And the winner is...

[Bushman]

The .270 Winchester. Using my own logic from JAH's cartridge question I was at my local Walmart Super Store yesterday buying my next weeks trap loads and looking at the availability of center-fire ammunition. On the shelf were the following deer size cartridges:
.243
.30-30
.270
7mm RM
.308
.30-06
Six common chamberings for rifles in these parts. I myself have killed deer with four of those but never the .270. Jack O'Connor, Herne, Wapiti Bill, Lanny Benoit all used the .270 so they must have had a good reason. Sure it is on the light side for elk or bears, but most of us don't hunt those anyway. It kicks less than a .30-06 and has bullets designed for deer size game. Inexpensive and available factory ammunition. At this point I am regretting not buying that pre-64 M70 Featherweight .270 at the gun show a while back. What makes any of those others better for your own deer hunting?

[Twanger]

That's pretty much what they carry at Dick's Sporting Goods here... a very prevalent chain store in the area.
They usually have a couple of different 30-06 and .308 loads to choose from.

[dave-t.]

I fully admit that if you don't choose one of those for deer hunting, your are probably nit picking. And I don't hunt deer with any of them!

Unless you are taking very long or very short shots and need something special to cover the job, those will work for 99+% of what needs to be done to get a deer.

[Sidekick]

I like my .270 for all the reasons you just described. I have a enough high power rifles to hunt with a different one every day of the week but my 270 is the one I reach for.

[herne]

I'm not sure about long - we have rehearsed this one many times but for my money, if one cannot be sure of a one shot kill one has no business engaging a target at that range. 3-350 is a long way to shoot at a deer, becuase one should get closer in most cases. But, sometimes because of gusting wind etc, 200 is a long shot.

As for short. Well you know the round is below the sight line up to 25, so one can learn to shoot a touch low between 25 and say 100 on the small deer.

Generally speaking, if one wants a decent carcass one is going to do it with one round, and one will be shooting at a deer which does not know you are there or is still reacting. In which case, one size fits all. The 270 is a bit big for the (very) small deer, but for roe and anything bigger, woods, open fields, stubbles who cares. The 270 was just fine, I thought.

I don't I'm afriad subscribe to the many guns arguemnt. Get good with one - hopefully very good. Pays in terms of returns I reckon. Having said that, because of the small deer problem of which we shot many, one needed a smaller calibre, hence the 6.5. but the 2 rifles were identical Tikka m695s. So one wouldn't have known of any differnce other than by looking at the cartridge. Even the triggers were carefully matched.

Perhaps there is pleasure in owning a lot of guns, but in terms of killing deer and vermin, effectivley, I'm sure the best answer is to stick with one. I did have a third rifle - for clients and for foxing. M695Tikka 270! different one which wasn't my nice one, and I didn't mind putting 90g hollow points at full bore through it for foxes, which i wouldn't have dreamed of doing with the good one.

[Hi Ball]

In my neck of the woods, the gun stores and Wally Mart usually have the .30-30, .270 and .30-06 on sale and stacked up on top the counters a foot high. I have used both the 30-06 and .270 Winchester in my early years of hunting whitetail deer but really liked the 25/06 a lot and my wife took a liking to the .243 Winchester. She liked it most because it kicked a whole lot less than that Ruger rifle in the .44 magnum. The mentioned calibers are all good for killing deer, I suppose it is what meets a person' fancy simply put.

[Bushman]

I just counted up the "deer" cartridges listed in my Remington and Winchester catalogs and see that there are 63 possible selections. Just the fact that the big local super store will only stock 6 of them tells me that there is a whole lot of redundancy out there in the world of factory cartridge loading. Boring as some of those selections at Walmart might be, a guy looking for a new rifle would be smart to select one of those or prepare to handload or pay premium prices for mail order factory ammunition.

[Altjaeger]

I suspect if I could hand the shooter alternately three identically outfitted m700/m70/ m110 etc sporters all with the barrel markings covered already loaded in .270 140 grain ammo, .280 140 grain and .30-06 with 165 to shoot alternating no one here could name which was which in a shoot off in terms of recoil, trajectory inside 300 yards or results on deer size animals reactions and deaths.

[purple heart]

Alt, I'm sure you're right. Most people wouldn't know the difference.
I've killed deer with a 30-30, 3006, 308, 243, and 270. Not counting bow and ml.
I've said before I consider myself a 270 man because it was MY first deer rifle.
The 30-30 was a hand me down from my dad, posthumously, when I was 12.
The 270 was the first cartridge I learned to reload back in 1970.
I've only had to shoot one deer twice with the 270 and that was operator failure.
I've got nothing against the other cartridges and wouldn't cry if I had to hunt the rest of my life with any
of the other ones I mentioned.

[herne]

I think one would notice the 30,06 Paul. Well I did. However, I can't remember the load, and that could well have had something to do with it. The gun was aWby Vanguard, and it may have been that poxy Wby stock design, but it was all over the place.