Shooting/Killing a deer with a .22LR?!? Please tell me you're kidding... How is that possible? A .22LR will just wound a deer and pi$$ it off, unless some idiot does a head shot from a short range. [:'(]

People have been killing deer with 22 LRs since they came out. Then the 22 Mag became the poaching tool of choice. Idiots is sort of a mild term for it.

I'll agree, the .22LR and .22Win Mag are the perfect poachers guns. Just ask the game wardens what the poachers use. It quiet, small and easy to hide. You can claim to be just out hunting rabbits if you are caught. Plus it has killing power far above what you would expect from such a tiny cartridge.

I don't think that the .22 has killed more deer than he .30-30, not even close, but i have heard that about the poaching. About the topic though, i've been wanting to get a new .30-30 for a while now partly because of the popularity and long time life of this cartridge, and partly because they;re inexpensive to buy and to shoot. I've shot the winchesters for years and they/re a blast. I mean come on, its a lever gun!

I agree holeheartedly. I think the .30-30 is'nt as popular now because of the mentality of needing a magnum for even the smallest game animal. Most of that I believe comes from the American ego. Wanting the biggest and baddest of whatever we own/buy. That's fine if you want to hunt whitetails with your .375H&H but don't belittle the fellas still keeping the classic .30-30 in the fields.

Yeah, what he said!

Guys (with the massive heat seeking missile, 8000 fps, monster rifles).... It's cool. If we hunted together, I don't see a problem with you up on a ridge overlooking a big farm field from 1/2 mile away. That's fine... Just don't shoot me, 'cause I'm going to be down in the brush, and alongside the heavy thickets with my trusty 30-30. That's the type of hunting I do. There is a certain charm anda certain legendary vibe factor you get with hunting deep with a 30-30, like, how many others before you have done the same thing?

I think if there were actual numbers out there the results would shock you.

How about wanting something other than a lever gun or maybe wanting something with more effective range and better ballistics than a flying brick? The simple fact of the matter is there are many non-magnum cartridges out there that are far better than the 30-30.

I'm with Frizz on this one. The 22 and 22WMR account for a hell of a lot of deer. Sure, you never hear about it...the shooters are breaking the law.

Some poachers were caught in the same county our farm is in in WV. They had killed an estimated 1,000 deer in a certain time span. This was back in the early 90's when seeing 75 deer a day while hunting wasn't out of the question.

Their weapon of choice was a 22LR.

This is one group of poachers that were caught. Imagine those that are not.

I have an older article (10yrs) about Indians in northern Ontario shooting moose with a 22 and tracking them until they found the animals. They were shooting them BEHIND THE SHOULDER. I didn't think it possible, but an outfitter up there said he had heard this for years. They just tried to punch a hole in the lungs and track them.

The Artic Iniuts and the Aleuts have been using .22 calibers for many, many
years to hunt with. Thier favorite is the .22-250 on large game.

The .30-30 and the .303 have taken more game in the US, Canada and
Africa than any other rifle caliber.