A while back someone posted about rifles for deer hunting in Pa. There were many replies and many suggestions, most were very well explained. Some I do not understand, such as a few people said not to use the "magnum crap". They said too much meat damage. One poster even went so far as to recomend a 45-70 but stay away from the 300 magnums because they would ruin to much meat. My question to these posters is how many of you have ever shot a deer with a magnum and what would you consider a magnum cartridge. I am not saying everyone has to use a magnum to kill a deer but they do have their place. As far as meat damage goes they will not tear up a deer any worse than a standard round when used correctly. What I mean by this is I can shoot a deer on the shoulder with a 150gr. ballistic tip out of my 30-06 and loose more meat than shooting a deer BEHIND the shoulder with a 180gr. Partition out of my 300 Wby. The key to less meat damage is the right bullet placed in the right spot on the deer. If you dont want any meat damage shoot them in the head. Another comment made was that the magnums will blow through the deer and are just wasting energy. Most any round will shoot through a deer. If a bullet is producing 3200 foot pounds of energy when it hits the deer, the deer is still absorbing 3200 foot pounds with or without the bullet exiting. I would like to hear from other people who have accually used different rounds to shoot deer and hear if their results match mine because I understand every situation is different. I am not doing this post to say others dont know what they are talking about, but I think some people post on limited experience and just reply on what they think should happen. If you choose to reply please give details, caliber, bullet style and weight, distance and were the bullet hit.