Bullet design matters a lot in high velocity, small bore rifles. In a 50 caliber, I cast my own Minie balls. They plod along at 1400 fps from the muzzle and will kill BIG game, bigger than deer, past 100 yards. They're big, flat, don't need to expand, and punch a nice 50 caliber hole though and through. Blood loss is the primary method of killing with a bullet like that, sort of limited on energy, or at least energy transfer, but just as effective within their range of rainbow trajectory as your .30-06.
Don't mistake, though, a 385 grain bullet at 1400 fps is still packin' 1685 ft lbs, quite a bit less at 100 yards, but still, has some good energy. The killing power of the bullet, though, seems way out of proportion to its energy level, which is understandable when you look at the size of the bullet.
I'm kinda into the front loaders now days for hunting. I shot my first deer with my CVA Wolf this season and he was DRT, just as dead just as fast as if I'd hit him with my 7 mag. And, as they say, you can eat right up to the hole, very little meat loss. That's not the reason I'm into it, though, just got this sulfur running in my blood. I've been shooting BP for a long time, but the Wolf is the first rifle I've owned that I don't have to shoot to unload, makes it more convenient if I don't see anything.
I don't find there's a lack of good bullets for my high velocity rifles. I shoot a Sierra 150 in the big 7, alternately a Nosler Partition 160 grain. I shoot a Nolser BT 150 grain in the .308 and a Sierra 100 grain Game King in the .257 Roberts. All work well on deer and hogs and the 160 grain 7 is a good getter of bigger game. Where finding a suitable bullet for deer gets dicey is when you get small, 22 caliber, .223 particularly. Now days, there are controlled expansion bullets available and .22-250 has been quite popular for the recoil shy and new shooters in Texas for a long time, but I'm still a believer is more power for deer hunting. The AR craze is all the rage now days, but I find my hunting rifles still work best for me. I don't consider anything smaller than 6mm bore for medium game, personally. If you wanna hunt deer with your AR, knock yourself out. Limit your range to 100-150 yards due to the limited energies and even more limited bullet size and use a premium bullet. Trying to use military surplus from a .22 is just cruelty to animals.