There are some things here that amaze me. People who think a 223 is a great deer round, but fail to understand the difference between how an arrow kills game, and how a high velocity cartridge kills game. If you do not understand ballistics, then that rules you out as having any qualified opinion on the greatness of a 223 killing big game. While a 223 will kill animals, which no one has questioned, there is the issue of amount of tissue damage, wound channel size, and amount of upset it incurs. While you do need shot placement for even a 300winmag, the size of the wound channel, and expansion, and upset are such, that there is a much larger area affected by a bullet vs the 223. What this means in plain terms, the 223 does not do much damage beyond the size of its expanded bullet, making the margin of error small, and a small killzone. What if that deer moves, or you move, and that 223 strikes the shoulder? Will it penetrate thru the shoulder, and still have enough left to do enough trama to the boiler room to bring the deer down? I do not care what you say about how good of a shot you are. Guns, and people are not 100% perfect. You get the odd bullet that flies off, you twitch when you shoot because you farted, the deer spooked, the wind gusted, etc. If the shot ends off a little with my 300, its still going thru those shoulders, or hitting the back half of the lungs and turning them to jello. With a 223, I really do not care to see it attempted. Anti-hunters are always looking for a reason to ban hunting, and label us as cruel. Using a gun that is illegal in some states to hunt deer, even if legal in your state, just opens pandora's box for future problems. What a great example you have made of us. Thank you.