Ditto also. I have shot many whitetail deer with the 25.06 most being pushed by dogs. Furthest one traveled was 30 feet (mostly skidding).

The Remington 7mm Magnum .300 Remington ultrmag and .300 Weatherby Magnum all have more than enough power to not only kill deer but animals considerably larger such as Elk and Moose. They also have the advantage, that slow but heavy bullets do not have, of shooting very flat trajectories and maintaining high kinetic energies at greater ranges. I think that gives you a better chance of optimal bullet placement along with tremendous killing power, making these three rounds good choices for the questioner's purposes.

Californiadoctor

The bullet is far more important than the cartridge as far as knocking down game.I find that a rapidly expanding bullet such as a ballistic tip moving at very high velocity provides the quickest kills that I have witnessed.The 140gr ballistic tip out of my 7mmstw at 3500fps usually either drops deer on the spot or within a few yards.Not one has covered 50 yards after being hit with this load.However when partitions were used they often ran 50 to 100 yards.

I agree with half of the ballistic tip report. I use them and love them but I keep the velocity down. Its helped me almost eliminate the core jacket seperation. I stlii find them seperated at times but usually with an inch or so of each other. My 308 with 150 grain Ballistic tips at 2725 fps just drops them where they stand 90 percent of the time. About ten yards is as far as I have had a critter go after the hit with that combo. I have seen first hand a few of the horror stories I hear about ballistic tips at close range from the 7Mag. Like hitting a rib and having the bullet exiy the hind quarter on the same side. This was several years ago. I have not use a 7Mag since then.

I think that larger caliber bullets have more "knockdown" power than smaller and faster ones. At least that has been my own experience. As an analogy, what would you rather be hit by, a baseball going 90 m.p.h. or a bowling ball going 45 m.p.h.? I'll take my chances with the baseball.

To make the the analogy more truthful a 90 mph baseball (about .4 lbs) would equal a 16 lb bowling ball going only about 14 MPH if you want apples to apples comparison of kinetic energies. At any rate either would hurt a lot.

If a projectile is actually going through something it is not knocking it down. It is transfering its energy in all directions, including rearward, when traveling through an animal. It is not transfering its energy in only the horizontal direction. Have you guys ever watched a slow motion video of a bullet traveling through something like a water filled jug or a water mellon? There is very little horrizontal movement of the target rather the target usually explodes in all directions.

I don't know how to explain this any better to you guys but bullets do not knock animals down. It simply does not happen. There is no such thing as knock down power in a bullet.

Think of puting a powerful fire cracker inside an animals lungs. This is much the same effect that a bullet has on animal tissue.

You either break down both shoulders or cause enough trauma to the nervous system to stop the transfer of signals from the brain to muscles.

When was knockdown power required/needed to kill a deer? Hello! They're whitetails, not moose or elk! I don't even worry about knockdown power when I kill a moose. Just poke him in the lungs/hearts and let him do his dying thing.

if you want knock down power go with a 1 ounce rifled slug Ive seen deer that were shot in the arse and dropped on the spot, guess they died from shock of the impact. knock down power for a whitetail c'mon its not a 1000 lb grizzly........ I been using a 308 win for deer for the past 10 years and never had to put more then 1 shot in any deer I ever killed, ive even killed a few beyond the 250 yard mark, just put that bullet through its lungs its gonna go down, half of the hunt is tracking the animal anyway, they wouldnt call it hunting for nothing. a few of my deer never ran any further then 100 yards had most of them never run any further then 25 yards and had one drop dead in its tracks i have only had one deer I had to track further then 200 yards only because it was a bad quartering shot the bullet only struck its hind left leg shattered its femer she bled out pretty good through an artery gave a good steady blood trail all the way to her. but other then that one Ive been extremely successfull with quick kills. You dont need a shoulder mounted howitzer to kill a deer. this is the most rediculous post i have read in a long time. clean kills for a deer is based on 2 things #1 shot placement #2 a good expanding bullet. If you cant do it with a reasonable whitetail caliber and feel you need a cannon to kill a whitetail chances are you are just weekender and probabaly not the best shot anyway trying to use knock down power to make up for your poor shot... remember theres other hunters in the woods counting on you to be a responsible person with your firearm. Honestly people like that have no business in the woods hunting deer with more gun then thats needed. c'mon broey1 you say you work in a gun shop you have to have more sense then that, makes me almost feel like you have no business selling guns.

typical answer id expect from a educated californian LOL