One thing that I don't believe many hunters give enough thought to is the bullet used, it's construction and it's weight within a given caliber.....Making a blanket statement that a larger caliber with a heavier bullet gives more penetration is just not true...

One example is the 30-06 150 gr Winchester Silver Tip...A friend of mine used this for many years and seldom got an exit hole with lung shots on deer...He has since moved to a .243 and uses the Hornady Custom 100gr InterLokt and always gets an exit on lung shot deer...

Now, you can also have too much penetration because a bullet is too hard for the application, this will give you longer tracking jobs on lung shot deer...Because the bullet is "harder" than needed you have a long, narrow wound channel through the deer so it doesn't do as much internal damage....

I think this is one reason that some guys keep getting a larger caliber...They shoot a deer or two, the deer runs further than they think it should and decide if they had a larger diameter bullet the deer will drop faster...

Until you kill several deer with various bullet in the caliber you choose then you really don't have a good idea as to the effectiveness of the caliber.....

I've even had guys diss one caliber and not even be able to tell you what grain or type bullet that they used....

I really think discussing different calibers for deer is a waste of time, unless you include bullets that have been used effectively into the discussion....

In addition, the ranges that you anticipate having your shots should also be considered...If 90% of your shots are within 100 yards, then you need to look at the harder bullets....If they run 150-300 yards, then something like a boat tailed ballistic tip or one of the softer boat tail soft points will usually give you shorter tracking jobs....