EP425 How to Realistically Pick a Deer Hunting Rifle

So the first thing that I would like to assess is what do you want it to do? Yeah, you want it to shoot a deer.

This is about deer hunting.

It's in the title of the episode, right? Buying a new rifle for deer hunting.

Okay, yeah, but what kind of conditions are you hunting deer? Are you hunting deer in the woods? Are you walking through the woods in dense forest? Are you hunting deer out of a blind at 100 yards away on a food plot? Are you hunting deer in the western states where a 200 or 300 yard shot is very realistic? Are you hunting deer in the hills and valleys and thick woods of western Pennsylvania where average shot distance is maybe more like 30 to 50 yards? Or are you hunting in big, thick brush where you might have to punch through some vegetation in order to put the round where you want it to go? These are the kinds of questions that I think you want to answer first.

Is there a gun that will do all of it? Sure.

Is there a gun that is the best at all of it? Well, no.

Each one of these things could benefit from certain different features of different guns of different calibers.

But what is the right one for you or the right balance for you? Because there's some really good options out there, and some are usable for many scenarios, but some excel more at others, or at least more at certain ones.

So how are you hunting? Where are you hunting? So let's think about this.

Do you need short range, mid range, long range? And don't tell me all of the above.

Just please.

What is realistic? What are you most likely to need? What is the most likely scenario? A lot of people go with the 100 yard standard.

100 yards they want to the best group they can get at 100 yards they want the best performance they can get at 100 yards 100 yards is often looked at as the standard and certainly there are people where 100 yards is the right standard but there's also i think lots of people where 100 yards is not the right standard i don't think i've ever shot a deer at 100 yards I don't know that I've ever shot a deer further than 50 yards or so with a rifle or anything.

There's been one time maybe I took a shot that was further than 50 yards that's coming to mind.

But where I hunt...

It's just not many shots that you can see from further than that.

And I typically set up my hunting positions so I can't see a whole lot further than I can shoot because I don't want the deer to see me from further than I can shoot the deer.

And I like to do a lot of archery hunting.

And so that principle works much better with archery hunting.

And so if I'm hunting with a rifle, I'm often hunting out of what would be also a good archery position.

And so long range shots are just not something that I have a lot of options on.

That said, I have hunted at places and at times where longer range was an option.

I just never had a longer range shot at one of those places where it was necessary.

I have one rifle that has a red dot on it.

And it is specifically geared for 50 yards and closer as a walking gun.