It would be a good backup deer gun, if it was left back up at the house, back up on the rack. If any other ordinary deergun is available I'd use it first.

If I had a 25-20 and I wanted to take a deer with it for sentimental reasons or whatever, I would do it. ButI would severely limit the range and the kind of shots I took.

Ithink that the Jordan Buck, the record typical whitetail for quite a while,was taken with a 25-20. That deer took more than 1 bullet before it fell, and even after it was suspected dead it flopped enough to fall into a river. It was recovered some distance downstream.