The deer are a lot smaller than northern deer and for normal shooting distances it depends on where you hunt. In my area the average is probably 30 yards, other places it could be several hundred yards.Sharps Shooter said:I've never even been in North Carolina, much less seen the size of the deer you have there. Nor do I know anything about the normal shooting distances for deer there and the shooting capabilities of your father-in-law. I said I'll never believe shooting deer with a .22lr is ethical. However, that doesn't mean I would like to see legislation banning it.
As for legislating, I think we travel into dangerous waters when we start talking ethics, law and criminal offenses.
I believe from time to time we are all guilty of over analyzing any given topic and I often wonder how much social programing plays a role in our decisions. For example remember back in school when being hip meant you had to drive the fastest coolest muscle car and date the prettiest big breasted Barbie doll and hunt with the largest cannon the gun shop sold.
As you pointed out people just love to argue over the best caliber for deer and that’s find and well, it gives us something to talk about. However when all is said and done it boils down to one thing, what works.
Back on topic, so the old timer wants to hunt deer with a 9mm carbine lets see if we can help him.
"Comparative velocities of 9mm handgun ammunition in typical handguns versus a sample of 9mm carbines." http://www.aboutguns.net/reviews/9mmtests.html
Maybe someone can give a better reference site.Really quick disclaimer, right up front: this "test" is not science nor is it done really scientifically. It is an anecdotal collection of data. We just know someone is going to cut and paste from this article, go to another web site and post these "scientific test results" as true gospel. Sorry, in real science, you eliminate as many variables as possible and rigorously collect data by repeating the same methodology over and over again. This little collection of information suffers from small data sets, variances in methodology, and general lack of major corporate funding to do a 10,000 round test. We hope you enjoy and appreciate our work, but your tests with your ammo in your gun may be entirely different. Perhaps one day, we can spring the $ necessary to get 1,000 rounds of each type of ammo, and multiple examples of each test rifle. In the meantime, please enjoy our work as it is - unscientific, but fun and informative.