I've seen this comment may times when discussing deer hunting and I've yet to figure out what the heck it means. Is too fast too much? Is too flat too much? Is too much energy too much? Or is it just too much recoil for the complaintant to handle?

That comment has never made sense to me.

it falls into the "truck is too big, house is too big, you have too much money" type scenarios.


if a person can shoot a magnum accurately, i have no problem guiding hunters who carry them. its always better to be over gunned than under gunned.

I take it to mean too much gun for the one pulling the trigger to shoot accurately.

An example of too much gun would be using a .300 wm instead of a .22 to hunt wabbit or squirrel if you intend to eat them.

We now require hunters to shoot on arrival. And we tell them this up front. I think it helps, and it makes them practice some before arriving. They can hunt with a 50BMG if they can shoot it accurately. And I too think better to be over than under..... but also think a 25-06; 260; 270; 30-06 or 308 is plenty too. But to each their own.

Like 4 wheel drive on a truck. It's better have it an not need it, than to need it and not have it.

With deer, you can hunt them with anything. Yes, some guns out there are a bit over kill for deer, but it's all about shot placement.

My buddy's dad griped at me forever about bow hunting and not "knocking them down". I told him him I could group a better patter with my bow at 30 yards than he could with his rifle at 200. I did, and he hasn't spoken a word of it since. I now hunt with a 300 wsm and love it. But I'll never kill as many deer with that gun as I have with my old faithful .243 with 80 bullets.

Shot placement is the ticket no matter what caliber you use.

Should have specified, "knocking the down" to him means no track, dead where shot...

Shoot what you want! If you screw up dont blame it on your equipment. You know who's fault it is.

matt

I am afraid that when I see "Too Much gun" most of the time the writer is refering to it is more power than necessary to kill the intended game at the ranges they shoot.

The meaning that makes a lot more sense to me is too much recoil for the shooter to handle.

I like what SIG226 does, get an idea of shooting ability before allowing the hunt to proceed.

"too much recoil for the complaintant to handle"

Thats what it means to me...

we had a guy a few years back join our lease. He worked with me and 2 of my hunting buddies and he was...well....he was just a bit "goofy". He shows up in Junction with a 300 Weatherby mag to shoot those hill country deer. We give him crap because A. It's the hill country...and B. he stands about 5'3' and 130 lbs soaking wet. So we make him shoot a paper target at 100 yards at our shooting range. the range was just a 2 bench set made of 2x4's...fairly primitive but it worked.

So he sets up and we're behind him just givin em hell...MISS IT...NOONAN....just givin him th business. It takes him like 10 minutes to get on the target and finally fire the shot. When he fired and that monstor let loose....he drops the gun on the bench and just start screaming...running around...and covering his face with both hands. NOW were ALL scared. We think the cartridge exploded in his face or something. When we finally get him settled down and remove his hands from his face, his left eye is swoll COMPLETELY shut...couldn't see nothin of his eye, just swollen lids and cheek....We asked him what happened and he has no clue. THEN one of the other guys starts screaming and jumpin around. We then noticed a bunch of wasps flying around. Under the shooting bench was the BIGGEST red wasp nest I had ever seen...it was the size of football. When that gun went off, he got hit by about 8 or 10 of em right above his eye...once we got some ice on it...some copenhagen...gave him some Benadrhyl it got better....and THEN the ribbing began...we rode him like a swayback mule all weekend....my gawd that was funny...and scary at the same time...

How did he shoot though?

I konw the people that hunt on our place, I konw they can shoot, but never sight their gun it. My 270 has become the loaner gun, very accurate, heavy gun so it has little recoil, anyone can shoot it, but with the long barrel it is starting to get banged up in blinds.... poor gun

Me neither.....

Years ago my dad shot a doe in east tx with his Weatherby 460mag. knocked out a whole set of ribs!!!! you could definatly heat it when he touched it off!!!!!

If you are asking about MY guy...he was awful. He could hit the paper ok...nothing special about his groups. But when it came to shooting an animal, it was a guessing game. He hunted close to me one time...stand was probably a quarter mile away. It was the only stand on our lease in that area so when someone fired you KNEW it was from that stand. I'm sitting in the stand and I hear the shot. We get back to camp and I asked him what he shot at...he said it didn't shoot. We all knew he was lying...and of course we gave him hell. A week or so later, another hunter was in the stand and a doe gimped out. It got fairly close to the the stand and my buddy could see where one of his front hooves had been darn near shot off. Of course we attributed that deer to the shot we heard from him the week before. So we would leave shoes on the front porch of his camper with bullseye marks on em. We also chased a buck down he shot that he couldn't find on an evening hunt. He said he nailed it right behind the shoulder and couldn't believe it ran off. There were 5 of us searching including him...we finally jumped it about 100 yards in the brush. Its back was broken. We put em down as soon as we could. The bullet had hit high and far back crippling the poor thing. From that point on we would rib him some more and say stuff like.."Hey dude...you got somethin on your shoulder...and point to our butt" lol. Guy was just goofy as all get out. It was a one year stop for him on our lease...he didn't get invited back obviously...

Was at the gunstore last night and a guy was buying ammo for his NEW hog gun. Said "his old gun wouldn't kill hogs, those suckers are tuff!" Someone asked where he was shooting them. Guy said neck shot's usually, sometimes behind the shoulder.

The guy was picking up 338 Lapua Mag shells.

To each their own, I guess.

I believe it being over gunned rather than under, so I would say going with the heaviest reasonable caliber that a person can shoot well and that will give a humane kill, not saying a nitro express for deer but a lot of it is individual preference and the hunting situation, I remember reading a hunting book written in the 1930's that said the 30-30 was too much gun for whitetails.

It is amazing how much tougher deer must be today than years ago. One of the greatest bucks of all time was killed by James Jordan with a 25-20. He admitted it was small but he got the job done with it.

I won't presume to judge what anybody else uses unless the caliber simply isn't up to the task of providing clean kills, even with a bit of miscalculation on the shooter's part. That said, I personally don't see the advantage in using a gun suited for big, dangerous game on something as thin-skinned as a whitetail deer. For that reason, I don't go for the heavy hitters unless game and/or conditions warrant it (Like a .30-06 or a .338 WinMag for Colorado elk, rather than my standard .30-30).

I do think there are instances when a gun can be "too much." For example, if I'm going after coyote or fur-bearing animal and want to harvest the hides to make hood ruffs, I probably wouldn't want to use a 338 Win Mag or a .45-70 with Hammerheads. Nor would I hunt dove with a 10 ga. Just seems like common sense to me.

Recoil has never bothered me; as a 13 year-old who stood 4'10", one Saturday, I shot a couple of boxes of factory ammo through a .375 H&H that belonged to our rifle club sponsor, and had a great time. Came away with a very sore shoulder, but would have gone back the next day & done it again if I'd had the chance. My standard deer rifle at the time was an old .303 Enfield, complete with issue metal butt plate. Point is that my own decision to go with a lighter caliber & load would be dictated solely by its effectiveness on the game I was going after.

I sure wouldn't pick something with way more power than I thought I needed, just to prove that I could handle recoil (and I'm not saying that's what motivates other people; only they can be the judge of that). As much as I enjoy kicking it with my hunting pals, when an animal is in the crosshairs, nobody and nothing exists but me and that animal, and all I care about is whether the gun will do what I expect of it, and whether I'm up to doing my part. The brags, lies, and harassment come later in camp.

When I hear or say "too much gun" I mean that it is overkill for the game. Like hunting Texas whitetails with a .300RUM. Sure it will get the job done but it is totally unnecessary

Well said...I don't own one of the larger meatgetters...I hunt with a .270. Hunting in the hill country for so long, and with the size of the deer there, I saw no need for a larger caliber. Ive seen MUCHO meat wasted because someone was using a large caliber on those hill country deer and blew both shoulders out...not much on those front quarters anyways...then when you bloodshot em to hell and back...no thank you. I like the meat too much...

Don't shoot them in the meat!



Then why would you shoot one in the shoulder?

I have seen deer shot in exactly the same place with a 30-06 versus a 30-30 and it seems that the deer shot with the 06 run 100 yards where as the 30 deer get knocked down. Can it be that a through shot with the 06, most of the energy is wasted where as with the slower caliber more energy gets adsorbed by the animal?

I have shot a 300 win mag for years. I guess, I just feel like we ought to shoot as much gun as we are comfortable with.