You might be singing a different song about the 6.5x55 SOON. Your right though as far as the 7mm-08 goes its a good one too. His list of choices are all some of my favorites except for the 7 Mag which is a fine caliber but I found them much more than I enjoyed using for Whitetail. The 08's are about as good as it gets. Thats the 260, 7mm-08 and 308. The 6.5 is in the same class as is the 270. I always have to say though that nothing is BETTER than the 270 for deer. The 280 would of course fill the same need. My hard head won't accept the 243 for deer.