This is truely a matter of opinion. Almost any high power rifle will do the job. I like the middle calibers for all deer up to elk and some will do elk as well. I have taken lots of deer with the 6.5x55 Swedish. The 260 is a modern clone of that old workhorse. I started out with a 30-06 as my first high power rifle. I went through the Magnum phase and splattered deer all over the hillsides. Now due in part to a bad shoulder I have returned to the sanity of the middle ground. I will most likely never fire a rifle bigger that a 270 again but that gun will cleanly take any animal in North America as Jack O'Connor proved many times over.