Yeah, the thing with me is, I started out opposite than most...My first deer hunting gun was a slug barrel for the shotgun I already had. We were robbed and it was stolen that winter. We didn't have money to blow on a deer rifle with other priorities, so Dad bought me a ML on clearance for $85 that next summer. Ive hunted with it ever since. Only 3-4 years after I started deer hunting did I buy a high powered rifle. I went from ML to High powered rather than high powered to ML. I killed one deer with my .270 (at 30 yards) and that was the year before I started bowhunting...now, I doubt I'll ever use my deer rifle again.

I've always hunted with a ML inplace of a rifle, it's just the way we did it. A ML these days IS a rifle, heck they are good to 200-250 with the right load....I just liked that smoke cloud and waiting for it to clear in order to determine success.