Man...I hate these kind of posts...I was trying to stay out of this one...
I have killed 130-140 whitetails with a .243...Never lost a one, never gut shot one or shot one in the hams...I have killed them from 3-4 steps under the tree out to 300 yards...As I have stated before, we own 3 farms in eastern NC...Used to see 35-50 deer in our fields...For the past 15 years or so we have taken 40-50 deer a year off these farms...I have killed and seen deer killed with basically everything from a 22-250 to a 300 Win Mag...

I am the one that puts the hunters in the stand, loads up the deer, takes to the barn and skins them, so I get to see the damage done by these cartridges...I'm also the guy that is tracking wounded deer throughthe woods at 10:00 at night when somebody screws up...Guys, It ain't the gun....its the shooter...You will see more difference in bullet types used in any given caliber than by moving up another caliber...When we have a hunter miss (or wound) a deer, we always go to the back 40, I set up a WorkMate, put my Outers rest on and pull up a 5 gal bucket...Most guys can't keep their shots inside of 4 inches...I check the mounts, guns screws, etc...Then I shoot....Usually nothing is wrong with the gun...I can shoot their gun better than they can....Once I have their attention...I get them to shoot again...I set them down and get them to shoot...I put 2 rounds in the gun...Give them some advice on trigger control, breathing etc...And have them shoot those 2...No matter where they hit (I'm looking through the spotting scope) I tell them they are shooting just a little left and I want them to shoot one more, I take the gun, act like I'm adding another round and watch them flinch when they pull the trigger......I bet 60% of deer hunters will flinch when you do this...It has ticked a few guys off...I tell them "I just did you a favor"...There ain't nothing wrong with the gun....I have had 3 hunters give up their larger bores for a .243 and 2 others buy .243s for their daughter and son...

If you spend some time with a young hunter and teach him to shoot and also set them up in a stand where the shots will be no more than 100 yards and have a shooting rest for them and have an experienced hunter in the stand with them to coach them through the shotthey will be fine...I would also suggest that you take them squirrel hunting with a .22 for a few years before you start thinking about teaching them to shoot a high powered rifle...

The 3 deer that I tracked the farthest last year were shot with a .270 and a .270 WSM...They wereall hit too far back...We got lucky and recovered 2...The next day I shot a 3 shot group with the .270 WSM that you could cover with a nickle...The owner couldn't keep them in a 5 inch circle...He did learn during that trip that he has a problem flinching...