brush where a 50 yd shot is a long shot so under these conditions hands down the 30-30 with open sights

 

I use a 788 Remington in.308 with a 1 3/4 to 4 1/2 Bushnell wide angle scope.

 

458 Winchester![img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-shocked.gif[/img][img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img] J/K Actually I will name the only one I have ever used the few years I hunted several years ago: Marlin 35 Remington. Good Brush Gun![img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img] My dad and older brothers use the following: 308 Winchester, 270, Smith and Wesson 30-06.

 

All of this talk about bullet placement being the only thing that matters is such bull. The problem with shooting the .22 caliber
centerfires is until just a few years ago no-one made a bullet tough enough to consistently reach the vitals of a deer.
When I was in the military during marksmanship training they made a point to tell us that when switching from the .308 to the .223
one of the reasons for this was that on the battlefield if you kill a soldier thats take one combatant out of the action but if you wound him
that takes roughly three out of the picture. Now where I am going with this is more than once I have come across carcasses of deer shot
in the shoulder and the wound channel is 6 inches across but only 2 inches deep. Sure if that little bullet makes it between those ribs or gets by that shoulder it will do the job. I for one am not a fan of watching deer hit near the vitals run off to die a slow death. That's why I shoot a 7 mag. To me there is no such thing as overkill, if I waste 5 lbs of venison that is still better than losing 150 lbs of it due to an improper bullet selection.
If recoil is why full grown men shoot little varmint guns then why don't those same people ride e-ton 50's instead of big boy bikes?

 

243 or 30.06 but i really want a 300 weatherby mag

 

7mm Mag! One gun for jsut about any big game situation.

 

Do you guys hunt illegilly or is your rules different than ours?? We have to use a shotgun to hunt deer, unless it is muzzleloader season. I use a remmington 12 gauge shotgun, and I shoot 2 3/4" slugs. I also have a laser dot scope(doesn't actually put a dot on the animal, but just in the scope). Man it must be nice to hunt with those kind of guns....that is if it is legal, which I imagine it is.

 

I used to hunt in Iowa, then I had to use a 12 gauge too. Same thing with my land in southern Minnesota; MN is all shotgun area from south of I94 and Hwy 210 I believe. The reason is that the land is so flat and there are a lot of hunters out there so they want to keep the bullets from flying all over the place.

Shotgun hunting can be a lot of fun too, just get yourself a rifled barrel and shoot some sabot slugs, you will be accurate at 125 yards. Even a rifled choke would help a lot. Iowa has some monster bucks...