One of the issues that i dont think many people have thought about, granted i didnt read every single post, is "what if i dont get a good shot off". Now, im sure many people are excellent shooters, but EVERYBODY gets a bad shot off atleast once, and if you havent, then you will eventually. Now when that happens, you want a round that is gonne do enough damage to hopefully do more than just wound the deer. So, knowing that eventually im gonna have a bad shot on a deer, regardless of my skill level, i want it to be with a large enough round that even though it might be off the mark a little, its gonna do enough damage to do more than just hurt it. With a 22-250 or a 223, I couldnt say that i would feel comfortable enough taking a shot knowing that if i didnt hit him just perfectly right(which is gonna eventully happen to everyone) that it wouldnt down him quickly and permanently. I would prefer to always have more gun than neccessary because eventually you are gonna make a bad shot and the only thing in your favorwill be having a large enough round to pick up the job where you couldnt come through (ie. do enough damage to make up for your bad shot). I cant see anything worse than shooting an animal and doinglittlemore thancreating an animal that is gonna hobble and be in pain for the rest of his life because I wanted to hunt with a gun that i knew would do little more than injur the deer if i didnt hit it perfectly.

However, all of us will eventually make a bad enough shot to where the size of the round prolly wouldnt make much of a difference...
I shot a beautiful buck with afriends 270 that he said he had sighted in.He didnt tell me that he sighted it into only hit paper at100 yards (not even sure if thats true) and so obviouslyall i did to the deer was wound it at 169 yards. Searched for 2 days for the deer andnever found anything but a chunk of meat from the location where he was shot at. I could have KILLED my friend for that. From that day on I have decided that I would do everything i could to keep from just wounding another animal. Best way i see that happening is to use more gun than neccessary and toshoot only your gun that you sighted in and are comfortable shooting. Leave guesswork to other people who dont know better.