Muley Hunter

I go by what Colorado says is legal. We have small game, and big game. The biggest animal in small game is a coyote.

A .45 cal ML rifle is the smallest you can use here for deer.

rodwha

Myself, I feel a 30 something caliber is a bit small for normal sized deer. I might not feel it was quite so poor of a choice on average Texas and Florida deer as a big one won't weigh much more than 125 lbs.

Do you even have much of a whitetail population? When in Colorado Springs (AF Academy) all I saw were lots of mule deer.

rodwha

Would you consider mule deer a large game animal and not medium?

Muley Hunter

The whitetails are in the eastern part of the state.

Muley Hunter

I never use the term medium game.

I use:

Small game
Big game
Dangerous game.


Then of course you have bird and waterfowl hunting.

rodwha

Down here in Texas the deer are so small they recently changed the laws to allow centerfire .22's, which I feel was a poor decision as too many "hunters" aren't skilled enough to use such a small caliber. It can work, but not well if you can't do your part.

Some time back I heard of a youngster shooting a deer with a 222 Rem that may have weighed 100 lbs on the hoof 5 times as it still ran. His father should have taught him better.

Muley Hunter

I can point you to a forum that feels it's fine to use the CF .22's on mature muley bucks, and elk.

You need to have thick skin to tell them they're wrong. Which I do all the time.

rodwha

I've heard of people using the .243 for almost everything on this side of the planet. Maybe if you are great at shooting 'em in the eye. For me it would be at least a 270 Win or 7mm-08 Rem or larger...much larger!

rodwha

It's a varmint caliber that just barely some times handles 2 legged varmints!

Muley Hunter

The .243 is fine for deer, but I wouldn't use it for elk.

A .24 cal is legal for elk in Colorado, so guys will use it.