Best short range deer caliber?

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srawl

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Im looking for a rifle for 75 yards or less.

Ive been thinking about 357 mag, 12 ga buck or slug, muzzleloader and obviously the venerable 30-30.

What in you alls opinion would be best, not necessarily from this list?

Id like to get into cowboy action shooting so the 357 magnum is really apealing, but not more so than loosing deer.
 
Southern deer, so not large.

The specific location is a clearing surrounded by woods.

Longest possible shot is 75 yards, much more likely is 20-50.
 
I would use the 30 30 or 357 mag out of those you listed. Very affordable to shoot, low recoil, good ballistics and terminal effects at close ranges. Other than that it just depends on what you have and what you like!

A 243 win or 7mm-08 are excellent on deer here. Low recoil, flat shooting for longer shots or targets.

I like the 44 mag suggestion, especially if you hand load.

A 357 carbine is an awesome little gun. Great caliber if you reload or cast, and still great even if you don't. Very versatile and cheap to shoot compared to most. Very little recoil even on stout loads. You would like it, incredibly handy little rifle. BUT you would have to be more selective about your shots than you would be with bigger calibers. 357 out of a carbine barrel is no slouch though. You can get a 158 XTP to 1600 FPS pretty easily with H110 or similar. The lighter 125g bullets can get over 2000 fps with the same powders.

After typing that, I think the 357 mag edges out the 30 30 IMHO for what you are after.
 
a .270, .308 or .30-06.

They'll all work just as well at 40 yards as they will at 200 yards.

And they'll all work better than a .357 mag.
 
.357 from a rifle will work fine. .44 would be better. A good pattern from a heavy load of 00 applied to the neck via a modified choke would work, too. .30/30 would be last on the list because it is specialized to deer, but wouldn't work as well for anything else.
 
A 243 with a good scope. But really any flat shooting cartridge works just as well up close as at distance. There is no reason to handicap yourself with "traditional short range" cartridges.

A laser flat trajectory and pinpoint accuracy is more important in thick brush than for long shots in the open. A bullet that drops 12" at 100 yards can be compensated for in the open by just holding higher. In thick brush you usually have to shoot through tiny baseball size openings where there is no way to hold high and lob a bullet in without hitting brush.

It is also a lot darker, a lot sooner in the day in thick woods. A good scope makes it a LOT easier to see those tiny openings in poor light.

Longest possible shot is 75 yards, much more likely is 20-50.
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Is this postage stamp size parcel of land the only place you plan to hunt for the rest of your life? If you ever go somewhere else something a little more versatile will come in handy. There is no disadvantage to using a longer range cartridge up close. Not the other way around.
 
This is about like asking what the best wrench is to turn a bolt. Lots of them will do the job just fine, and there is no true "best" but there are consistently good, consistently bad and plenty intermittent ones. Light and fast rifle calibers likely (but not always) are not the best option as the bullets are designed to work after they travel a bit and lose some speed. At full power, full speed they likely will do 2 things which are undesirable...1 become shrapnel upon impact giving devastating effect to the vitals but doing collateral damage to the shoulders and fronts of the tenderloins...2 pass through with very little effect leaving a dying deer afoot that will never be found. High power, slow bullet rifle rounds (30-30, 35 rem, etc) will have the same effects but be less consistently bad up close. They are designed for close shots but bullet construction again is a factor. You likely have a soft lead bullet that will mushroom a lot, but may fragment. Pistol caliber carbines will likely be the most consistent as they are designed for the up close and personal shot where you can smell your quarry breakfast on its breath. They are heavy, slow, and fat in comparison to the others which means they will stay together, penetrate deeply, and have a very consistent good effect on a critter at "in yo face" range but will sacrifice velocity and effect more quickly than rifle cartridges. The best of the bunch is highly debatable, but are all pretty close in performance from 5 yards to 150 yards...44 mag, 45 colt (when loaded for bear...literally), 500, 454, 460, and a few more 4 something revolver rounds for good measure. The most universally accepted is 44 mag, but 45 colt can pack some SERIOUS wallop, as can the others...but the only ones seen commonly chambered in carbines are 44 mag and 45 colt. Both are a dollar a shot for decent factory ammo, but both can be loaded hotter, better, cheaper at home. My choice is 44 mag...but that's just because I ended up trading into a few 44s...all handgun but my contender has a 16" barrel and desperately needs a shoulder stock. It has proven Very VERY effective on 250 pound whitetail at 22 yards (closest) and 93 yards (longest). Both deer took less than 5 steps as they sank to the dirt and kicked for about 30-45 seconds.
 
I have other rifles, i have an excuse to buy another so why not specialize. Also no lever gun....
 
Mine is the H&R Buffalo Classic in 45/70. I changed the target sights for a set I can more clearly see in the woods. The 32" barrel does not appeal to most shooters, but the longer sight radius is the reason I like it. At distances within 75 yards a scope is unneeded, but 75 yards is still a pretty far distance to place bullets exactly where you want them, so good sights are important. Mine is a peep rear and a fire-sight front.

I think cartridges designed for handguns, shot in a rifle, is silly. Why? Because if you are going to carry a rifle anyway, why limit yourself to the smaller cartridge? Adequate power is just that. I'd rather have more than adequate. The compatibility of having the same cartridge for both revolver and rifle is appealing to some, but I don't see that as such a terrific advantage, at least not one that outweighs putting real rifle ammo into a real rifle.
 
VThillman said:
Through an 18"+ barrel, the .44 magnum is a rifle cartridge.
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With a lot more energy and effect on target than some "rifle cartridges" 200+ grains of lead moving around in the 2000 fps range you got yourself a heck of a cartridge. I have met no better whitetail anchor. It does marginally better than heavy 30-30 bullets in factory loads, and is more consistent on performance than bolt-gun cartridges. I have killed a few with my contender, a few with a 44 revolver, a few with a 357 revolver, a lot with 30-30, and a bunch with .270win. With the contender they fall over and expire. With the revolver they run but hit dirt within eyesight. With the 357 they run farther than with 44. With 30-30 they hunker up and run 50-75 yards if not further, and lay down and die...the circle of death where they spin on the ground as they die is not uncommon. 30-30 works best between 50 and 150 yards from my experience, but the results are always pretty similar unless you get a spine or neck shot. My .270 has nearly been retired because of its inconsistency. I have shot deer at 25 yards all the way out to 600 (stupid shot that worked) and from 100 yards on out it does GREAT, but up close, it's inconsistent. If I hit a rib it explodes. If I hit tissue it does its job most of the time, but still explodes from time to time. Even when it does its job, it's much like the 30-30 up close in the way the deer reacts. A long run at full speed followed by what appears to be a relatively slow death by the bloody ring where the deer spins on the ground.
 
I've killed deer quite dead with my .308 at 25 yards. It won't bounce off, honest. And, if I need it to, it'll shoot farther than any .30-30 or .357. Mine is a 20" barrel Remington M7, quite light, handy, and maneuverable, yet, 3/4 MOA accurate from a cold barrel. It's my do everything rifle, mountain canyons to thick woods.

357 out of a carbine barrel is no slouch though. You can get a 158 XTP to 1600 FPS pretty easily with H110 or similar.
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You can get 2000 fps from a 158 jacketed bullet out of a 20 inch Rossi 92 carbine with Lil Gun at safe pressures. I shoot a cast SWC from a Lee mold which weighs 165 grains with gas check installed. I push it nearly 1900 fps with 16.8 grains of Lil Gun. i can get 1800 fps from 14.5 grains of 2400. The Lil Gun is lower pressure than the 2400 load and is easier on brass, get good brass life with that load. Awesome powder for rifles. It has a bit of a rep for forcing cone erosion in revolvers, though.
 
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Oh, you mention muzzle loader. That's one of my main weapons now days, a .50 caliber CVA Wolf. I load a 385 grain hornady Great Plains Minie ball over 70 grains of 777 3f or 90 grains of 777 2f. It hits HARD and groups 2" at 100 yards and shoots flat to that range. The gun is short, light, and handy and with tooless breach plug is easy to clean. It fires with a 209 primer from a break open action. It's well protected from weather and you won't ever have to worry about a hangfire except if you try to use Blackhorn 209. Takes a blow torch to set off that stuff. They make a different breach plug for that stuff for the gun, now, but I am plenty happy with 777 myself. I think of it as a .50/90 sharps without the brass. :D

Added advantage to the big .50 is it doesn't need to expand, but then neither does the .357. But, with the big/flat bullets, you can eat right up to the hole. You really don't have to worry about blood trails if you put that big bullet on the shoulder. It'll shoot right through breaking bones and bang flopping the animal. At around 1800 fps, that 385 grain pill is packin' about 2800 ft lb at the muzzle. It's a 100 yard hammer....:D It does have a little recoil, not for wusses. But, it doesn't seem to bother me any worse than my 7 mag and I SURE would rather fire it than a friggin' 12 gauge slug. I'm a bit of a wuss, myself, with 12 gauge slugs.
 
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Until a couple of years ago, H&R made a neat little single-shot carbine in .45 Long Colt, the CR-45LC. Finish and wood were a step above the usual utilitarian level of the Handi-Rifle series. That would be about perfect for the hunting conditions that you describe, a light and handy carbine in a caliber and style consistent with your CASS ambitions.

photo_CR_45LC.jpg
 
If you don't handload, check out Buffalo Bore's .357 magnum stuff. I've killed one doe at 80 yards with mine using 2400 and a SWC. Killed it quite dead.

https://www.buffalobore.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=100

5. 18.5 inch Marlin 1894

a. Item 19A/20-180gr. Hard Cast = 1851 fps
b. Item 19B/20-170gr. JHC = 1860 fps
c. Item 19C/20-158gr. Jacketed Hollow Point = 2153 fps---- Can you believe this?!!!
d. Item 19D/20-125gr. Jacketed Hollow Point = 2298 fps---- Or this?!!!
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The .357 mag is a great cartridge, so is the .44 and .45LC. I have several .357 mag revolvers and a .357 Marlin carbine and I enjoy all of them and I shoot them well, but I have never -ever- considered using my .357 carbine for hunting anything larger than a coyote. Sure, these PISTOL cartridges can and do take down larger animals, but they are also responsible for the unnecessary wounding and loss of many others. I mean we all hear the stories of the deer (or whatever) at 200 yards taken with the .44 Deerfield, but nobody comes to the internet to brag about the animals they wound and lose, do they?

The .357 magnum in a carbine certainly stretches that cartridge's potential but the .357 will never come close to touching the energy of a 30-30 cartridge. And as a hunter you have an obligation to make your kills as quickly and humanely as possible. For the ranges you are speaking of, the 30-30 is awesome; the 308 is even better. Speed kills, everything else is just ego.
 
jamesinalaska, I am no hunter, so I will leave it to those with experience hunting with these rounds to share their first-hand knowlegdge. But I will point out that the argument you put forward could just as well be used to say that everyone should be hunting deer with .50 BMG.

The actual numbers say that that a hot .357 round from a rifle leaves the barrel with a little more than half the energy of a typical .30-30 load, a hot .44 Special or .45 Colt at about 3/4 the energy, and a .44 Magnum pretty darn close ot the .30-30 at the muzzle. These are some numbers from http://www.chuckhawks.com/rifle_ballistics_table2.htm with the first number in fps and the second in ft-lb.

Cartridge (Wb + type) V/E @ Muzzle V/E @ 100 yds
.30-30 Win. (150 FP) 2390/1902 2018/1356
.30-30 Win. (170 FP) 2200/1827 1895/1353
.357 Mag. (158 Sp) 1830/1175 1427/715
.44 Rem. Mag. (240 FP) 1760/1650 1380/1015
.44 Rem. Mag. (275 HP) 1580/1524 1293/1020

Clearly the .357 is the weakest of the bunch, but when you compare these numbers to handgun ballistics you find that the estimated power of that .357 at 50 yards (say 900-950 ft-lb) is still substantially more than any factory .357 load generates from a handgun at the muzzle, ever.

Unless you really think that a hot .357 load from a revolver at point blank range wouldn't be enough to put down Bambi humanely, then, at the "longest possible shot is 75 yards, much more likely is 20-50" described by the OP, .357 seems like more than enough if the hunter does his part.
 
in Ohio we have been restricted to shotgun slug, muzzleloader, or pistol .357 or larger only for deer. This year was our first pistol caliber rifles allowed as well.

From a rifle, .357 will easily suit you very well at those ranges for big Ohio deer, and would be my first choice were I not a handloader. Great for cowboy action as well with cheap .38 spl ammo to premium .357. (I'm one of those guys who feels that a .357 revolver is extremely marginal for deer. )

As a handloader, for both deer and cowboy shooting, .45LC (.454 Casull shoots both) would be my first choice.

If I were just hunting deer, I'd go .44 magnum. Though they could be downloaded for cowboy loads, it just doesn't seem to a cowboy caliber. :)

12 guage slug from a rifled barrel is very effective well past 100 yards, as is 30-30 but won't double as a cowboy action gun.
 
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