I' m with the NO crowd on this one. While the 22-250 has taken deer and is capable, that doesn' t mean that it is a good cartridge for the job. A .22LR will kill a deer IF you can put it in the right spot, but that certainly doesn' t mean that it' s a good deer cartridge. With a 22-250 you are handicapping yourself needlessly. To hunt deer with a 22-250 you' ll want to step up to at least a 60gr+ grain bullet, which means that the blazing speed of the cartridge won' t be there. Most 22-250' s are designed to shoot 40-55grain bullets and are rifled for that purpose, meaning that the rifle might not stabilize the longer heavier bullets at the slower velocities and accuracy could suffer.

Some argue recoil as a factor, but I' d counter that a .243Win or a 6mm Rem with a 85 grain bullet won' t kick that much harder than the 22-250 to be a serious factor to accuracy, and you get quite a bit more cross-sectional area (i.e. bigger hole) than a .224 bullet.

When it comes right down to it, I think that one is doing the deer and the rest of the hunting community an injustice by selecting a less than adequate cartridge for the job. I don' t care how good a shot one thinks they are, there is always the possibility that one won' t make that perfect shot and the deer will be forced to suffer a needlessly extended and painful death and may never be found. Secondly, avoidably wounding animals because the cartridge just wasn' t quite good enough gives the rest of us hunters a bad name. I' ve noticed that when debates like this come up, there are always a few people who advocate the small calibers who think they' re a cross between Annie Oakley and Carlos Hathcock. If you genuinely are an outstanding master marksman and have the superhuman patience and discipline to wait for the " perfect" shot to present itself, then by all means use whatever caliber you want as long as it' s legal. But if you have ANY DOUBT WHATSOEVER as to your skill , then please go with a cartridge that gives you a reasonable margin for error.

I say get the 22-250 to practice with and become a good shot and maybe to take a coyote or groundhog or two, then get a more suitable rifle to hunt the bigger animals with. One only has to shoot the hunting rifle a few times a year, and one never feels the recoil when they' ve got a deer in their crosshairs, so there is no reason not to shoot a gun that is a little more forgiving of a slightly misplaced shot. If you want more challenge when deer hunting, take up muzzleloader or bowhunting rather than hunting with a poor choice for a centerfire deer rifle.

Mike