Excellent choice! The 25.06 is a great deer rifle and also a good varmit gun. I have two loads worked up right now for mine, one is a Speer 120grn bullet that i use for deer and it kills like lighting, the other is a Sierra 75grn HP that i shoot small critters with and it does quick work on those as well. You can't go wrong with the 25.06 as a dual purpose rifle, it's a fast flat shooter with mild recoil that hits the target hard. I agree with vapodog that the 260 rem is a good caliber no doubt and i'd love to have one to add to my arsenal to play with but unless you handload the 260 factory ammo may not be readily available on the shelf and depending on your area the 25.06 may not either but you could always do mail order if you couldn't buy it locally. Another dual purpose caliber you could consider is the 243 which is very popular and ammo is usually easy to find. It will take down any deer or varmit you shoot with it if you do your part. Having said all that i personally would choose a 25.06 and never look back but i'm a little bias here because i love that caliber. Good luck in whatever you choose.