My father has taken several deer with a 410, and my uncle got a nice 8 pointer with the same gun back in the 70's. Neither my dad or my uncle were real keen on big game hunting though, they were mostly small game hunters. Hence, why they didn't have anything larger. Dad finally moved up to the 12 gauge when his eye sight got bad about 10 years ago.

I think the 410 will work fine, but I wouldn't start anyone out on it for deer. The first gun I ever deer hunted with was a 20 gauge.