Before the magnum age really got its impetus in the late 1950s, cartridges like the .270, .280 and the .30-06, at left, typified the Western deer cartridge. Today it's more like the (left to right): .270 WSM, .270 Wby., 7mm Rem. SAUM, 7mm WSM, 7mm Rem. Mag., .300 WSM and .300 Win. Mag.
In the West, what today is the perfect mule deer rifle hasn't changed all that much over the last half-century. What has changed is the distances at which shots are taken. Part of that has to do with the fact that collecting a trophy mule deer today has become more difficult than bagging a trophy whitetail--something no one would have predicted 50 years ago--and the fact that our equipment has extended the maximum practical range for even the average marksman.
The typical Western hunter today, then, is just as likely to be carrying a 7mm or .300 magnum as a .270 or .30-06, and no one considers him overgunned. It's not that mule deer take any more killing today than they did 50 years ago; it's just that it often has to be done from a lot farther away.
Scopes requirements, too, have changed but not nearly to the extent that the optics manufacturers would like you to believe. To hear them tell it, unless you've got a variable scope with a 30mm tube that cranks up to at least 12X and has a 50mm objective, you might as well stay home. Truth of the matter is, if you're faced with a now-or-never shot at a buck standing 400 yards away (you know he's 400 yards because like any serious trophy hunter today, you've got a laser rangefinder), you can make good use of at least a 6X magnification, if not 7 or 8X. As for needing more magnification than that, and an objective bell the size of a manhole cover, that's just Madison Avenue.
In the East it's a different story. The physical characteristics of the deer rifle itself have changed, as well as the calibers and scopes deemed suitable. For one thing, deer drives are not as popular as they once were. Make no mistake, drives can still be highly productive; in fact, in many areas it's the only way to have a chance at a decent buck. Under those conditions where shots are generally less than 50 yards, let alone 100, any old lever action chambered for a bowling-ball-trajectory cartridge under iron sights is if not ideal, at least adequate to the task at hand. But it's not the safest way to hunt if you're one of the drivers, and it's one of the reasons that in some states slug shotguns are now the only type of firearm allowed for deer hunting.
In states (or regions within states) where centerfire rifles are allowed, beanfield tactics are becoming more and more prevalent with whitetail hunters. My statistics may be off, but if memory serves, more than 95 percent of the whitetails harvested in the eastern half of the country are taken within 300 yards of a road of some sort. That being the case, what has just been described as the typical Western deer rifle is just as well suited here. Indeed, when you don't have to walk more than a couple hundred yards to your stand, you can even use a beanfield rifle if you so choose. Once you're in the stand, you've got a comfortable seat and a rifle rest there in front of you, so the weight of the rifle and its other physical characteristics are of little concern.
Modern semiautos like this Benelli R-1 (top) and Browning LongTrac BAR herald a new generation of autoloaders that offer the physical characteristics of a deer rifle combined with the ballistic potential suitable for much larger game.
With those kinds of things going for you, why would anyone choose to place that elevated stand in thick forest where one can't see 50 yards? If you've got a rifle/cartridge/scope combination capable of making clean kills out to 300 yards and more, and you've got the steady rest needed to make such a shot, you'll want to locate that stand where you have at least one shooting lane that takes advantage of the rifle type and the ballistic and optical capabilities on which you made your buying decisions in the first place.
In the final analysis, it boils down to the fact that the mule deer hunter doesn't have a lot to say about the conditions under which he's likely to be presented a shot; it's going to be long or very long. The Eastern hunter, on the other hand, has a lot to say about the kind of shot he's likely to be presented with, and that should determine his choice of rifle, cartridge and scope. He can, for example, locate his stand at the edge of a fire break where he's got shooting lanes off to his right and left that extend literally forever--the beanfield scenario if you will. Or he can bust brush in hopes of jumping a buck out of tight cover for which he'll need a rifle that's light, fast-handling and has rapid follow-up-shot capability and a low-magnification scope with a large field of view. Two extremes to be sure, but both are common scenarios in the East and ones over which the hunter himself has control.
Another thing that's changed with regard to the Eastern deer rifle is the calibers for which they're chambered. Just because one chooses to still-hunt thick cover or participate in deer drives doesn't mean one must saddle himself with a lever-action cartridge that peters out within 150 yards. Today we have choices of very light, fast-handling bolt actions chambered for short-action cartridges like the .260 and 7mm-08 Remington or .308 Winchester that are fully capable of dispatching the largest whitetail buck out to 250 yards or more. It's true we have a lot to say about the kind of shots we're going to be presented with by virtue of where and how we choose to hunt, but we don't have total control. If that unlikely long shot presents itself, why not have a rig that can cut the mustard?
