I seen two 2 1/2 yr old eight pointers yesterday with about 17in spreads (On private land of course). I think AR's are a great idea, but I think we are killing most of the buck now before they get antlers instead of shooting little spikes and four pointers. The best year we seen where I hunt was the year after they started AR's. There were a lot of deer and a higher percentage of them were buck. Now that it's been a few years we just don't see any deer. By the way, I'm not whining and I don't want to hear the typical "you need to hunt harder". I realize that the places we have hunted for the last 20 years just don't hold deer anymore. I just think it sucks that my kids are finally old enough to hunt and all the places we hunted when I was a kid are now deerless.