Many words have been written about rifle cartridges and bore diameters. Some would say larger bores produce more lethal wounds. Others are focused upon high velocity and premium bullets. Somewhere in between all these words are predictable results.

I'm not convinced the diameter of the bullet prior to impact and mushrooming is much of a factor in lethality. I've witnessed large mulies toppled with many rifle cartridges. From the .223 on small end to 444 Marlin on the larger end. I've seen the innards of these chest cavities and studied the tissue destruction. I'm of the opinion that the mushrooming effect and spinning bullet effect with sharp jacket edges exposed are what causes all the tissue damage.

In other words, shot placement and a good big game bullet will work well for mule deer. Diameter of bullet is largely irrelevant. You're allowed to disagree but let's be friendly with each other.

Please do not turn this into an argument about elk and brown bear cartridges. I did not mention these animals within this post.
TR

Many words have been written about rifle cartridges and bore diameters. Some would say larger bores produce more lethal wounds. Others are focused upon high velocity and premium bullets. Somewhere in between all these words are predictable results.

I'm not convinced the diameter of the bullet prior to impact and mushrooming is much of a factor in lethality. I've witnessed large mulies toppled with many rifle cartridges. From the .223 on small end to 444 Marlin on the larger end. I've seen the innards of these chest cavities and studied the tissue destruction. I'm of the opinion that the mushrooming effect and spinning bullet effect with sharp jacket edges exposed are what causes all the tissue damage.

In other words, shot placement and a good big game bullet will work well for mule deer. Diameter of bullet is largely irrelevant. You're allowed to disagree but let's be friendly with each other.

Please do not turn this into an argument about elk and brown bear cartridges. I did not mention these animals within this post.
TR

Only thing I can add is the energy of the initial round and construction of a bullet has to be taken into effect.

I've seen deer shot with small calibre varmit bullets where the bullet construction didn't allow penitration and just caused a surface wound. This can happen with larger calibre bullets also, and did when jacketed bullet construction was just getting off the ground. Deer says darn that hurts and leaves the country.

Back in the late 50's and early 60's you would often find small chunks of bullet jacket far from the entry wound when you were cutting the meat up. This resulted from the high spin of the bullet breaking up and casting those pieces off the jacket. It's one of the reasons the Noslers became so popular.

I think that you need enough calibre and velocity and tough bullet construction to get into the ribcage where that high velocity, high bullet spin can do its work. Though the 224 diameter bullets can do this and often result in spectactular kills I've seen deer run away too. To little energy. I like cartridges from the 243 up for really consistant performance on deer sized animals.

got to admit I like the bigger bores for elk and up, shoot an old 8mm rem mag for them.

Chances are two different people could look at the same pile of dead deer and come to differnt conclusions...but the facto remains, you only get to look inside the ones that died so whatever shot them must have worked.

I don't even mind small calibers on deer...if the bullets are long enough and designed for big game. Bullet expansion and penetration are in opposition....which is why I prefer long bullets to short ones (of couse, can read "heavy" for long).

BIgger bore fans want a bullet designed for the WORST possible case, not the best. Want to be able to take that 3/4 away shot that has to pass through 3 or 4X as much meat to find vitals....something which the little bulelts are measurably not as good at doing.

So it is possible in looking over those dead deer that the ones that took a small caliber shot just aren't in the pile...they got away to die in some thicket a day or two later. Were centrainly some alrge calibers ones not in teh pile as well, but all things considered, belive the large claiber ones would be more likely to be missing rom the dead-pool becasue of poor shooting, not from poor bullet perfromance.

My opinion, with no hard numbers to back it up at all, is that bullet spin is not a significant factor in the damage it does to the target. Bullet core/jacket separation upon impact reflects on poor bonding between them (mechanical or chemical) not on the effects of spin. If spin was to affect the bullet this way its effect would be greater at the highest RPM, namely upon exiting the barrel. This has been known to happen with lead or very light-jacketed bullets driven at very high speeds. They desintegrate shortly after leaving the muzzle. In my opinion, bullets stop spinning very shortly after entering an animal, wether they expand or not. Within two or three inches at most if they expand. They definitevely stop spinning before they stop moving forward. My opinion.

Kinetic energy imparted on the game animal by whatever caliber of bullet you desire, plus placement to cause damage to the nervous or circulatory systems.

A properly placed .22LR at close range will do it. A .600 Nitro will likewise take one down.

Worst deer hunt situation I personally ever encountered was back in the late 70's when using a noted manufacturer's soft point bullets in a 30-06. Bullet blew up on the shoulder with hardly any penetration. Took an hour of tracking and another shot behind the head to finish off. Always felt bad for the suffering of that animal and have used mostly NP's and Hornady Interlocks since with no failures.

Noslers tend to punch through and through at almost all ranges within my personal limits (350 yd max), while the Hornadys sometimes do and sometimes don't, depending on the range and location of hit. All anchor the animal either in it's tracks or close by.

I'll give a thumbs up on all the new "bonded" bullets, in addition to Barnes TSX bullets. They should be the most effective and humane.

Yup, I'll second everything kdub said. Those bonded core bullets really make a difference and have added a new dimension to any calibre/cartridge there used in.

Dad bought a 7mm Rem Mag back when this was the hype caliber of the year suggesting it was the best thing since smokeless powder...ya know the normal sale hype BS. Anyway, bullet selection was minimal at best and it seems to me as little research was done on them prior to thier being shoved in the boxes and put on dealers shelves. Well, dad just had to have this new top end magnum to kill mule deer in CO as God knows his 30-06 was simply too old and tired to do the job.

Dad cranked his handloads to the max of magnum super dynamics as the hype writers all suggested and printed some pretty impressive groups on paper with this rifle/cal combo. Biggest problem was, he never took the time to ballistic test it at all. He did manage to get a mulie, 200 +/- yard shot and then he tracked for the remainder of that day and most of the next day before finally tagging the buck. Nice broad side shot through the boiler room which should have dropped that deer where he stood yet there was little more than a pencil hole in one side and out the other.

Still no ballistics testing but dad carried that same rifle and ammo for whitetails year after year. Finally, after he spend more time tracking wounded deer than anything, he figured out something was wrong. His threory, which he still stand by today some 30+ years later is that """the bullets go too fast and don't have time to expand""".... yes, triple quotes to make sure you read that right.

I won't mention bullet brand because it is non-issue as of this late date however, the only problem was that the jackets were made too thick and out of a hard Cu alloy which resulted in nothing much better than a lead core FMJ with a little lead showing at the tip. These bullets would probably have expanded if heavy bone contact was made but sliced through rib bones and soft tissue with no deformation or tumbling resulting in next to nothing for a wound channel.

Went off tangent there simply to make my point. The 7mm Rem mag lacked niether bullet weight nor velocity to render itself sufficient enough to kill mulies or whitetails but the bullet itself was the root cause of the problem. On the other hand, like someone else said, " a .22lr is sufficient..." The same argument could be made saying a .177 air rifle is sufficent to make a kill on a cape buffalo or elephant provided the shot was placed perfectly and at point blank range.

"Sufficient" is one thing but "practical" is the main point. Practical means the round has sufficient power to drive the bullet with enough velocity to ensure enough penetration depth and the bullet is properly constructed to ensure proper amount of expansion.

Just because deer sized animals can be killed with a .223 does not mean it is the proper choice. There are no bullets, at least none I can find from any mfg, that are designed for anything other than varmit hunting, paper punching or military use. I've been begging bullet mfg's to offer at least one heavy jacketed controlled expansion bullet in .224" yet there are none. Varmit bullets are designed for rapid expansion as to help eliminate over penetration in a small animal IE: under 40 pounds live weight. Hunting wild hogs, I watch a fellow take down three hogs with a .223 using 60gr sp's. The largest hog was a female weighing in around 110# and the other two were about 70# each. Penetration was minimal to say the least as the bullet almost completely fragmented on impact with the rib bone on the largest hog and left a less than impressive wound channel through the boiler room. The hog did drop within 30 yards of being hit but died more from bleeding out after being stuck than from internal bleeding within the wound channel. Most fragments of the bullet were recoved inside the rib cage opposite the entry wound and only a very small exit wound existed which appears to have been a small piece of the core using the recovered fragments as a gauge. The two smaller hogs dropped on impact but the less than optimum quarting shot entered just behind the rib cage left side and did not exit and almost 100% of the fragments laid against the right shoulder but did not penetrate any further, termination was also slow on this animal and was assisted by the nife stick as well. The last hog was hit square broad side as well missing the rib bone on the entrance side which is likely the cause of the larger 1/2" exit wound on this one. No fragments were recovered and termination was quicker but the hog did run about 15 yds after taking the hit.

Personally I'm no fan of anything in .224" for more than varmit/pest control but I laid my personal bias aside when examining these hogs. While some may hold the belief that these bullets/rounds are sufficient for larger game, I can only suggest they take only head shots.

Rotation of the bullet from the rifling has effect on bullets, more so on non-expanding types (FMJ's) and on rapid expanding (HP's) than on SP's. Rotational force is what causes the tumble advantage with FMJ's and is also what help rapid expanding bullets rip apart quicker.

I am a firm believer that bullets should be sized and powered in proportion to what you intend to kill with them. While there is no reason why a 325gr slug from a .375 H&H mag would not take down a 50# coyote, there is little need for the massive bullet and energy for such a purpose and the collateral damage concerns are very real and a considerable problem. Yet on the same note, one would not question the thought of using such a loading on a mulie, elk or bear.

With the above in mind, I say, "yes, you do need to have a bullet of sufficient design, weight and velocity to perform properly on the size game you are using it on." I would ignore using diamter as a reference as you can have a 190gr in 6.5mm, 7mm, .308" & .323" which would have similar charactoristics of penetration and expansion if all were driven at the same speed. Granted the argument could be made for using a 125gr bullet in say a .220 Swift round but its length would be something serious to contend with.

* Shot Placement
* Bullet Construction
* Choice of Caliber