Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting 30-06 too much for deer?

'Zackly

I think a .30-06 is a fine deer cartridge. My first deer came from a .30-06 with 150 gr. federals. As I am sure lots of other people have. I also believe a .260 is perfect for most deer hunting, unless the "Deer" are elk and moose. Then we are back to a .30-06 as being almost perfect. It has more then enough power and such and for old style deer hunting as previously mentioned it is good on the moving shots. I would tend to stick with a good cup and core 180 to keep meat damage down a little.
I have also shot deer with a .458 and 500grs. , the meat damage was minimal , the deer ran a ways with that though!!!!!!!

Have you ever thought "that was too much gun" after you've just killed a great buck? Me neither!

its certainly more than is needed but if you like to hunt with it who cares?

I have given up thinking in terms of caliber for deer in particular, and if I ever decided I wanted to shoot something bigger there's no doubt in my mind caliber would be near the bottom of the list as well.

I purposely put together some .223 loads and killed a couple deer with them last fall. One, a doe that was a 200 lb deer dressed, had a 3 inch diameter hole through the off side shoulder meat. Itty bitty 53 grain bullets seem to me to work as well at that range as anything else. The lungs were wrecked, the heart was loose in the chest. No damn different that a lot of 30-06 killed deer with 130/150 grain Barnes bullets.

Does that mean that if a 30-06 is too much that a .223 with that 53 grain TSX is too much too? Damn fool question considered in that light now isn't it? If that makes a .223 too much, like a 30-06, then what the hell would be just enough?

Anymore, I look at how far I need to shoot first. Am I going to need to fight wind? Will I need to shoot through a lot of deer to hit the parts that will kill it? Which rifle do I want to use today? After shooting a "big" deer with an itty bitty bullet and getting performance that confirms what I have seen other people claim and photograph. I don't have questions about can I or should I. A fast twist, long barrel .223 can push a 70 grain TSX at 3300 FPS if I want to. I'd rather have to use that than a 30-06 with 180 RN bullets that I grew up around, especially for steep angle quartering shots. That setup can do everything a 30-30 can do and then has a whole lot left over to do things like killing deer well at 300 yards and further which is beyond what the 30-30 can only hope to do with a lot of luck at 200.

With the best of the bullets available today we can kill deer with fast rounds at very short distances without making a mess and wasting a lot of meat. I've done it at 25 feet with a 300 WM, 30-06s, .270s and seen others do the same. I have also turned it around and killed deer with equal or more damage at near 300 yards.

My suspicions of where too much might exist is on the high side of 40 caliber or bigger bullets moving at 3500 or so FPS. Too little might be .17 caliber, but if we had good copper bullets for them and fast enough twist barrels to handle heavy for caliber .17s, I suspect they could work pretty well. The former, I don't think I'd want to be working up loads for, and even once at a deer is probably more than I'd want to repeat.

Anything in between, just choose an appropriate load and bullet and it's all good.

+1

I use a 30-06 to hunt everything from as small as coyotes, antelope and mountain goats to as big as moose. I've shot bigger calibers and smaller calibers but I use a rifle/caliber that I'm comfortable and competent with.

I suppose that you can use a caliber that's too big for the game. I've shot rabbits and ptarmigan with a 30-06 and there was not much left. There are some calibers that are too big for me because I don't enjoy the recoil of those big bruisers. But I think until it's obviously way out of scale, any caliber that you are competent and comfortable with is OK.

KC

Seeing as I"ve shot deer with my 50 bmg... I would not call the 06 anything but works fine.

As long as the bullet choice is correct, shot placement correct, and distance/vs energy is good, I could really care less.

22lr works fine too. Not legal in our state but works fine.

I say use what you want to.

It is hell on 2x4's and shooting houses I can tell ya that!

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbth...BBQ_Beer_and_the_3_shot_buck#Post8511244

We could all use .223's and kill our deer. I'm not sure that's the best choice for any given deer in any given situation but for most situations it's fine. The new line of thinking though is that the .30-06 is overkill on whitetail sized animals and something along the lines of a .260 or 7mm-08 are just right. There might be some merit to that line of thinking. I've even abandoned the .30-06 in favor of the .270 for my deer hunting.

I don't think an '06 is too much. I use smaller and larger cartridges as well. Bullet construction is likely more a factor than the cartridge.

I do use 180's in an '06 with a view to reducing bloodshot meat.

The '06 will get you four feet in the air once in a while. That is a good sight.

I don't think it is too much, but it is definitely more than you need.

I'd pass on that idea. No need to handicap myself from the gate.

Can get four feet in the air all the time if you precisely place the shots.

Still amazed taht folks think that rounds have more to do with feet in the air than shot placement.

For just shooting a deer I doubt that any cartridge from .257 Bob to .375 Ruger is significantly better or worse than the next.

Choosing amongst them isn't about the deer it's about the where, the how, the rifle, the variety, the load, and the other game hunted or encountered.

When I started hunting 40 years ago conventional wisdom was that the 30-06 was a good middle of the road chambering and a 243 borderline. With todays advancements I consider the 30-06 much more powerful than needed and a 243 about right for deer.

But I've got several 30-06's that I ain't selling. If I were advising a new hunter, I'd probably tell them to pass on the 30-06 though.

I'm thinking along the same lines as you I guess in the sense that I've been shooting deer with an 06 pump since like 1979. I believe if you were to put a 10 shot clip in my 760, it's affectionately called 'the Amish machine gun' in Pa., LOL.

Anyways I've shot more than a few deer with that 06 and 150 grain bullets. If you put your shot right behind the shoulder, you break a rib going in and out, no meat loss, and they run about 35-40 yards as they bleed out and if you're quiet and listening, you can hear them drop.

But again, I've had the same result with other centerfire rifle calibers smaller than the 06, as well as 12 & 20 gauge slugs, muzzleloader with round ball and saboted bullet, and arrows.

While not the shooter, I've seen the same results with a 22 rimfire and 22 rimfire magnum.

If you can make the correct shot placement it doesn't matter what you use.

And if you can make that same placement, behind the shoulder just breaking a rib going in and out, I doubt a 460 Wby magnum would do any more meat damage than an 06 or any other caliber.
Of course, if you like to break the shoulders, it's a whole different ballgame.

That's about it right there.

I've killed more deer w/ it than any other cartridge because it's the one I hunt most often.

I've been playing with smaller diameter cartridges pushing bullets really fast and they're effective. Deer just aren't that hard to kill if you make the first shot count.

The 30-06 is my heaviest cartridge now and likely will stay that way for some time to come. Short of the dangerous game of Africa where it's mandated I can't imagine needing anything bigger.

I have shot more deer with the 30-06 than any other round. Saying it is too much gun would mean it kills deer too dead??????????? Dead is dead. The 06 has been killing deer dead for over 100 years and I am sure it will as long as you can hunt deer. If it tickles your fancy to use a different round then do so. The excuse that it will ruin more meat than other calibers would probably mean you shot it someplace where most other calibers would also ruin meat.

^^^^^^^ This. Hit them in the right place(like I said above also), no matter what you use, there will be literally no meat loss.

My very first center first rifle was purchased at the age of 16. It was a Remington 700 BDL in .30-06. I only kept it for a few weeks as it would not shoot straight.

I then purchased a Ruger M77R from a ZCMI clothing store in Ogden UT. I paid $199 for the rifle.

I still have that rifle. I Shoot 150gr Nosler BT's right now.

I've killed Elk and Mule Deer in Utah, Mule Deer in Nevada, and White Tail in Arizona.

It's been a good rifle to me.

I now have a small arsenal of fire arms. But, I would not hesitate to use my trusty .30-06 for any game here in AZ.

One well placed shot from an accurate rifle is all you need.