They can hear but how they react is a mystery. A few weeks back while rattling with another guy I was watching a young buck come cautiously in looking for the fight, unknown to me the other guy was eyeing up another buck coming in from the backdoor when he shot the young buck & I jumped out of our skin(we were about 100-150 yards apart). That sucker hit the ground running and was out of there. On the flip side I have seen deer just stand their and yet others run directly toward the shots fired. One theory I have is the sound bouncing back caused deer to think the noise came from the rear not the front and start to run toward the shooter on the flip side when they stand there they heard the shot but just are not sure where it is and just hang tight for a moment or two. Distance shots I have seen them pick up their heads and others just keep about the business like nothing had happened. Again just another mystery of deer hunting why they chose to react or not is only known by that deer at that time, but you' ll never convince me they can' t hear a gun shot.

I beleive they can hear gun shots, the deer i shot using 7mm mag this year just stood there, so i thought i missed, shot again -then he died. but ya they hear it.

I don`t know about gun shots , but if a tree falls in the woods does a deer hear it ......[8D]

they can hear it but sometimes they just dont think its a threat so they dont run, mature bucks almost always run though

Of course they hear shots, there are alot of variables involved regards to their reaction to the shot. One thing I' ve learned over the years is that after the shot you should always be ready. There could be unknown deer close by that are startled enought to get up and move. This happened to me many times after firing my rifle.
On several of these occasions I' ve been on the property and not shooting at a deer but checking zero on the scope. Busted 2 rounds off on a piece of paper, left my rifle on the tailgate and went to retreive the target, got halfway back to the truck and there' s a deer stepped out just on the other side of the truck. I' m convinced they were moving as a result of the shot. It has happened too many times to be coincidence.

Gotta love it

Two years ago I was about to shoot a 6 point when a bigger 7 literally stepped in front of him. So I waited until I had a better shot at the larger deer and finally fired (.30-06). The 7 went left the 6 went right both into the woods. Not ten minutes later the 6 showed back up acting a little tense but also curious about what had happened. Thought about shootin him to but let him pass. Strange though how they sometimes act at the sound of a gun.

Of course they HEAR gunshots, it' s just a question of whether they KNOW it' s a gunshot. If we' re talking about a deer that doesn' t have a lot of experience with gunfire or hunters, then they have no idea what it is, it' s just a really loud sound. And in nature, the really loud sounds don' t hurt you, i.e. thunder, falling trees, that kind of thing. It' s the quiet noises like approaching predators ruffling leaves and breaking twigs that get deer in low hunting pressure areas nervous. That' s why deer spook at a bowstring or a snapped twig but continue to feed unphased by a rifle blast under certain conditions.

They definantly hear it, but every deer reacts differently at different times, I have dropped a doe with 5 others near her in a field and they all just froze and looked around for 30-40 seconds and went right back to feeding, I have shot deer, missed them and had them stand there, I have also shot at deer and had them haul booty! Usually a deer wants to know where the danger is before they run, if they don' t know where the shot came from sometimes they will just stand there, hunting with a smoke pole you can bet money they will be running the second they see the smoke from the shot.