I live in Texas also. I hunt deer in the Hill Country, north of San Antonio/west of Austin, and I use a .243. Nice light recoil, and plenty of pop for the game in our area. Our shots are normally less than 100 yards. Big bucks in our area average about 150 lbs and does run about 100 lbs.

If you plan to hunt South Texas or the Panhandle, the deer tend to be bigger, and the shots longer. The .243would still work, but, you might want a step up. 7mm-08 would probably be ideal there, although I would expect recoil to be pretty similar to the .270. As for what most of the guys shoot in Texas... I was at the rifle range a couple weeks ago, and probably 2/3 of the guys there were shooting .270's.