Bolt actions may rule the roost, but don't count out lever guns such as the Winchester Model 88. This rig, chambered to .308 Win., will handle nearly any deer situation.

Guys like me sometimes make the simple seem complex by touting the newest rifles and the hottest new cartridges. Old-timers tend to view such hype with a jaundiced eye as they smile slyly and pat Old Betsy. Less experienced hunters are more likely to second-guess their choices. God bless the manufacturers, and God bless all of you, because excitement, renewed interest and some degree of controversy will always surround the introduction of a brand new "deer gun." New rifles and cartridges give us writers something fresh to write about, and we'll all have new things to discuss while we're warming around the campfire.

Reality, however, is that selecting sensible rifles and cartridges for deer hunting isn't all that difficult. Coast to coast, most of our deer weigh somewhere between 100 and 300 pounds, with the average somewhere on the near side of 200 pounds. East of the Mississippi, most shots at deer are less than 100 yards. West of the big river, you can perhaps double that. But, coast to coast, the window between 50 and 250 yards will cover most of the shooting at deer that most of us are likely to do. So if your rifle and cartridge will allow you to shoot from very close to perhaps 300 yards, you're in pretty good shape almost anywhere.

These national averages, however, should suggest a couple of things. First, our various deer aren't all that large, so energy and bullet weight requirements are not extreme. Second, normal shooting distances aren't so great that finding a round with adequately flat trajectory is difficult.

My intention here is not to tout the newest and fastest, nor to make you question Old Betsy's adequacy. Instead, let's try to talk about rifles and cartridges that are practical and sensible choices for deer--wherever you hunt them.

USE A SCOPE
Deer rifles should wear a scope. In the thick stuff, you don't need the magnification, but you do need the light-gathering capability for those critical moments at dawn and dusk. Out west, a bit more magnification makes longer shots easier--but, even there, a fixed 4X will do everything most deer hunters need. However, it's a variable-power world, and the most popular scope in America is 3-9X. You can put a good scope of that magnification on your deer rifle, and you'll do just fine for any deer hunting anywhere in North America.

The only circumstance I can think of where iron sights are superior to a scope is in extremely wet country. The folks who hunt blacktails in the rainforests of the Pacific Northwest often use open or aperture sights for just that reason. Even then, I'd have a scope on detachable mounts--and pop-up aperture or good iron sights, so I could remove the scope when it starts to rain. Rifle Actions Too much has been made of the superiority of bolt actions. Yes, the bolt action is more accurate and has more camming power for extraction. It is also able to house a greater range of cartridge cases than any other action, save the single-shot. But let's get real. Even the smallest of our deer offer a vital zone about the size of a basketball. All of the rifle actions known to man--bolt, slide, lever, semi-auto, single-shot, even double rifles--offer enough accuracy for almost any deer hunting. Also, every single action type (though not every make and model) is chambered to perfectly adequate cartridges.

There are some subtle differences among the action types, with advantages and disadvantages depending on where and how you hunt. For instance, semi-autos are the hardest to degrease, thus are the most likely to freeze up in extreme cold. They're also the most difficult to load and unload quietly. The single-shot is either fully loaded or fully unloaded, definitely a plus in safety--but also extremely inconvenient when used as a saddle-scabbard rifle. Most of us have long since made our choice of rifle actions. The real issue centers around the choice of cartridges. After all, there are only a handful of rifle actions to choose from. There are dozens and dozens of rifle cartridges.

I also excluded some good close-range deer cartridges like the .35 Rem. and .375 Win. The mandate for "any reasonably flat-shooting cartridge" knocks out most of the classic "brush-busters" for general-purpose work.

A WRONG CARTRIDGE?
Honestly, picking a genuinely wrong cartridge for deer hunting is pretty hard to do. Almost any reasonably flat-shooting cartridge between 6mm and, well, .416 caliber will work for most deer hunting in North America. I just went through the ballistics tables in our HUNTING Annual, and I found something like 48 cartridges between .243 Win. and .416 Wby. Mag. that would do just fine. Okay, I agree that you don't need a .416 (or a .375, or a .338) to hunt deer. I also agree that you can do a lot of deer hunting with a .22 centerfire and the right bullets. I cut it off at .243 because the majority of states have a .23 or .24-caliber legal minimum for big game--and also because, remembering our 250- to 300-yard range requirement, no .22-caliber cartridge carries enough energy for 300-yard shooting on deer.

When ranges are long, such as in open country or across big farm fields, faster cartridges allow more room for error in range estimation.

Achieving a flat-enough trajectory for 250-yard shooting (or 300 in a pinch) isn't all that big a deal. Mate a sharp-pointed bullet of adequate weight-for-caliber to any case capable of producing just 2,400 fps muzzle velocity, and you're there. Sight in as close to three inches high at 100 yards as you can get. You'll be fine to 250 yards with a center-of-chest hold, and you'll be only about a foot low at 300 yards.

Take a look at any ballistics chart, and you'll see that old-timers (all with 180-grain spitzers) such as .300 Savage, .30-40 Krag and .303 British fall right into this trajectory curve. So does the .35 Whelen with 250-grain bullets.

Obviously, lighter bullets at faster speeds will flatten the trajectories of these old cartridges, and there are dozens of newer (and some older) cartridges that use bigger cases and/or smaller-diameter bullets to achieve higher velocities and flatter trajectories. The issue here is how flat do you really need a deer cartridge to shoot? I'm not suggesting we all go back to the .30-40 Krag, but few of us need flatter trajectories to take our deer year after year.

USE ENOUGH GUN
Under most circumstances, there is no reason to hunt deer with any caliber larger than .30. Going a step farther, most of us will find several versatile cartridges between 6.5mm and .30 caliber that are indistinguishable in performance.

A great lineup of deer cartridges (l. to r.): .25-06 Rem., .270 Win., .280 Rem., .30-06, 7mm Rem. Mag., .300 Win. Mag., .300 Win. Short Mag. The author considers the .270, .280 and Â’06 to be his personal favorites.

Okay, I hear the howls from the 6mm and .25-caliber fans. It's difficult to know where to draw the line. Col. Townsend Whelen's old theory about proper deer cartridges delivering 1,000 ft.-lbs. of energy is hard to prove or disprove. Shot placement and bullet performance are perhaps more important, but I've always thought it a sensible standard for normal-size deer.

The best loads for the .243 achieve this standard at 300 yards, and so do the faster 6mms. Current factory loads for the good old .250 Savage can't get there, but the best loads for the .257 Roberts will, and the fast .25s get there easily. So I'm prepared to concede that any reasonably fast cartridge from .243 upwards is enough gun for almost all deer hunting--as long as you're careful in selecting your loads.

MAGNUM MANIA?
We seem to be in the middle of new magnum era--witness Remington's Ultra Mags and Short Action Ultra Mags, Winchester's .300 WSM, and all the hot proprietaries from Lazzeroni and others. There is no harm, no shame and perhaps not any such thing as being "overgunned." The proof is venison in the freezer and antlers on the wall. I've shot a whole bunch of deer with a .375 H&H--and with 7mm, 8mm, .30 and .338 magnums. You bet they work. I'm quite convinced you don't need a caliber larger than .30, but the magnums do little harm. There are even a few special situations where the fastest magnum cartridges may offer a slight edge--if only in confidence. Certainly they shoot flat enough and offer enough energy. But next time you gather around a campfire, please remember you read this here: There is no deer hunting in North America that requires a magnum cartridge.

SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES
Close combat. Not everyone needs to worry about the potential for shots beyond 100 yards, and that means there is a place in deer hunting for the so-called "brush busters." Mind you, they really don't bust brush better than faster, more versatile cartridges, but they do drop deer like Thor's hammer.