Hunting Expert Craig Boddington's Favorite Deer Cartridges

Sooner or later, almost every whitetail neighborhood has a legendary local buck that somehow beats the odds and evades hunters season after season. Especially nowadays with the proliferation of trail cameras, everyone who hunts in the area knows about him and hopes to tag him. Usually, he’s a big boy. Ours was not. Ours was Old Spike, who sported two long, single-tined antlers, each as thick as a shillelagh.

One opening morning, thanks to a lucky trail cam photo, I changed my plan and went to the Creek Stand, which features a well-worn creek crossing in front of the stand and a steep ridge behind it. There’s a small oxbow to the left. Shortly after sunrise I heard crunching in the frozen grass behind me, craned my neck and saw the reflection of a nice eight-pointer in the pool. Just the reflection, though; the deer itself was hidden. He was followed by another. They stepped out, sparred in front of me, then continued north.

Twenty minutes later, there was more crunching. I swiveled and there was Old Spike reflected in the pool. I let him clear the brush, then shot him carefully on the shoulder. He ran 40 yards toward the creek, painting the frozen grass as he went, then piled up. We figured he was about 9 years old. That hunt remains one of my favorite whitetail experiences.

The rifle I used that day was a lever-action .30-30 with an Aimpoint red-dot sight. In that circumstance, broadside at 40 yards, many cartridges, and muzzleloaders and bows, would have done as well. That .30-30 wasn’t my granddad’s rifle. It was a then-new Mossberg 464. In fact, Granddad never owned a rifle. Nor did Dad until later on because Kansas had no deer season until I was a teenager. We were bird hunters, so I started with no rich heritage of deer camps and deer rifles.

GETTING STARTED

I’m a recent convert to the great old .30-30 in certain applications. I’ll circle back to that. First, more about my journey. My first buck was a mule deer and my first deer rifle was a scoped .243. Nothing unusual about that.

Since its introduction in 1955, the .243 Winchester has been the most popular choice for beginning deer hunters of all ages and sizes. It’s not bad for experts either. Accurate and mild in recoil, the .243 punches above its weight class and doubles as a fine varmint rifle.

Before the .243, likely choices for a first deer rifle were the .250 Savage and .257 Roberts. With greater frontal area, .25s are better deer rifles than 6mms, but not as good as crossover deer/varmint rifles.

I’ve taken deer-sized game with just about all the .25s and never had any problems. Even so, I’ve never been a card-carrying member of the quarter-bore club. I prefer even more bullet weight and frontal area, but it depends on where (and which deer) you hunt. For larger deer, whether big whitetails or mule deer, I prefer heavier bullets of larger diameter than the 6mms or .25s.

This was a dilemma when my daughters started hunting as teenagers. Forget my preferences and my rifles (I’m a lefty; they are right-handed). I decided on a mild 6.5mm for them. The 6.5 Creedmoor didn’t yet exist and the 6.5x55 Swede was (and remains) uncommon. I settled on the .260 Remington for both Brittany and Caroline, a decade apart.

Of course, now there are even more nuanced options. If you’re an AR fan, choices include 6mm ARC and 6.5 Grendel. Then we must consider the straight-wall movement. At Boone & Crockett’s recent 32nd Big Game Awards, I was struck by how many young hunters, recognized at the Generation Next Youth Banquet, took their awesome animals with the .350 Legend. Although limited in range, its recoil and blast are minimal, and a .35-caliber bullet makes a big hole.

MAGNUM MANIA

As mentioned, I started with a .243 but soon took a different path. Back then, all new cartridges were belted magnums, and the gun magazines were my textbooks. Before long, I had a .264 Winchester Magnum, which I loved. It was (and is) a hard-hitting, flat-shooting cartridge, adequate for all deer near and far.

The .264 started red-hot, then cooled when the more versatile 7mm Remington Magnum arrived. The Big Seven became the world’s most popular magnum cartridge but was surpassed by the .300 Win. Mag. Today, both have been supplanted by more modern case designs (RUM, WSM, PRC, RPM, Nosler). However, both the 7mm Rem. Mag. and .300 Win Mag remain versatile, effective and popular cartridges, adequate for all deer under any conditions. From 1980 to 1995 I did much hunting, including for deer of all kinds, with a series of 7mm Rem. Mag. rifles. I’ve also used various fast .30s. However, even in my deepest “magniac” days, I realized that fast, .30-caliber power isn’t essential for deer hunting.

I’ve also written that no magnums are essential for North American deer hunting. Current interest in long-distance shooting has changed the landscape. More hunters want to extend their range. Whether they should depends on skill, but some areas offer longer shots.

If you have the inclination to take them, you need to project more energy farther and do so with skill and confidence. Our timbered ridges in southeast Kansas do not offer long shots. Every year, some of our deer hunters bring fast magnums. The 7mm Rem. Mag. and .300 Win. Mag. are most common, but we see Winchester Short Magnums and Weatherby Magnums. So far, just a couple of PRCs and Noslers have made an appearance. Our shooting conditions don’t require any of these, but we don’t give magnum-armed hunters any grief. New or old, fast magnums work … if you can shoot them well.

MAGNUM REDEMPTION

My early deer hunting experience was with mule deer, and I was obsessed with them. When I got commissioned and went off to Quantico, I had a chance to hunt whitetails. I knew Eastern hunters would laugh at my pet .264, so I packed a .270 Winchester. I studied the “where to go” ads, and on a long weekend in October 1974, I drove down to North Carolina for a deer hunt. What I didn’t know was that it was to be a hound hunt in a big swamp. My hosts gave me hell about my “useless” rifle and urged me to use a shotgun with buckshot. I politely declined.

Late the first morning, I was perched on a levee, flooded timber on both sides, when hound music headed my way. Then I saw movement, the shine of antler through the thick stuff. The buck gathered himself, dashed up the bank, then ried to clear the levee in a mighty leap. I remember it as a Station 8 skeet shot, shooting up at the deer.

That .270, short-barreled with full stock, handled like a good quail gun. The 150-grain Sierra centered both shoulders and the buck crashed down on the open levee. It was an awesome buck for that time and place. The locals poked no more fun at my .270.

My magnum redemption may never be complete. I still use them for elk and mountain hunting, but rarely for deer. It depends on the country you hunt, the shots you take and what gives you confidence. Although I love to ring steel, I’m not an extreme-long-range shooter on game, and most of the places I hunt don’t require longer shots. Also, as a gun guy and gunwriter, sometimes I want to use a certain rifle. In 2024 I took whitetails in both Kansas and Oklahoma with a .300 H&H to celebrate the centennial of that near-obsolete classic.

In the mid-1970s I made another discovery that aided my magnum rehab. I took a Ruger M77 .30-06 on my first African safari and was amazed at its spectacular performance on plains game large and small. I’ve used various .30-06 rifles ever since.

I’ve taken all varieties of our deer with the .30-06, both in open country and thick cover. It shoots flatter than we give it credit for and is a big hammer on deer-sized game. However, as I now feel about most magnums, the .30-06 is needlessly powerful for deer. And, as generations of recruits have remarked, it has too much recoil for many.

THAT WAS THEN …

In the 1980s and ’90s, still in magnum rehab, I mostly alternated between two favorite rifles, one in 7mm Rem. Mag., the other in .30-06. In terms of performance on game, they are more similar than one might think. The 7mm Rem. Mag. shoots slightly flatter. The .30-06 hits slightly harder. Both have similar recoil. On deer, both are perhaps needlessly powerful.

I came to think of the .30-06 more as an elk cartridge than a deer cartridge. Instead, the .270 Winchester became and has remained a lifelong favorite. My wife Donna shoots little else. These days, with the popularity of the 6.5s, the century-old .270 has slipped, but it’s still a cartridge that I consistently recommend. The .270 shoots plenty flat as far as most of us have any business shooting, and it hits hard with modest recoil. There are other great choices. I’ve had a couple of flings with the .280 Remington, which is a wonderful cartridge. It was never popular but was touted by astute riflemen I admire. Though it is versatile and effective, I never fell in love with it.

Carefully reading my O’Connor, and following the lead of friend and mentor Mike Ballew, I decided I should have a 7x57 Mauser, which is mild-kicking and legendary for its efficiency. A young Mark Bansner built me one. It was still new when I hunted in western Kentucky with Harold Knight and David Hale. At the end of a slow week, doing two-hunter drives along creeks, a nice eight-pointer came streaking out. I swung with him, got ahead and squeezed off a shot. Unchecked, he vanished over a rise, but when it’s right you know. We found him there, bullet nicely centered on the shoulder.

Ever since then, the old 7x57 has been a favorite whitetail cartridge, with some restrictions. I don’t take it into open country and have never hunted mule deer with it. But in country where shots are within 200 yards, it’s hard to beat.

… THIS IS NOW

I entered our brave new millennium mostly a .270 guy for deer. Around that time came a spate of unbelted, fat-cased short and long cartridges. I tried most of them. They do what they are supposed to do, but I survived the onslaught without needing further therapy. They intruded little into my world of deer hunting because, as I’d already figured out, magnums aren’t essential for most deer hunting.

Other revelations were coming. The .260 Remington my daughters started with never gained much traction. Loads were limited, and I never got the accuracy from it that I wanted. I thought about the 7x57 for them, but factory loads are limited for it, too—it’s a handloader’s cartridge. Today, I might have opted for the 6.5 Creedmoor for my daughters. Instead, I did something uncharacteristically brilliant: I moved both to the 7mm-08 Rem. It’s almost identical to my beloved 7x57, but loaded to a higher pressure, so a bit faster. It’s short-action capable, readily available and another cartridge that punches well above its weight class.

Despite popularity and hype, I have seen issues with the 6.5 Creedmoor on larger deer, even with seemingly ideal hits. I have never seen such issues with the 7mm-08. Given the same bullet weight at similar velocity and the same recoil, the only difference I can come up with is the .02-inch difference in bullet diameter (.264 versus .284), which I believe makes the 7mm-08 hit harder. So, again, it comes down to what one intends to do. The 6.5 Creedmoor is a better long-range target cartridge; the 7mm-08 is a better hunting cartridge.

Both my daughters use little else and have never looked back. Donna remains mostly a .270 girl, but she also has a 7mm-08. As a matter of history and nostalgia, I stick with the 7x57, limiting it to medium-range shots. I try to avoid duplication, but right now I have three 7x57 rifles.

Astute readers will note that I have omitted important calibers and cartridges. I’ve said nothing about the .22 centerfires. Perhaps in revolt against the magnum mania of years gone by, it seems many deer hunters today are in a race to the bottom, taking a minimalist approach. I’ve taken a lot of deer with various .22 centerfires. Accuracy and almost no recoil simplify shot placement, and today’s heavy .224 bullets (in increasingly fast rifling twists) greatly improve performance. However, entrance wounds are tiny; exit wounds are uncommon, and usually small if they occur. Sometimes the .22s work like lightning strikes. Other times tough tracking is needed. It depends on where you hunt, and the deer you’re hunting. The .22 centerfires are not legal in all jurisdictions, and although I’ve used them with success, I don’t recommend them for larger-bodied deer.

Again, I believe bullet diameter is an important factor in hitting power and energy transfer. Absent head and spine shots, even with the best shot placement, a deer is likely to run some distance. So, I believe the size of the bullet hole(s) has much to do with difficulty of tracking, which brings us around to slower, milder kicking .30 calibers.

Despite its popularity, I don’t believe in the .300 Blackout for deer, as it does not possess enough energy. As discussed at the open, I have come to believe in the granddaddy of American deer cartridges, the .30-30, with optical sights. With few stands on my farm offering shots beyond 150 yards, it’s still almost perfect. My bullets have always exited, and bucks have always been easily found. Light-kicking and hard-hitting, the .30-30 still deserves its reputation as a great whitetail cartridge. I also have a soft spot for the old .300 Savage and occasionally have a wonderful time in the deer woods with a scoped Savage 99 from the 1950s.

Then there’s the .308 Winchester, one of our best and most versatile deer cartridges, introduced in 1952. Being more of a .30-06 guy, I haven’t used it much, but my Dad did almost all his hunting with a .308. His rifle lives at the Kansas farm as a spare among two other “camp rifles”—a Howa Superlite and a Browning X-Bolt—both in .308.

The .308 is about 93 percent of the .30-06, doesn’t shoot quite as flat and fits into a short action. It is still a powerful cartridge, and I don’t recommend it for youngsters or shooters of smaller stature. The recoil is substantial, especially in lighter rifles, but it’s certainly an awesome deer cartridge.

I also don’t typically recommend using it in open country, whether for mule deer or for whitetails in big agriculture. Yeah, I know, with today’s dial-up scopes, trajectory is just a number. Still, when a big buck appears at a reasonable range, there isn’t always time to use the rangefinder or to fiddle with the scope turret. In open country, I want a cartridge that will shoot flat enough that I can quickly get steady and shoot.

That eliminates most of my favorite whitetail cartridges. I still don’t think full-up magnum power is essential, and I’m not certain .30 calibers are needed. For sure, the fastest 7mms and .30s work like gangbusters, but they get into recoil issues for many. The extra-heavy, low-drag bullets, though nice at extreme range, aren’t necessary for deer (and they kick more). I’m loving the 7 PRC and have taken a few nice bucks with it. But unless the country is really open, and it’s loaded with the heavy bullets it was designed for, I think of it as better for elk than deer.

Which brings us full circle to the .270 Win. and to the .264 Win. Mag. of my youth. No, I’m not trying to resurrect the near-obsolete .264, although I still have one and still love it. Instead, for open-country deer, think about modern, fast 6.5mms: 6.5-284 Norma, 6.5 PRC, 6.5 RPM. All in modern case designs, they possess the same ballistics as the old .264. With bullets in the 140-grain class, they are about 300 feet per second (fps) faster than the 6.5 Creedmoor, delivering more energy farther downrange. Because of modest bullet weight and small diameter, I don’t think of any of them as ideal for elk. They are, however, awesome for any deer that walks—at any reasonable range.

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• This article was featured in the November 2025 issue of Game & Fish magazine. Click to subscribe.

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