If you buy factory ammo, go with 30.06 - it's the most common, easy to find ammo out there. I'm talking Wallyworld & gunshops - not the internet. If you're going to roll you own, buy whatever suits you & load the cartridge you like best. My 300 dollar Marlin XL7 30.06 will kill anything in North America, no need to get fancy or expensive unless you enjoy that.

Don't sweat over what to buy for your 200yd deer gun you shoot a box of shells through every year or two.

This is a damn good idea. I had not thought of that so thank you.

Im really with ya on this, partly because I dont want something nice purely for the reason that if its too nice I will not take it out in the bushes and use it. I want something I dont have to worry about it or care about it. A tool not Bling.

This is in reality probably what im lookin at. Although I can shoot deer out my back door so it will probably be used just a wee bit more.LOL

Just a thought--while on a gun buying spree awhile back, I noticed, at several gun stores in Northern Indiana, used 30-06's were plentiful and relatively inexpensive. Here in Indiana, we can not use a big bore rifle on deer, only handguns, shotguns and bows. As a result, it seems a number of hunters in this area have traded in the big bores for shotguns and leverguns chambered for handgun cartridges and as a result, this creats a good selection of used deer rifles. I've always been an o6 fan due to reasonable recoil, decent ballistics and enough power for almost any hunting in this country. I've seen a number of used Remingtons, Brownings, Marlins, Rugers etc, in great condition, in .270, .308, 7mm mag, and 30-06 in the $350 to $500 range. I'd start checking the gun stores in your area-----------john

Thanks, I will do that. Have already started actually. At first i was really sweatin about which caliber to choose, while I recognize almost everybody has their favorites the fact that there is no definitive "best" says something in itself. With so much overlap between cartridges it comes down (for me at least) to finding a solid rifle more than anything. If I find a good solid rifle in my price range that is in between .270 and .32 I will buy it.

Im not Loyal to any brand until they start paying my bills so this should make it much easier to find a good solid rifle that will cope with the tasks at hand. Plus the fact that im not looking for "bling" or a "braggin rights" piece. If its too pretty I wont want to take it out in the field so I preferr a synth stock and not many bells and whistles. Just a good barrel that will last me a good long time that is pretty accurate and a good solid "bone structure".

Everyone who has big game rifles should have a 30/06. Not because its the best, but it is a great round (like many others), and ammo can be had just about anywhere, in many flavors. Rifles in this round are abundant and therefore prices can be reasonable. And by the same token, used ones are available.

I'd try to find a nice 30/06 in Remington, Winchester, Savage (not necessarily in that order, find out which models by which makers fit you best), etc, in a synth stock with decent recoil pad. I'd pay attention to the function of the bolt, safety, trigger, and bore, and care a little less about the nicks or scrapes on the outside. There are many buys out there if you look.
And 270, 308, 7 mag will all do fine as well, but the 30/06 and 308 will be the standouts for ammo price and availability.

I too am an engineer, and unlike yourself, have spent my life dedicated to shooting, hunting, and competing with centerfire rifles... Not everything is about the numbers.

There indeed is such a thing as "inherently accurate". The .270win vs. the .308 win may not be a good example since there are a LOT of reasons why the .308 is considered to be more accurate than the .270, but indeed, there is such an animal as "inherent accuracy". (Military snipers might be required by NATO to use the 7.62x51mm, but benchrest shooters aren't, and there's a reason you see a LOT more .308's than .270's-come shoot sometime and find out). Inherent accuracy is an easy way of saying that on average, more of the variables line up with the optimum conditions than not, whether it's a set of conditions around the bullet itself or around the rifles it's most commonly chambered in.

Much of it comes down to answering the question "are the conditions optimized?" MANY variables play into this question. Choosing a specific CARTRIGE might mean any one of 1000 different brands of powder, charge of powder, brand of primer, bullet, case, bullet weight, or bullet design. Then throw in a specific RIFLE, now adding in rate of twist, barrel material, barrel polish, barrel length, forcing cone design, crown design, barrel stiffness/design etc etc. Does your bullet weight, length, material, and design match up with your rifle's twist rate? Does your bullet material provide enough drag down the barrel to match up with your powder's burn rate? Does your barrel length match your powder burn rate? Is your barrel of high quality, minimizing metallurgic dislocations in grain structure, ensuring uniform heat transfer and expansion upon firing?

There are a million different variable combinations to consider, promising countless hours of calculation and evaluation , when it's MUCH easier to take two rifles out to the range with 4 different types of ammo for each and within 100 rounds tell you which is the most accurate combination.

Consider the .223 remington vs the .22-250. Both produce VERY similar numbers as far as projectile velocity and energy, however, most .223's will be produced with a 1 in 8 to 1 in 10" twist, while .22-250's typically lean above 1 in 10" towards 1 in 12" or 1 in 14". Why is that? Without the experience, you may think both rifles are interchangable, then start feeding 55grn ballistic tips to the .22-250 and wonder why your groups suck compared to the same 55gr load from the same brand and model rifle chambered in .223.

Or ask the opinions of your average hunter, which is a more suitable hunting round, the .30-30 win, the 7.62x39mm, or the .243win. The universal answer will be the .243win, while all 3 have similar muzzle energy, and heck 2 of them are even the same caliber. The 7.62x39 is "known to be inaccurate" because it's most widely available in low quality semiautomatic's like the SKS or AK-47 or the Ruger Mini-30 and not commonly used with a scope, while the cartridge itself is capable of extreme accuracy. The .30-30 is most commonly chambered in lever action rifles, which also don't commonly wear a scope, and require round nosed bullets, providing poor ballistic coefficients. Why is the .243 assumed to be more accurate then? Because it is commonly found chambered in modern bolt action rifles sporting a telescopic sight and firing modern spire pointed bullets... Combinations that make the AVERAGE .243 rifle found on the market much more accurate than the AVERAGE .30-30 or 7.62x39mm rifle.

At the end of the day, I can assign numbers to almost ANY aspect of a rifle's accuracy, and I can build a comparison to help me pick out THE PERFECT RIFLE FOR ME, however, in my experience, there is a LOT more value in taking 100yrs worth of empirical observation to heart as a starting point.

You can't put numbers to EVERY aspect of shooting. There is no "law of big game hunting" that will let you calculate the amount of energy you need to place within a certain distance of a creature's heart to assure a kill. I have killed deer in TX with a .223, deer in KS with a 9x19mm carbine, and deer in colorado with a .375H&H mag. None of those 3 rounds would EVER be recommended for deer, but they all do the job.

At the end of the day, yes, most of the "standard" big game cartridges are no more capable than the other when it comes to practical hunting applications. However, there's more than one way to skin a cat, and for certain cats and certain cat skinners, one technique works better than another. Don't necessarily assume that you can calculate your way into 1000yrd shooting.

Congrats Thunder Stick,
You have hit on the #1 problem with the general frequently asked "what cal. for deer? im new lol" Their are many cal. that will kill deer but have different characteristics.
I can make a ar15 in .223 rem kill deer if I get 1-7 twist and throw 90 grain bullets. Which limits it to about 100 yards. I read this in a Hornady 2006 catalog I had. They said a 22-250 would have been better due to its capacity. I suspect if they re-wrote the article today they would champion the .223 wssm with 22-250 playing runner up.
That should give you 200 yard deer range and 300-400 yards on yotes and such.

So I think we need to know more about the hunting you are going to do.
Where are you going to get your ammo? Off the shelf or roll your own? Do you cheap out on the ammo? or will you get the best?
What ranges can you expect to see the targets at? Your hunting style? ground blind? Tree stand? just walk around till you find a log to sit on and wait for some thing to come along (my dads favorite on opening weekend fire arms)?
You need to take these into account. This will decide what kind of gun you will want.

Personally I always thought for the re loader guys those "short magnums" should be quite interesting. just my 2 cents

Keep your eye out for a Savage 110/111, Savage Edge, Marlin XL7 in whatever caliber you choose. You should be able to find all of those new in your price range.

you dont have your facts straight. theres a reason snipers use the .308 and your friend is right, it is inherently more accurate.
The .308 changed the rules of competition, literally.

heres on article, copied and pasted.


When the .30-06 and .308 were the only cartridges allowed in NRA match rifle matches. Both cartridges were used in barrels of equal quality as well as the same action and stocks by several top shooters in the USA. Both cartridges were used in matches at ranges from 100 through 1000 yards. Many thousands of rounds were fired in both types. Bullets from 168 through 200 grains were used with several powder, case and primer combinations.
In comparing accuracy between the .308 and .30-06, folks who used each quickly agreed on one thing: .308s were two to three times more accurate than the .30-06. In the early 1960s, it was also observed that competitors with lower classifications using .308s were getting higher scores than higher classified folks using .30-06s; at all ranges. By the middle to late 1960s, all the top highpower shooters and virtually all the rest had switched to the .308. The Highpower Committee had received so many complaints of ties not being able to be broke between shooters using the .308 and shooting all their shots in the tie-breaking V-ring, something had to be done to resolve this issue. In 1966, the NRA cut in half the target scoring ring dimensions.
At the peak of the .30-06's use as a competition cartridge, the most accurate rifles using it would shoot groups at 200 yards of about 2 inches, at 300 of about 3 inches. The 600-yard groups were 6 to 7 inches and at 1000 yards about 16 inches. As the high-scoring ring in targets was 3 inches at 200 and 300 yards, 12 inches at 600 and 20 inches at 1000, the top scores fired would have 90+ percent of the shots inside this V-ring.
Along came the 7.62mm NATO and its commercial version; the .308 Winchester. In the best rifles, 200 yard groups were about 3/4ths inch, at 300 about 1-1/2 inch. At 600 yards, groups were about 2-1/2 inch and at 1000 about 7 to 8 inches. It was not very long before the .30-06 round no longer won matches nor set any records; all it's records were broken by the .308 by a considerable margin. Some accuracy tests at 600 yards with the .308 produced test groups in the 1 to 2 inch range. These were 20 to 40 shot groups. No .30-06 has ever come close to shooting that well.
At 1000 yards, where both the .30-06 and .308 were allowed in Palma matches, the .308 was the clear-cut most accurate of the two. If top shooters felt the .30-06 was a more accurate round, they would have used it - they didn't. In fact by the early 1970s, the scoring ring dimensions on the 800 - 1000 yard target were also cut in about half due to the accuracy of both the .308 Win. over the .30-06 and the .30-.338 over the .300 H&H when used in long range matches.
Most top highpower shooters feel the main reason the .308 is much more accurate than the .30-06 is its shorter, fatter case promotes more uniform and gentle push on the bullet due to a higher loading density (less air space) and a more easily uniformly ignitable powder charge.
Military arsenals who produced match and service ammo in both 7.62mm and 30 caliber have fired thousands of test rounds/groups with both. They also found out that with both ammo types, the smallest groups were with the 7.62 by about 50 to 60 percent. M1 rifles in 7.62 shot about twice as small of groups as .30 M1s at all ranges. When the M14 was first used, there were some .30-06 M1 rifles that would shoot more accurately. It took the service teams several years to perfect the methods of making M14s shoot well, but when they did, they shot as good as M1s in 7.62.
There will always be folks who claim the .30-06 is a more accurate cartridge. All I have to say to them is to properly test .308 vs. .30-06 and find out. Theory is nice to think about; facts determine the truth.