oldrookie
My biggest question now is do I setup for Indiana deer with a 250g or 300g projectile? Keep in mind most shots are in semi-cover and 100 yards max.
I am really aware that it does not usually pay to go the opposit direction that Dave suggests but....
I hunt all deer (whitetail or muley)with the 250/260 grain and I do use the 300 grain on elk... one reason the thickness of the hides... at closer ranges the 300 being a physically stronger bullet can get in and out of a deer before it even has a chance to expand to it's fullest. The 240,250,260 bullets are built to expand quickly. The Hornaday 240 has probabaly dispatched more deer than any other bullet @ normal hunting ranges. My choices to 175 yards are always 1. a 260 grain .451 Nosler Partition and 2. the .452 - 250 grain Gold Dot and my third and rising very fast is the 10mm 200 grain Hornady XTP ( I have not been able to strip the lead from the copper with that bullet yet.)
Two years ago - I was elk hunting and a really nice 4x5 whitetail buck walked within fifteen yards of where I was, I normally do not shoot deer during elk season but this one was to nice to pass - so I dropped the Remington right on him, just behind the front shoulder - squeezed off the shot. The buck jumped 5' straight up in the air came down on all fours an ran off at blazing speed in that low crouched running thing they do, went about 30 yards to the north turned a circle an ran right back by where I had shot him and down the draw - get the DOWN part by yhe time i found him he was 200 yards down the draw. Had one really nice45 caliber hole all the way through - clipped a lung and the bottom of the heart & a piece of a rib on the way out. Not much expansion. The bullet was a 300 grain Nosler - that same shot would have done in an elk quickly.
The 250's expand now and create a tremendous hydrostatic shock in the chest cavity - turns everything in their to jello from 25 yards to a 170 yards as I experianced last year.
It is a myth (IMO) that you need to shoot big bullets.... UNLESS you are shooting pure lead then size matters, but with a modern hunting bullet size is not the pre-requisit, I look at velocity and performance.
My vote tune the gun up with the 250 GD for thin skinned animalssuch as deer.... bullets gets there faster and does a lot of internal damage but is pretty easy on the meat.
Altohough all of this is just one guys opinion...